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Last week, an Allentown vice detective responded to an online ad featuring two young, practically naked women.

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Through the ad, posted under the name “Bella,” the detective arranged a sexual encounter at a south Allentown motel for $300 for a half-hour. When a woman showed up at the March 28 sting, the detective promptly arrested her — his seventh bust in a month. A few days later, he made his eighth arrest in a similar online sting.

Those are just a few of the busts that local authorities say highlight a sudden surge in prostitution-related activity in the Lehigh Valley ― almost all attributed to a new website that has picked up where controversial site Backpage.com left off when it was shut down a year ago.

The site, Skip the Games, has been described by local police and prosecutors as a more graphic and “in-your-face” version of Backpage, which authorities say had fueled a surge in prostitution in the area since 2010.

After Backpage was shut down by federal authorities last April, the Lehigh Valley witnessed a noticeable decrease in prostitution arrests.

Allentown, where the majority of busts happen, reported a 39% decrease in arrests for prostitution and commercialized vice in 2018, a downward trend seen throughout Lehigh and Northampton counties, according to statistics on the state police’s uniform crime reporting system.

But as local authorities expected, the decrease didn’t last long.

“Initially when the government shut those websites down, we really didn’t do anything for a little while,” said Colonial Regional police Sgt. Michael Enstrom, who led a March 15 sting in Hanover Township, Northampton County. “Now people are getting more creative and bringing up other websites, and the more common one now is Skip the Games.”

Besides the eight Allentown arrests from Feb. 27 and Wednesday that began as online investigations on Skip the Games, police in Northampton County said an investigation on the website led to a prostitution sting at a Hanover Township hotel that netted eight arrests, including one man charged with promoting prostitution for posting ads, Enstrom said.

Skip the Games portrays itself as a sort of dating site, “the premier place online for consenting adults to find each other and have fun with each other,” according to its description online.

However, as its name might suggest and the slogan of “Skip the Games. Get Satisfaction,” the website is only about the sale of sex, Lehigh County Senior District Attorney Robert W. Schopf said.

Personal ads are posted to the site every day, showing mostly women, many of them posing provocatively while naked or scantily clad. Besides the photos, each ad provides a brief physical description, a list of sexual acts they consent to and contact information, while being careful not to mention money.

'It makes Backpage look more innocuous,' Schopf said. 'It's very pornographic, and in your face and a blatant advertisement in sex trafficking.'

Local authorities, like Enstrom, said Skip the Games is taking over the sex trafficking void left with the Backpage shutdown.

Last April, President Donald Trump signed a pair of laws — Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act and Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act — that added tougher penalties to web services that knowingly assist, facilitate and support prostitution or sex trafficking.

As a result of the law, Backpage and its affiliated websites were seized by federal authorities in April 2018, and the founders of the website and five others were indicted on federal charges of facilitating prostitution and using foreign banks to hide revenues.

Asked how its website is any different than Backpage, a representative with Skip the Games issued a statement saying, “like many companies, we unfortunately have to deal with people who misuse our networks/facilities to help commit illegal actions or do bad things.

“We are a small company, and even though we have no staff or facilities in the United States, we interact with and help U.S. law enforcement on a near daily basis.”

On the website, Skip the Games only provides an email for police to contact them.

While the Backpage shutdown initially slowed sex trafficking, Rick Dobrowolski, operations manager with the nonprofit advocacy group Valley Against Sex Trafficking, said it “has sadly not changed the nature of trafficking.”

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He said the shutdown served as an initial deterrent, but as expected, traffickers have found other websites to use.

“We have more work to do in addressing the demand for sex, including through law enforcement, if we are going to decrease trafficking in the Lehigh Valley,” Dobrowolski said. “Since our efforts in outreach to discover those who have been exploited have been able to increase due to supporters, we have uncovered even more layers to the trafficking that happens in the Lehigh Valley.

“In fact, a law enforcement official even stated that the shutting down of Backpage.com has made their job in discovering victims more difficult due to the plurality of technologies now being used.'

Over the years, police have had to adapt their methods for fighting prostitution. The days of conducting undercover stings on street corners all but ended about a decade ago when websites, like Craigslist and Backpage, took over the way prostitution was advertised.

Craigslist ended its adult section in 2010 and Backpage launched that same year, eventually expanding to 75 countries, in addition to hundreds of metro areas in the United States. At its peak, Allentown’s Backpage site would see more than 20 ads a day, prompting a number of sting operations in Allentown and joint operations by detectives in Northampton and Monroe counties.

As with anything, Schopf, the Lehigh County prosecutor, said law enforcement has had to evolve with the times, from targeting Craigslist to Backpage to sites like Skip the Games.

Earlier this year, Schopf and Julia Kocis, the director of Lehigh County’s Regional Intelligence and Investigation Center, attended a United Nations conference that focused on the use of computer tools in the fight against human trafficking. The county this year partnered with Lehigh University and two nonprofit groups, AEquitas and The Why, to develop an artificial intelligence application to identify potential human trafficking victims and perpetrators.

“It was a great opportunity where we were able to meet with some of the top minds from different countries and professions,” he said.

While prostitution arrests do appear to have dwindled with the crackdown on Backpage, Schopf said buying sex “is as available and as in-demand as it’s ever been.”

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Allentown began seeing a surge in arrests in late February, when a vice detective responded to an ad on Skip the Games, which showed three women dressed in underwear in provocative poses. The ad featured “a menu of sex acts the pictured females provide,” the detective wrote in a criminal complaint.

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After arranging sex for money, the detective arrested all three on Feb. 27, two at a south Allentown motel and the third at a gas station. The detective responded to another Skip the Games ad the next day and arrested an 18-year-old woman at an Airport Road motel.

Three more arrests were made by the detective in March, all at a south Allentown motel, and another this past Wednesday, all stemming from stings that began with a Skip the Games ad. In the most recent arrest, the detective found several uncapped needles in the woman’s motel room, he wrote in an affidavit.

Colonial Regional police partnered with departments in Bethlehem, Bethlehem Township, Nazareth and Palmer Township, along with Monroe County detectives, the FBI and the Lehigh Valley Crime Victims Council and the Valley Against Sex Trafficking, to conduct a March 15 sting that began by responding to ads on Skip the Games. Months earlier, the same departments teamed up on stings in Monroe County and Palmer Township, Enstrom said.

In the most recent sting, eight people were arrested, including one man who posted the ads for one of the women, Enstrom said.

“Unfortunately, these women and even young girls are being forced into doing this,” he said, which is why representatives from local advocacy groups assist during sting operations. “In all reality a lot of these women are being forced to do this. These guys are getting a hold of them and pumping them with drugs. They are getting them hooked on heroin and they are becoming slaves to heroin.

“We give [the advocacy groups] an opportunity to interview these women and offer them help and a way to get out of this.”

Source: Pennsylvania Uniform Crime Reporting System

Manuel Gamiz Jr. can be reached at 610-820-6595 or at mgamiz@mcall.com.