Fort Bend County is a county in Texas located in the greater Houston area with a population of approximately 859,000 residents. The county seat is Richmond, and its largest city is Sugar Land. Prostitution and sex trafficking are well-documented problems within the county. Among the more serious crimes associated with the commercial sex market is child sex trafficking. Sex trafficking has been such a substantial problem in the county that in 2013, county officials formed a human trafficking task force. Fort Bend County has been active in combatting the issue of sex trafficking and in the spring of 2019 county officials met with the FBI for a briefing on the rise in local cases of human trafficking. In April of 2019 the Fort Bend County Sheriff asked local officials to stay true to their word about fighting sex trafficking and prostitution, in addition to cautioning the community to be wary of suspicious activity related to the problem. In addition, the Fort Bend County District Attorney’s Office and its Human Trafficking Team have actively been working on statewide legislation, ordinances in our cities, and education and awareness symposiums locally to help caregivers and children protect themselves. In 2015-2016, fifteen teenagers taken into custody for being a runaway or for committing petty crimes were identified as trafficking victims in the county.

In effort to reduce the demand for commercial sex, law enforcement has deployed various demand reduction tactics that focus on apprehending sex buyers, such as street-level and web-based reverse sting operations. For example, in March 2015, law enforcement officials conducted a three-day sting called “Operation Spring Cleaning” in Fort Bend County. Collaborating agencies in the reverse sting were the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office and the Houston Metro Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Task Force agents made contact with the men by posing as children on online social media sites. Officials said the men then arranged a spot to meet, thinking they would be meeting a child for paid sexual abuse. Twelve men were arrested and charged with online solicitation of a minor and attempted sexual assault. Their names and ages were released publicly. In early 2016, a Fort Bend County jury sentenced a 45-year-old man to 40 years in prison following his conviction for human trafficking (he had coerced a woman into prostitution from which he profited). This was the first case of human trafficking prosecuted in the county. In October 2016, an Operation Cross Country enforcement action occurred in Fort Bend County. Led by the Fort Bend County District Attorney’s Office, the three-day operation attacked both the supply and demand of juvenile prostitution and child exploitation in the Greater Houston area, including Fort Bend County. Fort Bend police rescued four juveniles plus one adult, and nine suspects were arrested locally on charges ranging from prostitution and promotion of prostitution to attempted aggravated sexual assault of a child. One man showed up at a local motel with his one-year-old son after soliciting an undercover officer over the Internet, seeking to sexually assault an 8-year-old child. The man also wanted the officer to engage in sexual abuse of his 1-year-old son. After the suspect was arrested, the one-year old boy and his 6-year-old sibling were rescued from the man’s home. In December of 2020, Fort Bend County deputies arrested a man after a year-long  human trafficking investigation. Police say that victims were recruited and trafficked through social media and sex buyers could use online apps for payments. The sex trafficker was arrested on felony charges of compelling prostitution of a minor and promotion of prostitution with a $35,000 bond (respectively). Court records report the sex trafficker’s official charges as Promotion of Prostitution: Statute 43.03(b)- State Jail Felony and CT 1-Compelling Prostitution Under 18: Unclassified Felony. Typically Promotion of Prostitution is a Third-Degree Felony and Compelling Prostitution of a Minor is a First-Degree Felony. In February of 2021, multiple federal, state, and area law enforcement agencies conducted an undercover operation targeting sex trafficking in Fort Bend County. The three day operation, called Operation Cupid, resulted in the arrest of 30 individuals as well as the rescue of a child sex trafficking victim. Craig Priesmeyer, assistant district attorney for the Fort Bend County District Attorney’s Office said the operation was targeting the demand side of sex trafficking,

“Trafficking is a two-sided problem, supply and demand, and Operation Cupid was designed to try and eliminate the profitability of commercial sex by targeting those whose sole purpose to show up for an operation like this was to purchase sex.”

The investigation was led by the Human Trafficking Rescue Alliance with assistance from the Sugar Land Police Department, Houston Police Department, Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office, Missouri City Police Department, Department of Public Safety, Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, and the Department of Homeland Security.

In July of 2019, a Houston police officer was arrested on a prostitution charge in Fort Bend County during a reverse sting operation conducted by the Fort Bend County Constable’s Office Precinct and the Fort Bend County District Attorney’s Office, along with the Human Trafficking Rescue Alliance member law enforcement agencies. In September 2020, a multi-agency street-level reverse sting called ‘Operation Patriot’ was conducted in Missouri City over a four-day period and in Stafford over a two day period, resulting in the arrest of 46 sex buyers and the recovery of five victims of sex trafficking. Five people were arrested in Missouri City in connection with promotion of prostitution. Stafford authorities reported that 32 people who sought to buy sex were arrested in the span of 48 hours. In May 2021, several law enforcement agencies in Fort Bend County conducted an online sting targeting sex buyers. The operation resulted in the arrest of 17 sex buyers, whose photos were released to the public. The operation’s goal was to arrest sex buyers to reduce the demand for prostitution and sex trafficking in the county. Several agencies were involved in the operation, including the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office, Missouri City Police Department, Houston Police Department, Harris County Sheriff’s Office, Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, Fort Bend County District Attorney’s Office, Rosenberg Police Department, and the YMCA International Services. Fort Bend District Attorney Brian Middleton stated:

“Sex for money is not a new crime, but modern criminal justice efforts have revealed that many prostitutes are actually victims of sex traffickers. If I’ve said this once, I’ve said it a hundred times, and I will keep saying it until human trafficking is gone: we will be relentless in our pursuit of human traffickers, including those who create the demand for trafficking victims in this county.”

In October of 2021, local and county officials conducted a reverse sting operation in the Sugar Land area called, “Operation Trick or Treat.” As a result of the investigation, 26 male sex buyers were arrested and charged with soliciting prostitution. The identities and photos of arrested sex buyers were released by police to local media outlets. It is unclear whether the reverse sting operation was conducted at street-level or was web-based. However, according to Fort Bend County District Attorney Brian Middleton, the covert operation is a part of a longstanding trend of strategic operations that similarly target the demand for commercial sex in the county,

“We’re being very proactive. Sex buyers should be aware that any given day they’re being targeted. They should know that every day there’s an investigation in Fort Bend County, and it’s only a matter of time before you’re caught. By targeting the demand, we’re addressing the root of the problem. Victims who are being trafficked are not the problem. It’s the people who are paying for sex and victimizing these individuals that we’re out to get.”

The crime of sex buying, once a Class B misdemeanor, on September 1, 2021 became a state jail felony in Texas following the passage of House Bill 1540 and Senate Bill 1036 in the 87th legislative session. All 26 men were charged with the state jail felony offense of soliciting prostitution (sex buying).

The Fort Bend County District Attorney has specifically increased operations targeting sex buyers and sex traffickers since his election in 2018. According to the DA, the FBCDAO is focused on eliminating the demand for commercial sex in order to eradicate sex trafficking in Fort Bend County,

“They [sex buyers] create the demand for human trafficking and contribute to the pervasive problem the community faces from these crimes. We are focused on saving victims by following basic economics; removing the demand will reduce the supply.”

In July, 2022, a Fort Bend County grand jury returned indictments against 13 individuals for a variety of felony offenses, including two men for “solicitation of prostitution,” a state-jail felony.  Their identities were publicly disclosed.