Ft Worth Times

Special agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations Dallas office led an investigation to shut down a website promoting prostitution and sex trafficking.

Investigators targeted the website CityXGuide.com, which was purportedly described by users as a successor to Backpage. The site was seized and its owner faces a 28-count indictment.

Forty-six-year-old Wilhan Martono was indicted earlier this month, with a majority of the counts arising from interstate transportation in aid of racketeering and money laundering.

Martono, who was arrested was in Fremont, California on June 17, is alleged to have collected more than $21 million from promoting prostitution and sex trafficking online. He is also accused of allowing brothels, pimps and prostitutes to post hundreds of thousands of advertisements for sexual services on his platform, which is forbidden.

The respondents reportedly allowed advertisers to choose from a pre-populated list of "intimate activities” and subsequently add nude photographs, descriptions, work hours, methods of payment and contact information for the women being advertised.

Investigators assert that Martono attempted to hide his online activity by circumventing website traffic through an IP address in Europe with the use of a VPN.

Dallas was among the CityXGuide’s list of 14 "favorite cities."

The U.S. Secret Service, the Colleyville Police Department, HSI El Paso, HSI San Jose and the Texas Department of Public Safety aided in the investigation.

Colleyville Police Chief Michael Miller said his agency and its federal partners “relentlessly pursued this investigation for more than a year,” The Dallas Morning News reported.

Authorities have identified numerous underage victims in CityXGuide advertisements, including a 13-year-old girl who was found and rescued in North Texas last November.

Martono, who was charged in part under the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2018, faces a 25-year federal prison sentence if convicted.