Three months ago, state trooper Jonathan Otto, 33, of the Arizona Department of Public Safety, pulled over a car that had caught his attention by traveling 104 mph (167 kph) long after midnight, just south of Kingman. He smelled marijuana in the car. It was driven by a man with an adult female wearing only lingerie. Their passenger was a female juvenile whose fake document showed her to be 18. She was, Otto says, "not wearing a whole lot of clothing."
The adults had taken this 16-year-old from California to Arizona and were heading for Las Vegas. The girl gave Otto the California phone number of her grandmother, who immediately told him the girl might have been in prostitution since she was 15. Trained in interview techniques for such situations, and experienced at noticing people who somehow do not belong together, Otto correctly suspected DMST — domestic minor sex trafficking.
Trooper Mitch Jergenson, 46, stopped a car driven by a man whose passenger was a 17-year-old girl he had gotten to know via Facebook and other social media. He had paid for her ticket from California to Phoenix and was taking her to Las Vegas. She said she was going to be a "model," then said she was going to work in a strip club.