Traffickers

The six suspects arrested in a federal sting in Hampden on Thursday planned to kill a co-conspirator in a robbery who was actually an undercover ATF agent, according to court documents. Unbeknownst to the suspects, the robbery plot was a ruse - part of a series of Baltimore operations set up by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in recent months. For the second time, gunfire erupted in a public place as authorities moved in for the arrest, this time in the 3300 block of Clipper Mill Rd. Charged in the case are Tracey TheraldineÖ Betters, 20; Blake Aristotle Betters, 23; Brandon Harris, 20; John McLaurin, 22; Aaron Walker, 23; and 18-year-old IsiahÖ Benjamin.

Anne Arundel County police have charged a 19-year-old California woman with prostitution, operating a prostitution ring and human trafficking. Shkoyia Michelle Lomack of Sacramento was arrested Tuesday evening and remains in custody with a June 19 trial date. Officers received an anonymous tip that a woman was using hotels in the Linthicum area to house prostitutes and profit from their activities. Investigators say Lomack had used an Internet advertisement as a front for the prostitution ring that involved other women from California.

A cocaine trafficking ring that for years distributed "vast amounts" of Honduran cocaine throughout the mid-Atlantic region has been busted, and three Maryland residents and 25 Virginia residents involved have been arrested, according to federal prosecutors. The drug ring, based in Northern Virginia, routinely paid couriers to fly into the United States from Honduras with cocaine stashed in shoes, decorative wooden frames and other "innocuous items" that would blend in with their luggage, according to a statement on the bust released Thursday by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.

The letters come, one after the other, from the Otero County Detention Center in New Mexico to a bungalow-style home in Dundalk that is encircled by a chain-link fence and festooned in a ribbon of Ravens purple. The letters are from Shelby Nichole Smith, who was an altar girl at Amazing Grace Lutheran Church and a top graduate of the old Southern High School before enlisting in the Army. Now she's known by her childhood nickname, BeBe, and authorities refer to her in official documents as "the gossip girl.

A Chestertown man pleaded guilty this week in a New York federal court to trafficking live snapping turtles that he processed in Queen Anne's County and then sold as turtle meat. Michael V. Johnson, 57, faces a maximum of one year in prison for turning the wildlife into food at his business in Millington called Turtle Deluxe Inc., according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of New York in Buffalo. During 2007 and 2008, the statement said, Johnson purchased common snapping turtles — considered protected wildlife under New York law — from sellers in several states, brought them back to the Turtle Deluxe facility to sort and weigh and then paid the vendors based on weight.

A Salisbury man was arrested Wednesday as part of a nationwide, coordinated seizure of 50 individuals prosecutors say are involved in a Puerto Rico-based identity-trafficking ring, according to the federal immigration agency. Darcia Ramirez-Segura, 43, has been charged with conspiracy to commit identification fraud, according to a statement from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, relating to the alleged trafficking of the identities of Puerto Rican U.S. citizens and their identity documents.

In regard to recent reporting on the Baltimore-Texas sex-trafficking case, thank you for covering this story and special thanks to the FBI and Baltimore Police for their success ("On the streets of Baltimore, a new hustle," Nov. 6). I would just like to point out that the National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC) has a hotline (1 - 888-3737-888) where incidents of suspected human trafficking can be reported. The best way citizens can help is to be alert to, and report, suspicious activity in which women, minors under the age of 18, or men are forced to provide labor, services, or commercial sex against their will.

New federal charges have been filed against 10 people from Maryland who are being held in a sex-trafficking case that allegedly was centered in Baltimore and Western Texas, said prosecutors, who are calling the case a "forced prostitution" scheme. The superseding indictment made public Thursday alleges that five of the defendants "used their ties to the music industry to recruit young women, then force them to work as strippers and prostitutes," according to the U.S. attorney's office for the Western District of Texas.

I was very pleased to see your front-page story on human trafficking in the United States ("Women from Maryland escape alleged prostitution ring," Nov. 5). When most people think of human trafficking, they imagine something that is happening in Third World countries, not on Baltimore Street. Thank you for doing your part to raise awareness about this very important, very relevant and very local issue. I hope that you will continue your coverage on this important topic. For example, what is the status of the Phylicia Barnes murder case, and is anyone investigating whether she was a victim of human trafficking?

The woman, barely in her 20s and estranged from her family, worked two jobs as she tried to launch a singing career. When she started chatting online with the head of "424 Records," she thought she had finally gotten her break. The purported record label had music videos on Facebook and YouTube. The promoters appeared to have the cliched trappings of hip-hop — the cars, the gold chains, the girls, the lingo, the cash. But the group's motto breathed tranquillity: "One Team, One Family.