The arrest of a high-class escort and seizure of $150,000 in assets is the latest bust in a Toronto Police crackdown on online sex and pimps who blatantly advertising underage hookers on craigslist and other websites.
Toronto vice cops said craigslist.org has become one of the top sites in the city for finding prostitutes, escorts, massage and other services geared to both sexes.
The postings are usually placed by pimps and contain the woman's sexual specialities, price list, hours of business and a scantily-clad photo of the prostitute, police said.
"Our main goal is to get the pimps and young girls off the streets," said Det.-Sgt. Howie Page, of 51 Division plainclothes unit.
"Our officers are going through the Internet and newspapers on a daily basis searching for illegal activity."
Page said the pimps communicate to johns by email and cell phones and sexual trysts are arranged for downtown hotel rooms.
He said sex worker Sabina Mitakina, 38, who advertised herself as "Natasha: An upscale escort," pleaded guilty Feb. 14 to keeping a common bawdy house and possession of proceeds of crime.
Page said Mitakina agreed to be deported to Russia and forfeit $150,000 to the Crown that included money she had spent on two condos, $70,000 in a bank account and $7,000 in cash.
"This woman was advertising her services on craigslist for some time," he said yesterday.
"There were calls from tenants about the amount of men going up to her apartment."
Page said Mitakina, who claimed to be a high-class European escort, was charging $250 an hour.
He said another woman, who was advertising on craigslist as a hooker, was last week evicted from her downtown apartment, after tenants complained about the amount of men going to her unit.
Dallas Police Sgt. Bryon Fassett, an expert in the field of Internet solicitation, said young girls are moved from city to city by pimps who peddle them on craigslist and other sites.
"The ads on some of these sites are blatant and there's no fear of reprisals," Fassett said from Dallas yesterday.
"Some of these pimps have two or three girls in different cities."
He said pimps travel with the girls, many who are runaways, and books their hotel, places the ads and photos on craigslist and then wait for the phone to ring.
"We are trying to make the Internet a horrible environment for these people," Fassett said.
Police said there are dozens of sex trade workers -- many underaged -- advertising their services on craigslist in the Toronto-area and it's hard for officers to investigate them all.
Toronto SUN
