The city of Fairfax is located in northern Virginia, in Fairfax County, and has a population of around 24,000. Prostitution and child sex trafficking are well-documented problems in the city and throughout Fairfax County. Gang-related prostitution and sex trafficking rings have emerged as serious  problems, and have included the assault of both prostituted persons and sex buyers, and the murder of a 17 year old trafficked girl. Reverse stings were first conducted there in 1991. Route 1 has been identified as a main problem area for prostitution, and was the setting for a series of reverse sting operations that resulted in the arrest of 36 sex buyers in 1991. A similar operation occurred in 1996. In response to citizen complaints, police cracked down on Route 1 prostitution and made 77 arrests. In early 2012, an underage prostitution ring was uncovered in the Fairfax County area of Virginia. Five men from two area street gangs (Underground Gangster Crips and MS-13) were arrested on sex trafficking charges for operating a prostitution ring consisting of local teenage girls. The men in charge were using social media sites to recruit girls, using fake Facebook profiles. They also went to area malls, and had other girls who were already working for them serve as “recruiters” of girls from their high schools. Once recruited, the gang members used drugs and violence to keep the girls working for them. The ring was uncovered after the mother of one of the girls, who suspected her daughter was involved in prostitution, coaxed her daughter to confess, and then filed a complaint with the local police. This is just one example of gang-related prostitution in Fairfax County, but as of 2013 this was a growing problem in the area reportedly. The MS-13 gang in particular had a reputation for sex trafficking teenage girls in the area. In 2020, 11 alleged members of the MS-13 gang were charged with sex trafficking of a 13-year-old girl who had run away from home. The gang members repeatedly beat her with a baseball bat and forced her into prostitution.

More recent activity finds the problems persist, as do police efforts to address them. For example, in May 2017 the Fairfax County Police Department’s Child Exploitation Unit teamed up with investigators from Loudoun County and the FBI for a three-day reverse sting operation focusing on child predators. Detectives posing as juveniles went online and within a very short period of time received solicitations and sexually explicit images from men wanting to meet the “child” for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity. Investigators did not want to reveal specifics about their tactics, but generally, police use chat rooms, social media sites and other websites to find child predators. The photos and identifiers for the arrested men were publicly released. Detectives with the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office and Special Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation assisted in the arrests. Approximately 25 local and federal criminal charges were placed, including, solicitation of a minor, solicitation of a minor for prostitution, attempted indecent liberties with a minor (including a registered sex offender), and drug possession charges.