“Taking Down Backpage: Fighting the World’s Largest Sex Trafficker” is masterfully written by Maggie Krell.

Often legal jargon loses readers, and/or directed towards a specific audience limiting the ability to inform/educate a wider population. Krell delivers an essential read involving heinous crimes; led undisputedly by executive leaders of the organization - Backpage.

Krell captures a well thought out, comprehensible narrative; any reader will be instantly enthralled in. “Taking Down Backpage” is necessary read I highly recommend, even if you are not familiar with the (fairly recent) history of the organization.

Directly from the Author’s Notes,

“Taking down Back page should not be conflated with voluntary sex work. This book is not about consensual sex work. It is about rape.”

“This is not a case against Backpage, a website; it is a case against three individual defendants who used multiple platforms to commercially sexually exploit vulnerable women and children.”

A sincere thank you to NetGalley and NYU Press for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to read this story and leave my review voluntarily.

Put one determined woman in a position to tackle one of the worst crimes in America and around the world and don't be surprised at what she can accomplish. Hitting legal wall after legal wall and sexism along the way didn't deter Maggy Krell from her determination to do what is right. After being personally exposed to what "human trafficking" looks like, she took on a fight to take them down in a state that gives more rights to the perpetrators than to the prosecutor.

Written in a way that allows the reader to understand the nuances of what she faced as the prosecutor, Maggy writes in a way where you, the reader, feel the emotions involved. You will fear excitement, anger, unbelievable idiocracy, and satisfaction as Maggy faces the largest human trafficking organization operating legally in the United States.

My first thought was, look at this intelligent woman, taking on the world, she's an absolute f*cking powerhouse. To go out there and take on this mammoth beast, one that's been out there and thriving since 2004. Maggie Krell showed utter strength and tenacity, ready to knock them to the ground. She was basically going up against one of the biggest logistics companies in the world, except this one devastatingly was shipping people around the globe, when I can't even get away with shipping food items from my home in Canada to my family in Northern Ireland.

I immediately developed a respect for Maggy Krell, wanting to kneel down at her feet and wish her every success with her future missions. The world needs more people like Maggie Krell.

Towards the end of this book, I was sitting bolt upright, tense, with an increased heart rate, trying to swallow my anxiety with each line, but becoming even more supercharged, eager to know the outcomes.

A must-read for every thinking adult. Seriously. This book covers such an important, yet often overlooked topic. Human trafficking, specifically of women and young girls/children, is happening right under our noses, often in plain sight. In "Taking Down Backpage," Maggie Krell, former California prosecutor, takes us through her years-long effort to shut down the Backpage website, which was a hub for online trafficking and the torture and abuse of countless people. Told through her eyes and in the first person, the book provides gets a firsthand look at what goes into mounting a case against a many-tentacled business like this one. While the details of this particular story are fascinating and even exciting, the look into the many ways a business such as this can hide, protect itself, and avoid legal consequences is beyond eye-opening. Krell's dogged devotion--and that of the many, many others who joined in the quest to shut down the website and its owners for good--is both inspiring and galvanizing. Human trafficking is never consensual and is always abuse.. By prosecuting the case, and now sharing this important story, Krell has shined a light on the problem and helped so many victims come in out of the shadows.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
This book is fascinating and frightening because the laws don't always mean what we think they say, so many loopholes exist, and interpretation of the laws is not always black and white.
I really admire Maggy Krell and her determination to get Backpage brought down and those criminals held accountable. When the obvious crimes of pimping and trafficking charges don't hold up in court (which to me was surprising, sickening, and appalling), she finds other ways to make them be held accountable rather than just giving up. Persistence and hard work pays off. She put her heart and soul into this case.

Exciting, engaging and at times, frustrating read. Having no prior legal knowledge, I found this book to be accessable and gripping. Maggy Krell is a hero!

Backpage was an advertisement website that sex traffickers used to promote the commercial sex trade. These ads promoted not only adult sex trafficking victims but children also. Maggy Krell was a prosecutor in California who was tired of putting victimized women in jail. Krell did everything she could to bring the owners of Backpage to just for profiting from prostitution. Although Krell had to jump through many hoops, she was eventually able to get the owners convicted of money laundering. The federal government then took the owners to federal court and seized the website in 2018.

