OAKLAND COUNTY, Mich. \u2013 Busted at an Oakland County hotel, and it\u2019s all caught on video. This is part of a special task force that arrests the \u201cJohns \u201d who are hiring human trafficking victims.<\/p>\n
Detectives spend much of their time and attention stopping human traffickers. Now, they are pushing a huge effort into busting people who are backrolling these traffickers.<\/p>\n
The Investigators at Local 4 have obtained video of men being busted in a human trafficking sting in Oakland County.<\/p>\n
In the undercover sting, men were busted after showing up to an Oakland County hotel to have sex with women. It\u2019s the latest work in stopping human trafficking.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s well known that the week of the Dream Cruise lures human traffickers to set up shop in hotels and Airbnb\u2019s — and that\u2019s where busts are going down. Detectives have spent much of their time and attention stopping human traffickers — now they\u2019re putting effort into busting the people bankrolling those trafficking.<\/p>\n
Detective Sgt. Mike Miles with the Oakland County Sheriff\u2019s Office says most of these men are married, blue collar, and white collar workers. Miles tells us they\u2019ve seen all types of men at these operations — from the CEOs of companies, to engineers, to the owners of dealerships.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of the reaction is, \u2018Oh my gosh, my family might find out about this, my wife might find out about this.\u2019 We\u2019ve had them, they took their family, dropped them off at a wedding, and he left the reception to come to our hotel and he\u2019s now realizing, \u2018Uh oh, my family\u2019s going to know I left the reception to go here,\u2019\u201d Miles said.<\/p>\n
Miles is the commander of the human trafficking unit in Oakland County. In a recent sting, investigators had 45 different male subjects they were in contact with in only five hours.<\/p>\n
So far, the Oakland County task force has arrested 45 individuals (including \u2018Johns\u2019), leading to 57 felonies and 19 misdemeanors.<\/p>\n
Miles said that many of the \u2018Johns\u2019 don\u2019t realize the majority of the women they\u2019re meeting for sex are being forced to be there.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of times, it\u2019s the trafficker that\u2019s posting those threads. A lot of times, the people you\u2019re communicating with isn\u2019t that girl in that room. It\u2019s her trafficker that\u2019s typing on that thread, having a conversation with you,\u201d Miles said.<\/p>\n
Cindy Brown, chief of the Human Trafficking Division, tells us that they attack human trafficking from multiple angles, by not just arresting the traffickers — with a focus on helping victims.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we can attack it from multiple angles, we\u2019ll be more successful in terms of what we\u2019re doing in Oakland County,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a digital criminal maze that the task force is eroding post by post.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe technology that we have is allowing us to basically track trackers online into various commercial websites, commercial sex websites. Track them around the country, not just here in Michigan or in Oakland County. It allows us to identify more than just, perhaps, the one victim that we recognize during the course of a sting or through a hospital or a hotel clerk who calls us. So, it is allowing us to really identify trackers and assist more victims,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n
Whether it\u2019s a hotel or an Airbnb, the task force is out, especially as visitors from around the country descend up and down Woodward Avenue for the Dream Cruise.<\/p>\n
The Oakland County task force is made up of officers from Southfield, Auburn Hills, and the Oakland County Sheriff\u2019s Office. Michigan State Police and Rochester are expected to join soon.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OAKLAND COUNTY, Mich. \u2013 Busted at an Oakland County hotel, and it\u2019s all caught on video. This is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":430168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[6492,327,143,904,145,144],"class_list":["post-433677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-investigations","tag-investigators","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-county","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}