Ontario is a city of approximately 178,000 residents, located in southwest San Bernardino County near Fontana and Pomona, California. The Ontario Police Department has conducted reverse stings in the area, including ones at a major motel chain on North Vineyard Avenue and a truck stop near Interstates 10 and 15, a crossroads for overnight truckers. The truck stop has generated complaints to police about prostitution. In a six-hour span on August 9, 2010, police arrested a dozen male sex buyers at the unnamed motel.

In October 2018, ten men were arrested during a web-based reverse sting at an Ontario hotel. The operation used undercover officers posing as prostituted women through online advertisements. The officers were contacted and solicited by the men, who were arrested when they arrived at the location in the 3500 block of Inland Empire Boulevard, according to a news release about the sex buyer operation conducted by the San Bernardino County Human Trafficking Task Force. They were charged with solicitation of prostitution. Those arrested were not identified in the release. The task force includes investigators from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office, San Bernardino Police Department, Ontario Police Department, California State Parole, Office of Homeland Security, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It was formed to suppress human trafficking and prostitution.

Loss of employment is another consequence of buying sex that has occurred within the city. For example, in October 2020, the CEO of Haliburton International Foods, a company based in Ontario, faced multiple felony and misdemeanor charges for soliciting prostitution of a minor. The Newport Beach resident resigned as the company’s chief executive. The sex buyer was arrested and charged the prior month by the Orange County District Attorney’s Office with engaging in the prostitution of two teenagers. He faced six felony counts associated with unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor and two misdemeanor charges for soliciting prostitution of a minor. If convicted on all counts, the man would face a maximum sentence of eight years in state prison and almost two years in county jail.