Two men arrested in Arizona on multiple counts of child sex trafficking
Sep 26, 2017, 11:34 AM
(Facebook/Chris Yarzab)
(Facebook/Chris Yarzab)
PHOENIX — Two men were arrested in Arizona for their alleged involvement in a multi-victim child sex trafficking ring, the Mesa Police Department announced Tuesday.
Oshay Small, 24, and 21-year-old Cornelius Wells were each arrested on multiple counts of child sex trafficking by Mesa police detectives in the Human Exploitation and Tracking Unit, police said.
Oshay Small (Photo: Mesa PD)
The arrests were made at a hotel near Metro Center Mall in Phoenix and came at the end of a 5-month investigation of Small and Wells.
Police said at the time of their arrests, Small and Wells came in contact with 15-year-old females through Facebook and reportedly began exploiting the girls shortly after. The victims left home and were reported as runaways, police said.
At the same time, police also uncovered another young female and two adult females who were allegedly being exploited by the two men. Some of the victims were transported to Tucson, while others were taken to El Paso, Texas.
Cornelius Wells (Photo: Mesa PD)
The suspects were reportedly using Backpage.com, a classified ad website formerly owned by Michael Lacey and James Larkin of Phoenix, to traffic victims. In January, the site came under fire after a Senate subcommittee found that Backpage had created a lucrative marketplace that made child sex trafficking easier.
Small was arrested on eight different counts of child sex trafficking, two counts of sex trafficking, two counts of receiving earnings from prostitution and one count of illegal control of an enterprise. He is currently being held in a Maricopa County jail on a $75,000 bond.
Wells was arrested on four different counts of child sex trafficking and is being held in a Maricopa County jail on a $50,000 bond. It was not immediately known whether either men had an attorney.
