Seven people are facing 65 total charges in connection with a sex-trafficking operation in Portage la Prairie.
Police executed 10 search warrants in the city between February and June 4.
Portage RCMP were notified on Feb. 2 about a girl seen around the city with older men. Officers were able to find the youth and another girl, both 15, and learned they were being exploited.
(Darryl Dyck / The Canadian Press files)
The investigation found a woman had befriended the teens and offered to arrange to have them to hang out with some of her friends to obtain drugs and money. The teens went to Portage homes with her between June 2023 and May, police said Tuesday.
Men at the homes would offer the girls drugs in exchange for sexual acts, RCMP said.
“On many occasions, the youth was locked in the location by the woman, who remained through the entire interaction, and they could not escape,” a news release said.
The girls would perform the sexual acts, and men gave them drugs or sometimes cash, police said. The woman was paid in drugs, including methamphetamine and cocaine, RCMP said.
Police said men also sent nude photos to the two girls and demanded the victims send photos of themselves. The men and the woman communicated through Snapchat or Facebook Messenger to groom or procure sexual acts from the youths, RCMP said.
Officers executing the search warrants for electronic devices also seized a large quantity of methamphetamine and cocaine and 14 rifles and shotguns.
“Investigators do believe there are more victims and survivors,” Insp. Shawn Pike of RCMP major crime services said in the release. “Information has led officers to know that a currently unidentified 13- or 14-year-old female was also exploited by this group.”
Police are asking anyone who knows anything about the case to call the RCMP Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) unit at 204-984-3129.
Police, who held a news conference on the arrests Tuesday morning, said the accused all know each other. Six Portage men — Sean Michael Boak, 40; Alexander Paul Lidster, 39; Wesley Clayton Roulette, 44; David Guy Howard Taylor, 40; Scott Joseph Taylor, 34; and Frank Peter Justin Tecza, 39 — are charged with sex-related offences.
Chasity Nicole Assiniboine, 43, of Long Plain First Nation, is charged with two counts of trafficking of a person under 18 and other offences.
fpcity@freepress.mb.ca