Number on the wall: Tracing Trafficking Networks with Commercial Sex Ad Contact Details

• In Event: Topics in Network Criminology

Abstract

Commercial sex advertisements (CSA) are critical mechanisms linking traffickers and victims to potential clients. To facilitate communications, CSAs frequently list different contact methods; of which, the most prevalent communication modality is a telephone number, often associated with a burner mobile phone. Extracting unique CSAs from a large set of ads posted on the escort platform SkipTheGames, this study investigates the utility of tracing phone numbers to uncover suspected human trafficking circuits. Human trafficking circuits move victims among groups of actors based in different locations. Using phone numbers as a proxy for potential victims, we identify suspected trafficking circuits through changes in advertised service locations and incongruence with area codes. This paper presents preliminary findings and reviews methodological challenges to mapping networks and detecting communities when using large sets of web scraped data, within the context of training unsupervised and semi-supervised natural language processing models to detect suspected human trafficking circuits.

Authors

• Gisela Bichler, California State University, San Bernardino

• Stacy Bush, California State University, San Bernardino

• Stacie Petter, Wake Forest University

• Laurie Giddens, University of North Texas

• Pablo Rivas, Baylor University

• Tomas Cerny, University of Arizona