This was a very quick read (only 192 pages) but detailed enough that you understood why Maggy Krell took the stance she did and how she managed to strike a blow against a company that profited off of the trafficking of women and children. Hers was the first of many lawsuits the site faced, including one from the federal government which led to the seizure of the website which can still be seen if you go looking for the site.

First and foremost: Maggy Krell is a hero. A true one, who does the unsung, gritty work to fight problems that most of us willfully banish from our minds so we can enjoy our organic smoothies in peace. If I had her job for just one day, and had to investigate sexual trafficking in America, I would require several (more) years of therapy and become celibate.

The story itself is rather simple, and is told in a straightforward manner. We follow how Krell becomes involved in this issue, the vacuum of interest that preceded her, and the tricky legal maneuverings required to take down a website that disavowed all connections to sex trafficking even as profited wildly from it.

This is all great, but we move rather quickly, never becoming fully immersed in the story or the characters. Everyone who helps her is awesome and smart, but we don't really get to know them. We hear a few stories about the victims, but maintain emotional distance here as well. This is understandable, and surely Krell doesn't want to exploit people for their trauma, but it is hard to pinpoint the narrative backbone of this piece.

For better or worse, we are compelled by stories. We need rising drama, an arc, and a triumphant finish. In an ideal world, logic would dictate our compassion and charity. In reality, we donate to the Red Cross because we saw videos of the earthquake aftermath or witnessed a harrowing slideshow of abused animals while Sarah McLachlan sings in the background. Police violence has been an issue for decades but only started receiving attention when visceral videos forced us to confront the gross injustices occurring daily.

The path towards justice described in this book is righteous. The story still needs work.

I went into this book previously unaware of backpage.com and learned so much about the legal background of human trafficking along the way. The author does a great job of emphasizing that those who are trafficked should not be prosecuted because they are the victims of the crime. This was created in a way that it will be interesting not only to people interested in legal proceedings like myself, but also anyone interested in true crime.

"When prevention fails and kids are caught up in the criminal justice system with cases of their own, we need to look at them through a public-health lens: they are children who have been subjected to severe forms of sexual abuse and trauma."

Maggy Krell's incredible account of bringing one of the most horrendous avenues of sexual exploitation is a must read. As a current law student and an aspiring prosecutor, Krell's story is particularly amazing. You can tell when you read "Taking Down Backpage," that she has an unwavering passion for justice that cannot be compromised. She has not stopped fighting for the rights of the sexually exploited even with the demise of Backpage. Krell's writing sucked me in and made me feel all the emotions. I raged when her first case was dismissed, my heart ached when she relays the story of each abused girl with such empathy, and I celebrated every small victory. Her story only further solidifies my desire to work in the legal field. If you are looking for a light-hearted book you will forget about as soon as you finish it, this is not the book for you. Krell makes sure that you will never forget the stories of those victimized by Backpage's exploitative actions, nor does Krell allow you to believe that by taking down Backpage, sexual exploitation is a thing of the past. There is still lots of work to be done. Bringing down the giant that was Backpage is just the beginning.

This one kept me on the edge of my seat, I couldn’t stop reading it and failed to do anything else in my life for the day. It was so interesting to me

This is a lawyer's perspective on taking down Backpage.

While Maggy Krell comes across really well, the content can be a little dry for the non-lawyers among us! I would have like to have read more of the survivors' stories.

An interesting enough read, but a little too legally dense in some places - particularly for those of us who aren't familiar with the American legal system.

I find the dive into human trafficking both heart breaking and fascinating so I thought this one would be right up my alley. Stopping those who contribute to the sale of humans is a victory for mankind. I was a little disappointed as the book seemed to me more about the heroics and pats on the back for the main character rather than the stories of the people who lived to tell their tale and help shit down those who harmed them. I was looking forward to the perspective of the victims and was left rather disappointed. The feat that was achieved in taking down backpage is amazing, don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t the inside view I was anticipating. Well written for the autobiography type story it came across as.

