Posted by Kyle S. Reyes | Feb 3, 2019

Another day, another sex trafficking bust in the beautiful state of Connecticut.

Hiran Sanchez, a 21-year-old from Hartford also known as “Ivan” and “Pablo” pleaded guilty last week in Hartford federal court to one count of sex trafficking a minor.

From the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Connecticut, and according to court documents and statements made in court, Sanchez recruited two minor victims to engage in commercial sex acts.

Sanchez trafficked the first victim, who was 15 at the time, in the summer of 2016, and the second victim, who was 16, in April and May 2017.

Sanchez advertised both of the victims’ prostitution services on Backpage.com. Then he brought the victims to Hartford-area hotels to meet with clients who paid them for sex. The victims handed over all of the money they earned to Sanchez.

Sanchez has been in jail since his arrest on January 22, 2018.

There’s a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment of 10 years and a maximum term of imprisonment of life for the charge of sex trafficking a minor. Sanchez is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Alvin W. Thompson on May 8, 2019.

The bust was made after an investigation by the Connecticut State Police and Hartford Police Department, through the Connecticut Human Trafficking Task Force, and with the assistance of Homeland Security Investigations. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Sarala V. Nagala and Nancy V. Gifford.

Ironically, the day Sanchez plead guilty to the charges was the day the old offices from Backpage.com were turned into the new home of DeliverFund, a 501c3 that trains, equips and advises law enforcement to combat human trafficking.

In this picture, DeliverFund co-founder and Senior VP Jeremy Mahugh, Director of Operations Michael Fullilove, and Founder and Executive Director Nic McKinley survey the new location in Dallas, and are in the process of planning the layout of their new headquarters to counter human trafficking.

For years, Backpage was a haven for sex traffickers selling underage girls. But on April 6, the federal government raided its offices and indicted several of its executives on charges of laundering money and running an online brothel.

Backpage.com was found guilty of not just hosting ads for trafficked women, but actually coaching traffickers on how to creatively re-word the ads in order to keep law enforcement from picking up their trail.

more...it's worth the read.

https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/sex-trafficker-ct-guilty/