A Winnipeg man has been sentenced to three years in jail in connection to a lengthy human trafficking investigation, police said.
Between 2019-2021, the police service’s counter exploitation unit took part in ‘Project Bluff’, an investigation into a man who was recruiting and directing women to provide sexual services.
Police said they identified two victims who had been recruited by the same man to work as escorts — initially providing massage services and eventually transitioning to sexual services.
In April of last year, police raided three rental properties and seized $42,000 in cash. They also arrested a suspect, 33-year-old Ferosh Tailor, who was charged with two counts of procuring a person to provide sexual services, advertising sexual services, material benefit from sexual services, and sexual assault.
Tailor was handed a three-year sentence last month in relation to the material benefit charge, which police say makes Project Bluff the first human trafficking investigation in Manitoba to have such a substantial result.
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Staff Sgt. Maria Koniuk, formerly of the Counter Exploitation Unit, said Friday that type of investigation can take a long time, as police want to ensure everything goes right when the case is being prosecuted.
“There’s just so much that police officers have to have to have a good ending in court,” Koniuk said.
“We don’t just want to go to court and be asked, ‘why didn’t you do this?’ Or, ‘why didn’t you follow up with that?’
“The reason why this project took so long is we wanted to ensure that if more victims came forward, we already had the evidence for them and we wouldn’t have to rely solely on victim statements and (place) undue trauma on them going through the court system.”
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