‘The world’s top online brothel’: Backpage website targeted over adult classified ads as CEO Carl Ferrer faces 10 years in jail
Authorities claim many of the ads include victims of sex trafficking, including children under the age of 18
State agents raided the Dallas headquarters of adult classified ad portal Backpage and arrested CEO Carl Ferrer on Thursday following allegations that adult and child sex-trafficking victims had been forced into prostitution through escort ads posted on the site.
Ferrer, 55, was arrested on a California warrant after arriving at Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Airport on a flight from Amsterdam.
“Making money off the backs of innocent human beings by allowing them to be exploited for modern-day slavery is not acceptable in Texas,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, said in a statement.
California Attorney General Kamala Harris said that Ferrer was arrested on felony charges of pimping a minor, pimping, and conspiracy to commit pimping. He is being held in lieu of US$500,000 bond and will face an extradition hearing before he can be returned to California.
Backpage and its executives purposefully and unlawfully designed Backpage to be the world’s top online brothel
“Raking in millions of dollars from the trafficking and exploitation of vulnerable victims is outrageous, despicable and illegal,” said Harris, a Democrat who is running for the US Senate in next month’s election. “Backpage and its executives purposefully and unlawfully designed Backpage to be the world’s top online brothel.”