This child sex trafficking ring was busted up in 2010.
Twenty-nine people were arrested in Minnesota, Ohio, and Tennessee.
Twenty-nine Somali gang members were arrested and indicted in a sex trafficking ring in which Somali gangs in Minneapolis and St. Paul allegedly forced girls under age 14 into prostitution in Minnesota, Tennessee and Ohio, according to an indictment unsealed Monday.
NBC News reported at the time.
The indictment claims the ring involved three Minneapolis-based gangs — the Somali Outlaws, the Somali Mafia and the Lady Outlaws — and that all three gangs are connected. The men and women charged were either gang members or associates of the gangs, the indictment said. They range in age from 19 to 38.
The indictment says the sex trafficking ring operated for 10 years, with the defendants recruiting young girls to engage in sex acts.
One girl was just 13 when, in 2005, she was taken from the Minneapolis area to an apartment in Nashville to engage in prostitution, it said. The girl was also taken to Columbus, Ohio, and other locations for prostitution.
In another case, a girl was under age 13 when she was first forced to engage in sex acts in November 2006. Two defendants had sex with her the next month at an apartment in St. Paul, and then other males arrived and were charged money to do the same, the indictment said. That scenario happened on many occasions.
Reason Magazine later reported that the sex trafficking indictments were fiction and the women who told their stories were mentally disturbed.
