CITYXGUIDE SEIZED BY FEDERAL AGENCIES – FOUNDER ARRESTED.

Last night Dallas area officials shut down “CityXGuide”-a replacement for “Backpage.com“, which Texas officials were also instrumental in shutting down. The Indictment describes how the ads promoted on CityXGuide were directly connected to child sex trafficking in cities all over the United States. The man who purchased and promoted the replacement to Backpage is alleged to have made over $21 million off of the promotion of human trafficking.Collective Liberty Analysts have provided analytical support to to agencies arresting traffickers utilizing both websites to traffic children, as well as women and men who are victims of the sex trade.

To read more about the case and indictment, click through to Mercury News. Excerpt:

FREMONT — A Bay Area man is in federal custody and awaiting extradition to Texas, where he is set to face federal charges that allege he set up sex trafficking websites on an international scale, raking in $21 million in proceeds within a two-year span.

Wilhan Martono, 46, was arrested Wednesday in Fremont, and was being held Thursday in the Santa Rita Jail on a no-bail hold. In coming days, the U.S. Marshals are expected to move him to Dallas, Texas, where he is facing 28 federal counts.

The charges include conspiracy, promotion and facilitation of prostitution, racketeering, and more than a dozen money laundering charges. The indictment against Martono alleges that his sites included not only adult prostitution “services,” but ads featuring “numerous child trafficking victims,” including one who was identified as a 13-year-old girl who was rescued in Texas last November.

We have worked with, and trained many of the agencies involved in the closures of these websites. As we head to Dallas next week to present our 12th “Advanced Human Trafficking Investigator’s Course”, we are proud to host investigators from every Dallas – Fort Worth area law enforcement agency. We look forward to training with them, and continuing to work along side them in the effort to combat human trafficking.