After reading this one, I have been seriously pondering going to law school. I want to do the work the Krell is doing, to take down the monsters who profit from the trauma and assault of others. It is absolutely disgusting and I would gladly hunt down every last one and bring them to justice.

Unfortunately, as illustrated in this book, it is all too easy for said monsters to continue profiting from sex trafficking in the digital age.

Prior to this book, I do not recall ever hearing about Backpage except in a few other books I have read that cover the subjects of commercial sex workers who used the site and Craig's List to find clients. Perhaps I have simply been existing in my own little bubble, though I am not sure how I have missed such an incredibly important subject, but I am so glad to have read this book.

As it turns out, Backpage.com was at one time the world's largest sex trafficker. Untold numbers of victims were bought and sold on the site for ten years, forced into dangerous and violent situations where they were raped, sometimes multiple times, sometimes by multiple people. While we often think of young women and girls as the most common victims, it is important to note that transgender youth, and younger boys were bought and sold as well. Repeatedly. The site's reach was world-wide and operated in 800 cities internationally. The owners of the site could feign ignorance of what was happening, because they claimed to not be responsible for the content that others created to post on their site. Luckily some sleuthing found that the employees of Backpage were, in fact, creating content from the ads posted to Backpage. The content they created was posted to their shell sites in order to drive more business to Backpage.

I suppose if you are a disgusting excuse for a human being, it would be easy to sleep at night claiming this ignorance as you grew richer and richer by the day.

Enter Maggy Krell, and your days as such are numbered.

I could not put this book down. I became so invested in the stories of the young women and girls who had been trafficked at various times, and worried so much for them as they worked through their trauma and had to decide whether or not they could relieve it all again at trial. My heart broke for those, especially the girls as young as 12, who Krell was never able to find, despite the fact that their photos were still being used in ads on the website.

Krell writes like an attorney because that is who she is, yet the narrative was not bogged down by legal terms and boring procedure. In fact, the procedures were anything but boring, because I wanted to know what would happen and how the owners of Backpage, as well as the stree-level pimps, would finally face their day of reckoning. I had to stop myself from Googling the owners' names so many times just to know what would happen.

One aspect of the case that I found interesting is the fact that for so long, the FBI knew exactly what was happening. Ads would be found on the site for girls and boys under 18 and the FBI would request those ads be removed. Backpage was all too eager to assist in this way, to try and show how cooperative they were. What a fucking joke.

I found fascinating the legal workings of such a massive case like this, and one so delicate. The amount of coordination that had to occur among various agencies in different states is staggering and that it all went off without a hitch was something I honestly was not sure would happen.

I appreciate the fact that Krell does not shy away from any of the horror and trauma inflicted on those who were trafficked multiple times per day. I think we all agree that human trafficker in general and sex trafficking in particular are heinous crimes that we must put an end to. However, when it does not directly impact your life, the way to help can seem rather abstract. Personally for Eleanor and I, we live practically smack-dab in the middle of the US, at the convergence of two major interstates that run across the country. We are a major hub for human-trafficking and it is especially bad during the College World Series each year. I do not take Eleanor anywhere near downtown for those couple of weeks specifically for this reason. There have been so many arrests in recent years and that gives me hope that this is something we can defeat, but the realist in me knows that it is simply not possible.

Shutting down Backpage was a massive moment in this fight, but it is certainly not the only one. Sex traffickers have simply moved elsewhere online and we must continue to pursue them as Krell and her team did in order to bring the perps to justice and help victims and survivor get out and start to heal.

Highly highly highly recommended.

This book about a legal investigation read like a true crime thriller. Never in a million years would I have thought I'd be so enraptured by a chapter about floating through piles of emails and paperwork, but Krell's every word had me drawn back to the page. It's a little heavy on legal jargon, if that's not your wheelhouse, but by no means does it require a law degree (though I am now wondering about law school ...)

