FBI and IRS raid an Escort website. sfredbook.com is now down.

[DarthDVader]

A portion of this article:

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/06/25/eric-omuro-silicon-valley-entrepreneur-arrested-as-fbi-takes-down-san-francisco-sex-encounter-website-myredbook-com-redbook-prostitution/

Dolgin said the FBI might have gained IP addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and other personal details of Bay Area sex workers.

“It’s a very scary thing,” she said. ...

[dymetyme66]

oops

[adav8s28]

Originally Posted by OldButStillGoing

As long as there is not another, higher profile charge like trafficking, child prostitution, or like this case, money laundering, I would thing the feds will continue to focus their limited resources on those kinds of crimes, not "just" an escort site. Those are much bigger fish and far more splashy than busting a hooker board. The racketeering and money laundering especially are fat targets for federal prosecution. Especially after the slap down the courts gave them over the New Mexico board.

OBSG, I agree with you. The movement of large sums on money triggered an audit. The exact same thing happened with former Gov. Elliot Spitzer. He was not trying to launder money, but the movement of unusually large sums of money, triggered an audit. When the auditors traced the money, they traced back to the agency he was using. This guy who ran the site got caught the same way.

Omuro, 53, also is accused of using money transfers to move revenue from the websites into his bank accounts. According to court documents, Omuro had more than 20 monetary transactions that laundered profits from the facilitation of prostitution.

The thing is though, if anyone is participating in the hobby and you are not in one of the legal counties of Nevada, you are at risk of being prosecuted.

[TinMan]

Does anyone know what the fee structure was for Redbook? Was it any different than here?

As I understand it, Eccie generates revenues from website banners (not responsible for their content), private forums (whose sponsors are responsible for whatever goes on there), and fees from male members to access the site. The ladies don't pay to advertise here, or even to become a "Verified Provider".

Was Redbook different in some way, to cause that site to become more susceptible to prosecution?

Also, keep in mind that just because the owner was charged, doesn't mean he'll get convicted. Others have been subject to such prosecution in the past, and successfully fought it. If the guy really was moving money around to try and hide some other form of revenue, that's a different story.

[Guest061619]

Cheat on your taxes...go to jail. The IRS got involved and a hooker board that was left alone for more than a decade goes dark. So stupid...making great money in a state that is VERY permissive and you piss it away over paying the tax on your millions.

[DarthDVader]

Tin, If you read the terms of use you'll notice that its prohibited by the site to upload or to post unlawful material and its purpose to exist is entertainment only ...

The Web Site contains information, text, images, and other materials (collectively, "Content") that is provided by Company solely for entertainment purposes. The Company does not endorse or support the factual accuracy of any Content contained therein.

You represent, warrant, and covenant that: (a) you shall not upload, post, or transmit to or distribute or otherwise publish through the Web Site any materials which (i) restrict or inhibit any other user from using and enjoying the Web Site, (ii) are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, or defamatory, (iii) constitute or encourage conduct that would constitute a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability or otherwise violate law, (iv) violate, plagiarize, or infringe the rights of third parties including, without limitation,

[HoneyRose]

Originally Posted by TinMan

Does anyone know what the fee structure was for Redbook? Was it any different than here?

As I understand it, Eccie generates revenues from website banners (not responsible for their content), private forums (whose sponsors are responsible for whatever goes on there), and fees from male members to access the site. The ladies don't pay to advertise here, or even to become a "Verified Provider".

Was Redbook different in some way, to cause that site to become more susceptible to prosecution?

I don't know what the fees were for hobbyists, but I know Redbook promoted a lot of opportunities for the ladies to pay fees to increase their advertising.

The "Classified" section allowed ladies to buy Featured ads that appeared in the left panel as well as the Premier Ad shortcuts on the classifieds home page.

They included an animated thumbnail and a direct link to one of your ads. I kept a list of those prices.
PRICES:
$250/30 days
$450/60 days (= $225/month)
$600/90 days (= $200/month)
$1100/6 mons (= $183/month)

Regular classified ads were free and we could edit our ad every 2 hours 15 minutes for free, which bumped it up to the top of the listings (but below Premiums).

For a fee, the ad would automatically be reposted every 2.15 hours.
I don't know the fee for that.

Then, they had a "personals ads" section for same-day availability. One post per day. We could edit it as often as we liked up to 20 hours after posting. "Next day" means 12:01 a.m. Editing did NOT bump the ad to the top.

in that section, there was also the opportunity to buy an "anchored ad" which was guaranteed to stay on the first page.
$120/30 days

LIke I said elsewhere, figuring out RB was a bit complicated! LOL!

Just from these examples you can see they managed to get a lot of money from ladies, not just hobbyists.

If I lived there I would have been paying the $370/month for the visibility boost in both forums, and I doubt any hobbyists were paying that much for private forum access. But of course there were many many more hobbyists than providers! So their quantity could generate a lot of income even at small rates.

So, my advertising cost would have been $4440 per year (less some quantity discounts).

Get a few dozen ladies to pay that, then multiply it by the other regions because that was just for SF. They also had Sacramento and a few other sections I can't remember.....

Just playing with numbers here, 100 ladies going the advertising route I would have, generates $444,000 a year!!

[oldbutstillgoing]

The
owner made an estimated 5 million dollars in the last 10 years

[TinMan]

That's interesting, HoneyRose. The fees for advertising directly on his website may very well have been what did him in. I hope the Eccie model is different enough that the same tactic can't be used against them.