Police Arrest Backpage CEO For Facilitating Sex Trafficking
Carl Ferrer, chief executive officerof Backpage, a classified advertising website that accepts bitcoin and has been linked to facilitating sex trafficking, has been arrested on pimping charges, according to Reuters. Texas and California attorneys general said Ferrer was taken into custody in Houston, Texas on a California warrant. Backpage is the second largest classified advertising site in the U.S. after Craigslist. U.S. senators have questioned the site over sex trafficking allegations. Civil lawsuits have also charged the site with sex trafficking, including involving children. Ferrer....
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Texas police arrested Backpage.com CEO Carl Ferrer on Thursday and will move to shut down the site. The classified ad site is accused of human trafficking through its adult services section, which reportedly makes 90 per cent of its revenues. The arrest was a joint operation between the Texas and California attorneys-general offices. This case does not accuse anyone of providing or paying for adult services with bitcoin. However, digital currency was a popular payment method for site advertisers who could not use mainstream payment channels. Bitcoin brokerage Paxful produced this video,....
Classified ads site Backpage.com has filed a lawsuit against the County Sheriff who led a successful campaign to have Visa and MasterCard cut its payment processing. Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart’s complaint resulted in Backpage having to use cryptocurrency as an exclusive payment method for ads in its adult section. Dart had alleged that the ads promoted and encouraged sexual trafficking, something which Backpage had struggled to counter in recent years, Talking Points Memo reports. Now, a suit filed Tuesday against Dart alleges he “achieved his purpose through false accusations,....
Backpage.com CEO Carl Ferrer was arrested in Houston on Thursday in relation to an outstanding California warrant for multiple charges including prostitution, according to Reuters. The website has been the focus of a three-year investigation in the state of California regarding its online advertising of sexual services, and accusations of child trafficking for the purposes of sexual abuse. The two states say they have evidence of forced prostitution. A joint investigation by the offices of the Texas and California attorneys general uncovered evidence that adult and child sex trafficking....
The California judge hearing the Backpage case will allow both sides more time to gather evidence before tossing out pimping charges against the international website’s operators, which is perhaps best most known for its escort services and once accepted crypto-currency. Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Michael Bowman’s tentative ruling says California Attorney General Kamala Harris, who called Backpage.com “the world’s top online brothel,” cannot prosecute Backpage.com’s CEO and its former owners. The judge required more briefings from the parties before completely dismissing the....
TechCrunch creates a new blockchain series, Backpage.com’s CEO is arrested, and Antshares raises a lot of money. Want to catch up on your latest digital currency and tech news? Check out the stories below. TECHCRUNCH. The news publication will release a six-episode series called “Trust Disrupted.” The topic: cryptocurrencies and the blockchain. TechCrunch seems to believe that Bitcoin and related digital currencies are among the hottest inventions of the last ten years, and the series is aiming to educate the general public about their uses. The series will feature New York Times reporter....