Super Bowl Sex Trafficking Sting Focused on Buyers

Authorities say a law enforcement sting timed to coincide with the Super Bowl resulted in more than 350 arrests of men seeking to hire prostitutes and more than a dozen sex traffickers.

They say the crackdown stretched from Jan. 23 through Sunday, resulting in 373 arrests. A spokesman for the Cook County Sheriff's Office in Illinois said the operation involved 27 agencies in 15 states that tried to curb the demand for prostitution.

The spokesman, Benjamin Breit, says the arrests included the Los Angeles Police Department bringing charges against a pimp who drove from Arizona to Los Angeles to collect what he thought was a new recruit. He says the St. Paul, Minn., police arrested a person who had held two 18-year-old girls against their will.

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