Before reading this, I'd heard of BackPage only very adjacently, mentioned every so often on the national news. Krell spins a compelling, honest, uplifting, but at times gut-wrenching tale of the men at the center of it all, and how lawyers for the government fought the government tooth and nail to put a stop to the most pervasive sex trafficking website in America. The statistics at the end stymied me, as I realized just how great an impact her case had on a global scale, not just on the lives of the survivors whose stories she brought to light. It reads just like a good crime drama watches: easily followed, but unpredictable enough that I never knew what was going to be on the next page. Fair warning, there is topic-relevant discussion of rape, abuse and human trafficking, but nothing graphic or vulgar

As someone who adamantly consumes crime and true crime media in its many forms, this was just not what I hoped.
The story itself, literally the taking down of Backpage, is such an important piece of history. I remember when it all went down, the backlash, and the support. But this telling of it, from someone on the front lines of it all, was barebones at best. I described it to my partner as being like the author was recounting the story to a peer, and not writing a book about the experience.
We get little to no actual details of the case. The book feels like it’s centred on the legal jargon and roundabouts they have to take (which are also important!) as apposed to any actual details of the case.
Random girls names are thrown into the mix every once in awhile, and her story is recounted and then it very suddenly moves onto something else all together.
The timeline is also very fluid, but not in a way that works with this type of story. Bits and pieces of knowledge are added in at random times, often going into a tangent that leads into a flashback and then we’re brought back to where the story left off, with no discernible end to the previous memory.

Wanted to love this. Didn’t. But, still 2 stars because I feel like the actual work of taking on sex trafficking is very important.

@netgalley #TakingDownBackpage

Maggy Krell's "Taking Down Backpage: Fighting the World's Largest Sex Trafficker" is the true story of Krell's essential role in the dismantling of Backpage.com, a former website generally regarded as having been the world's largest sex trafficking operation. It was such a large, seemingly untouchable operation that even the FBI had previously honored it due to its seeming cooperation anytime they'd show up with individual reports of trafficking or abuse.

Of course, as Krell points out, the actual cooperation was minimal at best. It was enough to allow the website to operate for almost a decade while simultaneously turning its key operatives into millionaires and having a key role in the exploitation and abuse of women, children, and others.

Krell starts off the book in a way that resonates with me - she acknowledges that all of her cases to be included involve women yet also acknowledges that sex trafficking also impacts men, the transgender community, and others.

Krell also acknowledges that while "Taking Down Backpage" focuses on sex trafficking there are other forms of human trafficking just as devastating and worthy of our attention.

Backpage.com was, for those who don't know, a website that mostly appeared like a somewhat seedier collection of classifieds. It operated 24/7, 365 days a year. It operated in over 800 cities nationwide and the owners would receive a cut of each transaction. It would take only a few moments of browsing to realize that Backpage received a good majority of its business from those who work in the sex field, though the truth was much darker. Backpage was raking in millions while women and children were being forced into the commercial sex trade through violence, coercion, and fear.

"Taking Down Backpage" is part memoir and part legal procedural/semi-thriller. The efforts to weave in the story's memoirish elements are not quite as effective here, Krell's personal elements obviously taking a backseat to the intensity of the evolving legal conflicts. While these personal elements help to humanize the story, and Krell for that matter, they're not quite as fleshed out as they could be and only one story involving Krell and a poorly timed phone call from former California Attorney General turned Vice-President Kamala Harris really clicks.

"Taking Down Backpage" is at its most compelling as Krell works alongside fellow prosecutors and cross-state agencies to assemble the pieces necessary to take down a behemoth that existed largely because of a legal system that had yet to keep up with the growth of the internet and its seemingly infinite potential for illegal activities and human impact.

Krell writes like a lawyer, both a strength and an occasional weakness here, because she is a lawyer. She's also a lawyer who was working in one of the most challenging areas of the legal arena and "Taking Down Backpage" possesses the matter-of-fact, procedural-based thinking that was required of Krell and her team to begin taking down the behemoth that was legally aware, well funded, well represented, and willing to exert as much influence as necessary.

