San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón announced on Thursday the arrest of a man accused of pimping a 17-year-old girl.
According to the district attorney’s office, human trafficking is a growing problem in the city.
In April, Gascón said a team effort between his office’s crime strategies unit, the SFPD, and federal agents led to the arrest of 19-year-old Kriz Mike Nunez.
Nunez, a San Francisco resident, faces 27 felony counts of human trafficking and pimping of a minor.
Gascón said some of the evidence collected in the case may help investigators solve similar trafficking-related crimes.
“We really need the community, when they see instances like this,” Greg McEachern with SFPD said, “bring it to our attention.”
In February, an undercover San Francisco police officer responded to an advertisement on Backpage.com which is a website frequented by human traffickers.
The young girl in the ad turned out to be 17 years old.
The officer received a reply setting up a date at a downtown San Francisco hotel, asking for a donation—often code for a sex payment.
In 2015, the district attorney’s office prosecuted more than 500 human trafficking cases.
Gascón said his department is severely underfunded to fight the problem. He asked the mayor’s office for $1 million that he hopes the board of supervisors will include in the next fiscal year budget.
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