Backpage Was A World Wide Conspiracy

It’s no secret that in addition to facilitating illegal prostitution and child sex trafficking through its U.S. website, Backpage has also facilitated similar crimes through its websites in foreign countries. Perhaps even more disturbingly, court documents show that within this context, Backpage would often actively generate the content of the illegal prostitution and underage sex trafficking ads being published itself.

Consider the following facts underscored in the State’s official indictment against Backpage:

Around 2013 or 2014, Backpage hired a Philippines-based company (Company B) in an attempt to increase the profitability of Backpage’s international operations. Company B’s employees were instructed to:

1. Visit rival prostitution websites in other countries,
2. Obtain the email addresses of prostitutes who were posting ads on those websites (often by falsely posing as prospective customers)
3. Use the information from the other website to create a competing prostitution ad on Backpage (a process referred to internally as “preboarding”)
4. Transmit the new ad to the prostitute, often using the previously-harvested email account information, in an attempt to persuade the prostitute to become a Backpage customer.

Company B’s employees were paid bonuses based on the amount of ad revenue they generated for Backpage using these techniques. And, and always, Backpage’s executives were fully aware of the plan to use Company B to create prostitution ads outside the United States. It was yet another illicit revenue stream the criminal minds behind Backpage, had built into their scheme.

For example, on or around November 6, 2013, Carl Ferrer made a presentation to James Larkin, Scott Spear, and Jed Brunst. Among other things, this presentation summarized Backpage’s plans for “International Planning and Expansion.”

One of the plans was to use the Philippines as a “test” market and hire Filipino contractors which, according to Backpage’s own internal documentation, was designed to:

“…C ontact by email leads, secure email address, add ad and email address in [computer system] and assign to American staff. American staff makes contact.”

As we shall see in our posting tomorrow, this ‘test market’ was to become a training ground for even more illegal activity which would ultimately come back to haunt the crime bosses at the top of the Backpage hierarchy, as well as the greedy, self-interested shills at the bottom like Tony Ortega.