Holden is a town of about 17,000 residents in central Massachusetts, near Worcester. In March 2010, a sex buyer was arrested for soliciting a prostituted woman. He had placed an ad on Craigslist seeking a prostitute; undercover officers from the Holden Police Department responded. Details of the operation, as well as the man’s identification information was released to the media. In 2012 a more traditional web-based sting was conducted, when police initiated operations and placed a decoy ad online.  That operation resulted in the arrest of another sex buyer, whose identity was also publicized.  In February 2018, a web-based reverse sting resulted in the arrest of four sex buyers.