Commerce City is a home rule municipality in Colorado and has a population of approximately 62,400 residents. It is located in Adams County, CO and is a northern suburb of Denver, CO. Adams County begins near downtown Denver and stretches east, containing a part of the major “strip” or “track” for street prostitution (“the Colfax corridor”). This activity and its ancillary crimes has generated complaints to local law enforcement agencies from residents and businesses. In addition, it has resulted in targeted violence against prostituted people and sex trafficking victims. Among the more serious issues associated with the area’s commercial sex market is child sex trafficking.

To combat prostitution and sex trafficking in the area, local law enforcement agencies have targeted consumer-level demand for commercial sex, which provides the revenue stream driving all commercial sex and trafficking. Among their attempts to contain the commercial sex market, the Commerce City Police Department and the Adams County Sheriff’s Office have conducted street-level reverse stings and publicized the identities of arrestees. Street-level operations typically utilize one or more undercover female officers, who pose as decoys. One such sting, conducted in 2007, resulted in the arrest of 26 male sex buyers in a single evening. The identities and images of arrested sex buyers were released to the public.

More recently, web-based reverse stings have been conducted. For example, in December 2012, twelve people were arrested in a Front Range sex trafficking ring that involved minors whose services were advertised on an Internet classified ad site. Four of those arrested are accused of paying to sexually exploit underage girls, while three others were charged for offering juvenile girls for commercial sex on a community classified advertisement site in addition, arrestees were self-described members of the Crips gang. The girls were taken into custody and received treatment at undisclosed locations. Investigators found the sex trafficking ring operated in Denver, Aurora, Commerce City, Lakewood, Parker and Colorado Springs. The FBI led Rocky Mountain Safe Streets Task Force’s Innocence Lost Task Force investigated the case. Member agencies include Denver and Aurora police departments, and the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office.

In January 2016, an undercover operation lasting two days resulted in the arrests of 10 child predators on charges of attempted trafficking of a minor for sexual servitude, attempted solicitation of a child for prostitution, and attempted sexual assault on a child. The photos, names, dates of birth, and charges for each suspect were included in news releases. The cases were prosecuted by the Adams County District Attorney’s Office. Three of the men arrested were in the country illegally from Mexico which means they will face deportation proceedings after their cases move through the court system. This operation was conducted under HSI’s Operation Predator, an international initiative to protect children from sexual predators. It was led by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, and was was assisted by detectives from the Adams County Sheriff’s Office, the Commerce City Police Department and the Colorado State Patrol. In November 2016, the CCPD participated in the FBI’s annual child sex trafficking, “Operation Cross County X.” As a result of the investigation, 8 male sex buyers were arrested in Commerce City alone.

Sex buyers have also been arrested as a result of investigations of allegations against real victims, rather than through the use of police decoys. For example, in 2020, a 27-year-old Nevada man was sentenced to 20 years in prison for human trafficking charges that involved two 14-year-old girls. According to reports, the offender had allegedly recruited two 14-year-old girls in Las Vegas, NV, and transported them to Colorado for the purpose of sex trafficking in October 2019. The offender was also accused of assaulting the two girls while in Las Vegas. Commerce City police first initiated the case when the teenage girls were questioned in regards to a shop-lifting report at Travel America at 5101 Quebec St. The FBI Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force was also involved in the case’s investigation. He was found guilty by an Adams County District Court jury in December 2019, and sentenced to 20 years in prison in February 2020 on multiple felony charges including human trafficking minor for sexual servitude, pimping of a child, procurement of a child, soliciting child prostitution, and contributing to delinquency of a minor.