Over the past months, Fairbanks and Anchorage clients of sex workers have reported extortion attempts by two bad actors pretending to be Fairbanks and Anchorage Police Department Detectives. The impersonators appear to call from a spoofed number associated with the police departments, but when one client called FPD to verify they were told that FPD had no detectives by those names and that the callers were impersonating police. 

The Community United for Safety and Protection (CUSP) is concerned that these recent crimes targeting clients of sex workers are a result of hostile rhetoric about clients during the 2023 legislative session, which created an environment where our clients are prime targets. In 2016 SB91 gave immunity from prostitution charges for sex workers and sex trafficking survivors reporting heinous crimes, but there is no such protections for clients reporting crimes like extortion or sex trafficking. Extortion and impersonating police officers are both felonies under Alaska state law. 

The extortion attempts seem to be associated with fake escort ads. Because the criminalization of prostitution has forced sex work into the underground, it is important for clients and sex workers to vet each other for safety and to avoid bad actors. 

The Community United for Safety and Protection is a group of current and former sex workers and sex trafficking survivors working towards safety and protection for everyone in Alaska’s sex industries.