Police moved in on Brooklyn’s open-air prostitution market — arresting 11 males and seizing 9 autos — following final week’s front-page Submit exposé on the brazen enterprise, authorities stated Friday.
The NYPD operation on Thursday night time focused males driving alongside the four-block industrial stretch in East New York in search of intercourse, law-enforcement sources stated.
“Brooklyn residents identified prostitution issues in East New York — and the NYPD acted,” the NYPD stated in an announcement on Twitter.
The sting mirrored “our efforts to cease those that purchase and promote intercourse on the market in NYC,” the division stated.
Ten males had been nabbed for allegedly patronizing an individual for prostitution, and one man was arrested for driving whereas underneath the affect, cops stated.
The operation concerned undercover feminine officers, in line with the sources.
The crackdown got here after The Submit reported on the closely trafficked “stroll,” the place a gentle stream of scantily clad ladies — lots of them doubtless trafficking victims underneath the thumb of close by pimps — have brazenly enticed motorists for months amid lax enforcement.
Present and former vice cops stated there had been little incentive to make arrests, with the workplace of Brooklyn District Lawyer Eric Gonzalez transferring away from prosecuting prostitution circumstances.
Intercourse-trafficking specialists have instructed The Submit that focusing on pimps and johns — not the ladies — is the surest strategy to undermine the business. However busts for pimps and johns, who drive the intercourse commerce, have additionally dropped considerably, information present.
When requested in regards to the Thursday’s sting, a DA spokesman stated the arrests had been for solicitation, “an offense our workplace by no means stopped prosecuting.”
The spokesman reiterated the workplace’s earlier assertion concerning its prosecution of prostitution circumstances.
“Because the begin of this 12 months our workplace declined to prosecute a grand complete of three prostitution-related arrests,” the assertion stated. “We have now a Intercourse Trafficking Unit that vigorously prosecutes pimps and traffickers whereas working with service suppliers to get help to victims of trafficking.”
“We stand prepared to interact with communities, advocates and the police to deal with any issues involving prostitution.”
