Cumberland is a city in Cumberland County, Maine, with a population of approximately 7,200, located in the southeastern region of the state, just north of Portland.  Cases of sex trafficking and other related crimes associated with commercial sex have been documented, including a 2014 case in which a woman was forced to be sold for sex in Cumberland and several other Maine counties, and fled when she learned her traffickers in Maine had been offered $30,000 by human traffickers in New York to buy her.

Police have attempted to address these and other crimes arising from the local and regional prostitution and sex trafficking markets by arresting sex buyers. For example, in early 2018 State Police arrested a man at the Cumberland service plaza along the Maine Turnpike. Troopers began their investigation earlier in the week after the man had approached a female worker at the plaza for sex.  He was arrested days later after he returned to the service plaza in his tractor trailer for a prearranged meeting with what he thought was going to be a teenage girl. Instead he was met by Troopers. He was charged with “patronizing prostitution with a minor” (i.e., child sex trafficking) and taken to the Cumberland County Jail.