Hobbs is a city of about 40,000 residents situated in Southeast New Mexico, near the Texas border closest to Midland, TX and Odessa, TX. The city is located in Lea County, NM. Prostitution and sex trafficking activity has been well-documented in the city and surrounding areas for decades. Historical reports of prostitution activity date back to the 1940s. This activity and its ancillary crimes have resulted in complaints to local law enforcement from residents and businesses. Among the more serious issues associated with the local commercial sex market have been child sex trafficking, child endangerment, and the targeted homicide of prostituted women. For example, in 2010, the Hobbs Police Department was investigating the murder of a prostituted woman from Lubbock, TX, whose body was found in a Hobbs field. The investigation revealed that she had been visiting her boyfriend’s family in Hobbs when she was murdered.

In effort to address the consumer-level demand driving the commercial sex market, multiple web-based reverse sting operations have been conducted in the city. For example, in 2013, five male sex buyers were arrested during an undercover operation by the Hobbs Police Department. According to court documents, two undercover female officers posed as decoy prostituted women and recorded interactions with men who attempted to solicit the undercover officers for sex acts. In 2018, four men were arrested after answering a decoy Craigslist ad placed by the Hobbs Police Department. The potential sex buyers had agreed to meet at a local hotel, where they were arrested by a undercover officers upon arriving to the predetermined hotel room. The men were taken to Hobbs City Jail, and they posted bail and later faced charges in the city court. In both operations, the sex buyers’ identities and ages were publicly released.