From the The Daily Beast (and I admit, I’m not sure why they had to toss in “red-state”; one of the guys was from California):
The FBI apparently decided to one up that old Stone Phillips’ show ‘To Catch a Predator’. They found a website where it purported that US citizens were trying to buy Asian sex slaves and posed as traffickers. They advertised an auction, and kept raising the stakes so only the most hardcore creeps would keep on. The targets were specifically told that the “products” were kidnapped, non-consenting and that the whole thing was illegal as hell. One offered to help the FBI with the “product” with drugs and hypnosis. They actually showed up at the fake auction site with cash in hand. After being arrested, the police executed search warrants at their houses and find…sex slave dungeons! Including beds with chains juuuust long enough to reach the bathroom; sound proofed rooms; blacked out windows; drugs from China, etc. The Arizona Register has pictures.
I keep wondering about the one who claimed to have been in the business for 12 years and described a retraining facility - how much was him just BS’ing and how much might have been true?
I also look at the excuses they mouthed, “I know deep in my heart that I would never ever hold someone against their will or try to force someone to do something through threat or force”…really? Do they really think anyone will buy that? I guess it would define whether they are straight up psychopaths or just sociopathic.
Of course, their defense is already squealing about “entrapment” but unless the authorities really don’t give someone a choice (commit this illegal act or bad things will happen to you!), I can’t see it. The short sentences (9 years and less) I guess are related to their plea deals but still. I think attempted slavery (that sounds so weird) should get more than that.
I don’t know if it’s entrapment, but I would say that it’s doubtful this sort of sting really helps public safety. Would any of those people ever have obtained a real slave? They’re basically imprisoning people for wanting to commit a crime. Does that help stop the people who actually commit crimes?
Well, the FBI didn’t invent the website they advertised their fake auction on, and as mentioned in the article, one claimed to have been doing it for years, and I think they clearly went beyond just “wanting to commit a crime” - they performed actions specifically directed for slavery - like selling a house specifically for two slaves and cash. I don’t think it’s really different than hiring a hit man that turns out to be law enforcement.
I think when most people think “entrapment”, they think an undercover cop at a club offering molly, or sex in a bathroom stall for cash, situations where a person who may not have been there to commit a crime, but agreed because the opportunity arose (perhaps they were depressed, had been fired, were drunk, or had gotten into a fight with an SO).
That’s not what was described in the OP. The buyers were there to commit a crime - not thinking about committing one, not committing one because the opportunity arose, they searched out and followed through with the crime. Even discounting their other crimes (drugs), they had clear intent, and attempted to commit grievous bodily harm to another person. That’s illegal.
ETA: Regarding the thread title, where can I get a legally obtained sex slave?
I view it as similar to when the FBI sells some wacko “jihadist” a bunch of fake rockets or bombs, and then busts him for that. It’s not that he wasn’t trying to commit a crime, and it’s not that he doesn’t deserve to be punished. But the likelihood that he would have eventually succeeded in doing anything if left to his own devices seems dubious, so it’s not clear whether they actually made us safer.
I vaguely remember in some thread someone mentioning something about the only legal slavery in the U.S. was in the prison system (actually looking up ‘legal sex slavery’ seems like a bad idea) and I have a fuzzy recollection from various movies that you can buy things in prisons with cigarettes, so maybe you can take a six pack of smokes to the big house? Details are not a strong point in this area for me.
I’m kind of surprised that no one showed up as a real life crusader, pretending to be a customer, and calling in the police to stop this mess. Or worse.
After the periodic fracas that erupts in the media when some scumdog is caught in possession of one or more sex slaves he’s been keeping in the basement, it surprises me not at all to see that someone’s gone into the business.
I tend to think his clientele should be dragged into the daylight and repeatedly shot, but it doesn’t SURPRISE me.
Really? My thought is that the overwhelming number of such dungeons never get used in any method that’s illegal. Nothing in the description sounds like it couldn’t be used for strictly consensual fantasy. Of course I dated someone that had been far more into things like that when younger. She’d actually been to legal slave auctions (all parties including the “slaves” fully consented.)
Credit to the FBI for apparently managing things well. They seemed to go out of the way to make clear that it wasn’t just fantasy while taking a long enough time that the contemptible asshats who showed up weren’t making a heat of the moment decision.
I’ve known a few who would have thought those dungeons were really cool including the sound deadening for privacy. It’s like Star Trek fans that learn Klingon. So go all in to be as realistic as possible …aside from the actual non-consenting human enslaved.
Not ammunition so much as a waste of resources. Those people could be re-purposed and recycled. Same with the Ceausescus. What a pity they were killed. They would have been perfect for a world tour, a kind of traveling circus exhibit, where people could buy peanuts to throw at them. A source of revenue for Romania, and a catered junket for the C’s They could shoot them later when revenues inevitably dropped.
They could shoot them later when revenues inevitably dropped.