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MIAMI (HawaiiNewsNow) - An alleged pimp from Hawaii is caught bringing a local teenager to the Super Bowl to work in the sex trade.
Fred Collins was charged with transporting and causing a minor to engage in commercial sex acts and faces 10 years to life in prison if convicted.
While tens of thousands of people made it to Florida for the Super Bowl not all were there to watch football.
"The Super Bowl is a big destination for child prostitution and adult prostitution. There are other large destination cities you can imagine that also attract this type of activity," said Tom Simon, FBI Special Agent.
On Super Bowl Sunday officers arrested Fred Collins at a Miami Beach Hotel. According to court papers Collins brought two adult women and a 16 year old girl to the Super Bowl to work as prostitutes. Collins met the girl on January 7 in Honolulu. Three weeks later he flew her to Florida using an alias. The girl is a runaway. She told investigators she made the trip knowing she'd be selling herself to Super Bowl visitors.
"We're not only FBI agents we're human beings and these cases just break our hearts. We're fathers, we're mothers, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunties, we work with children every day in our lives and professional lives as well and these cases really do break our hearts," said Special Agent Simon.
The average age of girls caught in sex trafficking are just 13 years old and most don't live to see 20.
"Listen if any case exists out there in Hawaii it's one too many and fortunately it's not an epidemic problem here but we'd be lying to ourselves if we said it didn't exist," said Special Agent Simon.
One of the FBI's biggest sex trafficking cases started in Hawaii with a pimp named Blue Diamond who took girls from Honolulu to Chicago and Detroit to be prostitutes.
"He ended up pleading guilty to 25 years in prison after several different wire taps and we seized more than a million dollars in assets," said Special Agent Simon.
"Trafficking in Hawaii is growing. It's extremely bad from our perspective," said Kathy Xian, The Pacific Alliance to Stop Slavery (PASS), Director of Advocacy.
Xian says PASS is fighting for tougher state sex trafficking laws which she says are non-existent.
"We need a human trafficking state law, it's about time and it's a no brainer," said Xian.
The FBI is working on bringing the girl back to Honolulu.
Nationally the FBI's Innocence Lost initiative has recovered 900 children and arrested 500 pimps from around the country. For more information about the Innocence Lost program click here.
To visit the Pacific Alliance to Stop Slavery (PASS) click here.
More related contact numbers:
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children - 800-THE-LOST
National Runaway Switchboard - 800-RUNAWAY
Children of the Night - 800-551-1300
Copyright 2010 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.
Hawaii man charged with sex trafficking at Super Bowl - Hawaii News Now - KGMB and KHNL Home
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