When they announced it was trafficking, they were wrong. At best they knew saying so would get them attention, so jumped the gun in announcing before they had the evidence they expected. It’s more likely they just didn’t care about the truth of the statement.
Excellent quote from the article:
Often when we hear stories in the media about sex trafficking and law enforcement efforts, we should be skeptical, recognizing that there is a tendency to conflate trafficking and sex work, and much of the policing of sex work is done under the banner of sex trafficking (which importantly victimizes both sex workers and trafficking victims who are also arrested and deported),
