Community Assists Police in Undercover Prostitution Sting - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

Community Assists Police in Undercover Prostitution Sting

Eight people are arrested for prostitution-related charges, following a two-day undercover sting operation earlier this month.

Seven men were arrested for attempting to hire a prostitute.

One woman was arrested for attempting to sell sex.

The men were lured in by undercover female officers, pretending to be prostitutes.

Three people are from out-of-state, the rest are listed as residing in and around Dickinson and Bismarck.

The Dickinson Police Department worked together with the Bureau of Criminal Investigations to conduct the sting.

Although the charges are not that extreme, officers exposing the "janes and johns"--as they're called--may put a stop to the crime in Dickinson.

"We had a couple of undercover females and we were able to arrest one female, the female that you see in the picture for prostitution, and the other, the remaining males that you saw were arrested for the hiring of an individual to engage in sexual activity." says Sgt. Kylan Klauzer/Dickinson Police Department.

Detectives in the busy police department say they've been waiting for the right time to make the bust.

These charges related to prostitution are a class B misdemeanor, but local police say they hope the public arrest serves as a more severe warning.

"There's a lot of money involved here, in talking to a number of the individuals involved with it, these ladies are making upwards of $100,000 a year doing this, so we want to let them know that if they're going to do this, so be it, but we don't want it to be here in Dickinson, in our community." says Sgt. Klauzer.

A successful undercover sting, made in large part, by the people who live here.

"A lot of the information that has come in up to this point came in from the community's calls in, things that they've seen in their daily activities." says Sgt. Klauzer.

Sgt. Klauzer says they do not want to release where the sting took place other than to say it was in city limits.

Sgt. Klauzer says there were no pimping arrests, which can be a more severe offense:

A class A misdemeanor.

He says this is the first prostitution sting in the Dickinson area, since the last oil boom, more than 20 years ago.