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glamphotographer

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POLICE: Hamad Andwar and Tiffany Harvey face human trafficking-related charges

London police lay human trafficking charges, shut down Fantasy World Escorts
By Jennifer O'Brien, Kate Dubinski, The London Free Press

Tuesday, November 10, 2015 10:12:38 EST PM

http://www.lfpress.com/2015/11/10/l...cking-charges-shut-down-fantasy-world-escorts

Instead of lingerie-clad women in suggestive poses, some would-be customers of a city escort agency who looking for services online found themselves facing a message from London police Tuesday.

“The www.fworld.ca domain has been closed,” said the message posted on a black screen that had once been the online home of London-based Fantasy World Escorts. “The London Police Service continues to investigate.”

And in case it isn’t perfectly clear what police think of the agency, the next line spells it out:

“Victims of human trafficking are encouraged to contact the hotline at 519-660-5842 for support."

Police said soon that message will face anybody who types up the agency's address, but as of Tuesday night, some people could still see the original website.

Police said Tuesday they shut down the agency and charged its owners with several human trafficking-related offences after a seven month investigation triggered by complaints from the public. So far they’ve identified two victims, and say there are more.

“The investigation flowed from a number of complaints we received from the public. There were concerns about illegal advertising and human trafficking occurring,” said Det. Sgt. Bill Berg, head of London’s organized crime section.

So far, investigators have identified two adult women and are providing them with support services that include connecting them with agencies, he said.

Berg said police believe there may be more women involved and have set up the hotline for others to call.

At least nine women were being advertised through the escort agency before it was shut down and Berg said police believe between 20 and 30 have been involved at some point.

“Some might get in and be willing participants, but later they might feel oppressed and intimidated. There are elements of intimidation . . . identified through this investigation,” he said.

More than $100,000 in cash, two vehicles, pepper spray and a Taser were seized during Fantasy World searches on Saturday, said police, declining to speculate on whether or how the weapons had been used.

Berg said police conducted nine searches Saturday, including at the main business office of the agency as well as two locations where “meetings” took place.

Among the charges issued against the suspects are three counts of “advertising another person’s sexual services” — the first to be laid in Canada under the country’s new and controversial prostitution laws. The new laws criminalize advertising and purchasing sex, but decriminalize its sale.

In a news release Tuesday, the London Abused Women’s Centre praised the move to shut down the agency and to lay the charges.

“The exploitation of women and girls in prostitution and sex trafficking is life-threatening,” the centre said in a release.

“It is a human right for women and girls to live free of exploitation in prostitution. (We) applaud the actions of London Police Services in helping women and girls live their lives free from violence.”

Some sex workers and their advocates have condemned the anti-advertising laws, saying it takes away women’s ability to advertise their services and check out possible clients in advance.

Though sex workers can’t be charged for advertising their services, Internet platforms, newspapers and other print publications can be charged.

The advertising offence carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison on conviction.

The Free Press wrote about Fantasy World Escorts in 2011. Back then, the agency was located in a three-storey mansion on Commissioners Road East. It provided both in-house and out call services, charging as much as $360 an hour, a Free Press investigation found.

Months later, the owner of the Commissioners Road property, who said he was unaware it was being used as an escort agency, evicted the tenants.

“Because of the Free Press article last time, they went underground (and) it was much more quiet,” Berg said. Police wouldn’t say where the agency was operating before it was shut it down this week.

Hamad Anwar, 26, and Tiffany Harvey, 24, are charged with three counts each of benefiting from sexual services, possessing proceeds of crime, three counts each of advertising another person for sexual services, two counts of trafficking, two counts of procuring or exercising control and one count of trafficking a person over 18.

kate.dubinski@sunmedia.ca

jennifer.obrien@sunmedia.ca

--- --- ---

About Fantasy World Escorts

The website fworld.ca has been shut down, but The Free Press has looked at a cached version of the page that was available until this weekend:

  • There were nine featured women in the “Escort Gallery.”
  • Site had a discussion forum and a “must read” “Ethics” page.
  • Free VIP sign-up was available, as were weekly discounts, a “rare pictures” and “detailed reviews” page.
  • Here is how the site described itself: “Fantasy World of London was established in 2008 and quickly gained respect and praise for being a world class agency that caters to gentlemen who appreciates (sic) class. We are pleased to accommodate all our client’s (sic) desires and requests to the best of our capacity.”
  • Clients were told the agency was “extremely selective”. “All of our models go through an intensive process consisting of being interviewed to determine if they qualify and meet the standards. Soon afterwards, they must have a full medical examination done.”
  • The agency described its workers as “beautiful, sophisticated and enticing females lying in wait for gentlemen in need of ... both intimate and social engagements.”
Do Not click on the fworld.ca link it records your IP address.
 

wilbur

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Yes because police is recording IP addresses. Don't click on the link.
IP addresses are always recorded on a the web site server. It's a public site and the police can't do anything with it. It would be a complete waste of their time. It's not illegal to visit such sites if they don't contain stuff like child porn.
 