There's no question that "Taking Down Backpage" is a jarring book. We "know" these things exist, yet we keep them at a distance. Krell makes them up close and personal and refuses to flinch in sharing the very real human costs of it all. At the same time, we get glimpses of a woman balancing a home life with marriage and kids and family vacations. "Taking Down Backpage" practically begs to be made into a film where Krell's stories can be developed even more fully.

If I had my preferences, I'd see a stronger balance between memoir and procedural here. The procedural components are absolutely necessary and shouldn't be compromised. Krell does a nice job of making them accessible and understandable though unquestionably simplified here. She explains in simple yet vivid detail how Backpage got away with what it did and the various steps that had to be taken to even make the case a legally viable one. However, it would be nice to enhance the human element of "Taking Down Backpage" and to further develop life after the website was taken down.

For example, as I recall, all of those involved are nearing the end of their prison sentences. What next?

While defense is a key element in due process, it's hard not to be jarred by the legal practices put on display here in defending Backpage. It's even more jarring to realize this kind of defense likely continues (as it's certainly not illegal).

As Krell moves toward story's end, we sense her own shifting personally and professionally. There's practically no way to deny that working in this field day after day would be immensely challenging. This may be worthy of more exploration.

I suppose it's a good thing, really, that "Taking Down Backpage" leaves you wanting more. Krell gives us, of course, the acute awareness that more is needed. As she transitioned to a new opportunity after this effort wound down, Krell also shares the current state of sex trafficking and the continuing effort needed. Shutting down Backpage.com was a huge step but hardly an absolute one.

"Taking Down Backpage" is, indeed, a valuable and necessary read for both the informed and uninformed. While it tackles a difficult subject, it's very seldom graphic other than honestly acknowledging the very human cost of sex trafficking. With several months until publication, "Taking Down Backpage" may very well experience additional tweaking along its editing journey but will undeniably remain a valuable, important story as we address sex trafficking and work to ensure the internet is not used as a weapon against humanity.

Backpage was the world's largest website for human trafficking, and the attempt to shut it down took years of cooperation and dedication from former California Attorney General (and now Vice President) Kamala Harris to law enforcement professionals in Dallas. This story is told deftly and intensely by one of the lead prosecuters Maggy Krell, who devoted years and walks the reader through all the steps she and her colleagues went through in tracking down, arresting, and prosecuting the men who owned Backpage. Her vision in amending the legal loopholes that allowed them to maintain the site also came to pass, and this process is detailed in the final third of the book. Riveting and heartbreaking reading.

It is a long time since I’ve devoured a serious documentary of this nature. It’s a beautifully, exquisitely researched account of the trauma suffered by people affected by sex traffickers all over the world. One can only hope that this book finds its way into organisations all over the world in an attempt to highlight and stop this vile action.

I've read a lot about Backpage and what it stood for and I'm still so surprised that it was able to stay open for as long as it was considering all of the shady tactics that it put up. This book was so interesting to read because while I knew that this seedy website had thankfully been taken down and removed from the internet I was never fully clear on how that happened. This book explained in great detail all of the hard work and hoops that everyone had to jump through in order to get this website closed for good. I was amazed how much of a process it really is to shut down a site, and that is one that everyone know is dealing in shady tactics. What makes this story even better was it was written by one of the prosecutors who started the take down. Backpage unfortunately was one of the largest websites in the sex trafficking circuit, and specialised in the sale of young and especially innocent victims. Lots of the ads focused on children and coheres them into prostitution, through fear and threats of violence. This was such a big undertaking, and I really liked how the author showed all of the hardships and hoops that they had to jump through in order to make sure that their plan went through properly along with making sure that no one was hurt. I also liked how it told some of the victims stories and how not all of them ended up on the positive side. There was so much going on that I'm surprised it took as long as it did for this site to be terminated. This book was very informative and I'm so glad that I got the chance to read it. If you want to know more about this heroic story than this is one book that I highly suggest that you read, you won't be disappointed. The best thing about this book was even though it was all factual and horrific, all of the information was so compelling that I just had to keep reading to see what took place. No part of this read was too dry or clinical so I got through it very easily. I'm so glad that I got the chance to read this book. This is one book you wont want to miss weather you know a lot about Backpage or you don't know anything, check it out.