Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
The FBI has arrested four American men after setting up a sting featuring a fake sex-slave auction in Arizona, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Agents set up the sting after the men expressed an interest in buying sex slaves through an online Malaysian slave trading organization that the FBI had been investigating.
Undercover agents set up a fictitious auction.
“We came to realize that there was a portion of the human-trafficking threat that we were underappreciating,” said George Steuer, supervisory special agent in the Phoenix FBI office. “We realized that there was this group of individuals in the U.S. who were interested in owning a human slave both for sexual exploitation and domestic labor.”
But defense lawyers say the FBI went too far.
“I thought I’d heard of everything until I got this case,” said George Klink, a Phoenix attorney who represents one of the men. “It’s an awful waste of resources.”