AK-47

Armed to the tits
Mar 6, 2009
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In the 6
Good!!! Fry his ass!!
 

wilbur

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NIAGARA

Red Sand Project draws attention to human trafficking victims

‘This is a business, and it’s real’: Advocate

Niagara This Week - Niagara Falls
By Paul Forsyth

http://www.niagarathisweek.com/news...draws-attention-to-human-trafficking-victims/



The tales are horrific: girls as young as 13 forced to become sexual slaves for ‘clients,’ beaten so badly they swallow their teeth and terrorized into cowering submission by their predatory keepers growing fat off the girls’ earnings.

The money traffickers can make is astounding: a single girl enslaved can earn her keeper $280,000 a year, said Handy, whose agency serves as a place where police and child welfare officials can interview child victims of sexual and physical abuse in a non-threatening setting.

After a recent Toronto Star series revealed that detectives and social workers estimate the number of girls being trafficked in the thousands and that the girls are often locked in hotel rooms by their pimps and forced to have sex for money as many as 15 times a day, an Ontario legislative committee report called for a police task force to target traffickers.
$280,000 a year, or $767 a day, assuming it is possible to work that often, considering that they are apparently moved frequently between hotels. Pretty good for a person with her teeth knocked out. Where do they find all those clients who don't care how their supposed service providers look like?

We hear of these estimates of thousands being locked up in hotel rooms and forced 15 times a day to have sex against their will.

Me smells a bit of exaggeration... or conflation.

If there were thousands out there locked up in hotel rooms, how come the police have been so unsuccessful in finding them? There was a coordinated police raid on suspected prostitutes based on ads posted on various media. The operation lasted a full month, but managed to rescue only a handful of under-aged persons throughout Canada. All they found were mature women who told them to get lost., that they didn't need rescuing.
 

wilbur

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In the same vein, this reminds me of an admission recently made by Anie Samson, the City Councillor in Montreal who's in charge of defining the City's policy regarding all the massage parlours. Remember that Mayor Coderre had sworn he would close them all down, when he took office in 2013.

Anie Samson admitted that what they (the City of Montreal) believed at first was all wrong. They were convinced that most of the women working in the parlours were doing so against their will. They found out that by and large it wasn't the case. They also believed that there were lots of minors working in the parlours; again, by and large, not the case.

More about it here (in French): http://ici.radio-canada.ca/regions/...e-sevir-administration-coderre-rosemont.shtml
The figure of 90% in the radio-canada article, about the proportion of the workers who were there voluntarily, corroborates the findings of Madame Justice Himel of the Ontario Superior Court, in her judgement in favour of Bedford, that subsequently went up to the Supreme Court, invalidating certain prostitution laws in the Criminal Code.

The article in the Niagarathisweek reeks of conflation and exaggeration just reading it, as much of its assertions are nonsense: that a person with knocked out teeth can actually rack up annual revenues of $280,000. Just another naive journalist who was born yesterday.

Judge Himel swiftly threw out testimony by various radical feminist activists posing as scholars, that contained hearsay, innuendo and opinion rather than actual facts. It goes on all the time.
 

wilbur

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"The average age when most girls are trafficked into prostitution is 14"

I can imagine that many girls who are 16-17 years old are lured into the industry and trafficked. So if the age of 14 is an average, that means that an equal number of 11 year old girls are being trafficked as 17 year olds.

Conflation Alert!
 

scubadoo

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we can only hope that they address these laws in a decent manner and eliminate that outcalls are criminal!
 

canada-man

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WINNIPEG—A Winnipeg man has been convicted of running an escort agency in which young girls were given drugs and alcohol and sold for sex.
Darrell Ackman, who called himself “MrJetz TV” on YouTube, had pleaded not guilty to 14 charges that included counts of living off the avails of prostitution and sexual assault.
Jurors in Ackman’s trial, that began earlier this year, returned Tuesday night with a guilty verdict on all charges.
Court heard police started investigating the 46-year-old in the summer of 2012 after spotting many of his self-promotional videos on YouTube, along with some online ads.
He was arrested when he offered the sexual services of two teenage girls to an officer who was part of an undercover police operation.
Ackman made a brief foray into provincial politics when he ran as an independent candidate in the September 2012 byelection in the Fort Whyte constituency, but he garnered just 18 votes.
Seven alleged victims came forward, with the youngest just 14 at the time. The oldest was 22. Court was told two of the teens have died since Ackman was arrested in 2012.
Their testimony was presented in the form of videotaped interviews with police conducted prior to their deaths.

