8 women, 1 man dressed as woman, arrested in suburban prostitution sting - slideshow

Byron Blanco  Police photo

Apparently, there aren't enough prostitutes to satiate the local johns, because the  Cook County Sheriff's department has arrested a group of alleged sex workers brought in from out of state.

Sheriff Tom Dart announced the prostitution arrests of eight woman and one man from five different states. The photo to the right is Byron Blanco, a man, who allegedly dresses as a woman for prostitution purposes.

Sheriff's police launched the investigation after seeing suspected prostitution ads on Craigslist and Backpage. Police later took out their own ads to snare the men looking for illicit sex, according to a Sheriff's department press release.

Investigators executed a sting Wednesday night. They set up in a Schaumburg hotel where there's been an ongoing prostitution problem. The hotel was not named because Sheriff's police say the owners were cooperative.

Besides the nine people arrested for allegedly selling sex, 5 men were arrested for allegedly trying to buy sex, which falls under the county's "public morals nuisance ordinance." They are identified as Djorde Vukmirovic, 29, of Chicago; Kevin Call, 39, of St, Charles; Jeffery Norman, 22, of Schaumburg; Naqui Abbas, 33, of Schaumburg; and Philip Benson, 36, of Hawthorne Woods. Police say it was Benson's birthday.

Below is a slideshow and the names of the people charged with selling sex in the operation. The buyers are not shown because they are only issued citations and police don't release mug shots for citation recipients.

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