Colombian Officials Bust Underage Prostitution Ring With Help of Filmmakers
Colombian officials rescued 55 sex-trafficking victims and announced the arrest of 11 suspects in three cities Tuesday.
Colombia worked alongside U.S. law enforcement to break up the ring that was operating in Armenia, Cartagena and Medellin, the Associated Press reported.
Officials say the sting operation has broken up the sex-trafficking ring, which forced underage boys and girls - some as young as 11 years old - into prostitution, according to the Associated Press.
On suspect has also been arrested in the U.S., for traveling to Medellin to have sex and film himself with underage prostitutes.
The prosecutor's office told AP some of the victims were drugged with ecstasy and cocaine.
One 11-year-old girl told the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency she was sold for $1,000 because she was a virgin.
The ring operated out of clandestine sites and massage parlors, and relied on taxi drivers to bring in foreign clients looking for underage sex, prosecutors told AP.
Two U.S. nonprofit groups dedicated to stopping sexual exploitation of children, Breaking Chains and Underground Railroad, also assisted with the case.
Tim Ballard, the founder of Underground Railroad, was part of a sting operation that caught an alleged sex trafficker named Marcus Bronschidle on video bartering over the price of sex with young girls, The Blaze reported.
Ballard, a former CIA agent and former U.S.Homeland Security investigator specializing in child sex trafficking cases, told The Blaze his dedication sparked from his time working for the U.S. government and being unable to help the children who were not U.S. cases.
A group of filmmakers, led by Chet Thomas and Darrin Fletcher, were also involved by laying out a plan that caught the sex-trafficking suspects on tape, ABC reported.
They created a "bachelor party" and had hidden cameras to gather evidence for authorities.
Ballards team set up a house to look like a teenager's birthday party, so that traffickers would not seem odd bringing young girls into the house, and waited to catch traffickers exchanging money on the undercover cameras.
Colombian authorities quietly hid, waiting for Ballard's signal to bust the party.
All the victims are with Colombia's child protection agency, and the Colombian suspects face five to 20 years imprisonment if convicted.
There was no information about what will happen to the U.S. suspect.
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