A key question for jurors was whether they believed Ackman knew some of the girls were underage, or whether he took steps to verify their ages. Ackman claimed he was the true victim of a malicious campaign against him by police and justice officials.
A search warrant executed at his home following his arrest led to the seizure of computer and phone equipment, from which several explicit sexual videos were seized.
Some of them depicted the alleged victims in explicit sexual acts with Ackman and were played for jurors during the trial.
Jurors heard final arguments last week and began weighing the evidence Tuesday afternoon.
Ackman acted as his own lawyer during his trial. Sentencing has not yet taken place.
Winnipeg Free Press

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/...-prostitution-ring-involving-young-teens.html
 

HaywoodJabloemy

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Apr 3, 2002
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Never the safest place
10 men arrested in Winnipeg prostitution investigation

Posted: 03/15/2016 4:38 PM

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/lo...peg-prostitution-investigation-372158251.html
... arrests of 10 men accused of obtaining sexual services ...
The women were all adults and weren’t being exploited, investigators determined after talking to them on the street, in hotels and in "body rub" parlours ...
Well, so much for the notion that police would not waste their time using the new law to go after customers of indoor sex businesses where there was nothing else wrong.
 

canada-man

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Well, so much for the notion that police would not waste their time using the new law to go after customers of indoor sex businesses where there was nothing else wrong.
different areas will enforce c-36 differently
 

wpgguy

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wilbur

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Actually, LE across the country has talked for a while to indoor sex workers as part of the various iterations of the Northern Spotlight operation, to determine if they were working voluntarily. An overwhelming majority have answered "yes" thus far.
I have a more sinister take on this: They systematically photographed these sex workers and identified them. You can rest assured that they are now in the police database. They can now be staked out and, since they admitted to being sex workers, anybody exiting those premises can now be arrested on suspicion of paying for sex: why else would a man visit a 'known prostitute'? Reasonable suspicion is enough for arrest. You can keep your mouth shut, but the sex-worker could be coerced into giving evidence in exchange for not being arrested, [humiliated] and booked.

Despite popular notion, sex workers can still be arrested and booked at the cop shop for offenses against prostitution laws. C-36 only says that they are immune from prosecution, i.e. taken to court, but it doesnt' say that they can't be charged. It has always been the prerogative of the Crown to prosecute or not; but the Crown does not decide who gets arrested or not.

IMO, an arrest without the prospect of a prosecution would not stand judicial scrutiny. However, it hasn't been tested yet, and there may be more zealous police forces out there that would actually do this, under pressure from politicians with a moralistic bent.
 

wilbur

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This is exactly what they do in Sweden, this video shows swedish cops waiting outside the apartment of a sex worker and arrest a man exiting her place
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OofRzb5gDBE
Yes, seen it. Despicable. The goal of these laws is to 'protect' women from exploitation and preserve their virtue, despite doing this of their own free will. But it's not so much for protecting them than to enforce morality on clients and grabbing fines. So they find out where a sex-worker is conducting business and they just wait for clients; they nail them AFTER they have conducted business. Then they might see her, but more than likely, wait for the next customer. So they're not too interested in preventing their 'exploitation'. They're just using them as bait. Then she finds out that her business has been destroyed and has no other means of revenue, at least from a safe place. Might have to go on the streets.... good job cops (with a whole lot of sarcasm). You don't really care about the welfare of sex-workers; just getting more fines for enforcing morality.
 

shakenbake

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Yes, seen it. Despicable. The goal of these laws is to 'protect' women from exploitation and preserve their virtue, despite doing this of their own free will. But it's not so much for protecting them than to enforce morality on clients and grabbing fines. So they find out where a sex-worker is conducting business and they just wait for clients; they nail them AFTER they have conducted business. Then they might see her, but more than likely, wait for the next customer. So they're not too interested in preventing their 'exploitation'. They're just using them as bait. Then she finds out that her business has been destroyed and has no other means of revenue, at least from a safe place. Might have to go on the streets.... good job cops (with a whole lot of sarcasm). You don't really care about the welfare of sex-workers; just getting more fines for enforcing morality.
It seems that the police are exploiting the prostitute in this case, but not sexually.
 

wilbur

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It seems that the police are exploiting the prostitute in this case, but not sexually.
Actually, they are exploiting the prostitute sexually when sex is used to lure customers so they can then arrest them. It's one step ahead of a lady cop posing as a prostitute. They would never lat a lady cop posing as a prostitute to have sex in order to catch a client, but they will let a prostitute have sex with a client in order to catch him after the fact. Only that the police will not pay the prostitute for the service.

In Sweden, if she's then found to be a foreigner, they will deport her. If she's Swedish, they could charge her with keeping a bawdy house, or living off the avails and if her place of business is her residence, will advise her landlord to kick her out, or else charge him with living off the avails. But Swedish law does not allow police to charge her for selling sex.... only anything else under the sun. Bunch of liars and hypocrites.
 
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