North Saint Paul is a city of roughly 12,000 residents located in Ramsey County, Minnesota, situated northeast of the city of St. Paul. Sex trafficking has been documented in the city. For example, in 2011, a substitute teacher for a special-education school in North St. Paul was arrested and charged with soliciting an individual to practice prostitution and engaging in sex trafficking of an individual after taking photos of a student with developmental disabilities in lingerie, posting them online, and suggesting the student perform sex acts for money.

At least one sex trafficking sting has been conducted in the city to combat demand for commercial sex. In January 2018, seventeen men were arrested in North St. Paul in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl in an online sting that targeted men seeking sex with minors. The operation was conducted by the Minnesota Human Trafficking Investigators Task Force, Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, and North St. Paul Police Department. Men were arrested after responding to ads posted on Craigslist, Plenty of Fish, and Grindr by undercover agents posing as 14- and 15-year-old girls. After making arrangements to meet in person at a North St. Paul apartment to engage in sexual conduct, the men were arrested. Most were charged with engaging in electronic communication relating to or describing conduct with a child and three were also charged with solicitation of a child or someone believed to be a child through electronic means. The names, ages, and hometowns of those arrested were released to the press.