Some of the prostitution-related effort of county and city law enforcement is directed toward attempting to deter consumer-level demand. Both street-level and web-based reverse stings have been conducted, and the identities of arrested sex buyers released to local media outlets.  For example,In February, 2012, a 51-year-old Mount Vernon man was arrested after attempting to contact a 16-year-old prostitute, that was actually an undercover detective. The Skagit County Sheriff’s Office engaged the man through Internet communication with an officer posing as a teenaged girl, and the undercover detective arranged to meet the man.  He was arrested at a gas station on Memorial Highway, and was booked into Skagit County for investigation of patronizing a juvenile prostitute.The Sheriff’s Office made two similar arrests in April 2011 using the same type of sting operation.

In 2013 police posted an ad with a photo of a 13-year-old girl on Backpage.com. More than 100 responses were received overnight from Anacortes, Mount Vernon, Burlington and Oak Harbor. Nearly all of them were overtly sexual messages from adult males. The photo was an old picture of an adult who grew up to be a law enforcement officer, and the ad was part of a sting set up by the Anacortes Police Department. Three people were arrested in the investigation. In 2014, eight more were arrested in a larger countywide online sex sting by the Skagit Multi Agency Response Team, known as SMART, that also focused on men seeking to buy sex with children.

In Setember, 2014, a Skagit County investigation into adults seeking minors on the Internet for sexual exploitation was conducted.  Six men were arrested and faced Skagit County charges including commercial sexual abuse of a minor, communication with a minor for immoral purposes, and third-degree attempted rape of a child.  Detectives received more than 140 solicitations in the first two weeks after posting the suggestive ads online, yet the majority of solicitors walked away when they learned the age of the persona.  Online conversations between the men and the undercover detective began and the six men agreed to meet either a 9 year old or 14-year-old girl in Mount Vernon, believing she would be willing to commit prostitution. Police were waiting and arrested the men who appeared to complete the transaction.  Police said that in every single case where a solicitor contacted one of our personas online, there was a clear demarcation point where that individual knew that they were communicating with either a 14-year-old or a 9-year-old.

In December, 2017 at least 19 men in Whatcom and Skagit counties were caught in a sting operation that targeted internet predators attempting to solicit sexual contact with minors. Operation “Net Nanny” was led by the Washington State Patrol’s Missing and Exploited Children Task Force. Most of the men were arrested on suspicion of attempted child rape and attempted communication with a minor for immoral purposes. During the operation, undercover agents posted Craigslist ads online advertising for meet ups of a sexual nature, according to Whatcom County Superior Court records. Once the men responded, the agents would either pose as young teenage children, or as parents offering up their young children for sexual contact – some as young as 6 years old.  Charges included second-degree child rape, communicating with a minor for immoral purposes, and prostituting/patronizing a minor.