Microsoft and Amazon employees have been caught soliciting sexual services from prostitutes using their work emails, something that goes against the work principles in both the companies. This has come to light in a sting operation conducted between 2014 and 2016, highlighting the growing prominence of the sex industry that seems to have flourished as much as the tech firms have done off late in Seattle.
A public records request sent to the King County Prosecutor’s Office have revealed Microsoft is topping the list with 67 emails sent by its employees using the official email account. Trailing closely is Amazon with 63 such email send via official channels.
Seattle is also home to some of the biggest tech firms such as Boeing, Oracle or T-Mobile, and several such sexist emails have been traced to the above-mentioned companies as well. Of course, the employees did their bit to hide their identity, which includes masquerading such mail as replies sent to wrong addresses though that still is in violation of most company’s work culture.
As for the prostitutes, they prefer dealing with those who respond using their company email id, which sort of adds credibility to the service seekers identity. This is so as the authorities also send such request disguised as clients. The sex racket spans across continents with trafficked Asian women forming a big chunk of the sex network that have come up in Seattle.
In fact, so deep-rooted the sex industry has come to be in Seattle that some men have been found to spend as much as $50,000 a year on pimps. While this underscores how challenging it is for the authorities to tackle the menace of sex trafficking, what is also intriguing is that several high ranking officials too have been found to be involved in all this.
In a sting operation dated 2015, 18 arrests were made, with two of them opting to trial, which again is slated to begin in March 2018.
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Meanwhile, both Microsoft and Amazon have made it clear they do not in any manner endorse sex trafficking, least so via the company’s official email accounts. On the contrary, both have underscored the need for greater vigilance to tackle the issue and have pledged full cooperation with the authorities as well.
