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Holed up in a hotel room close to the international airport, a handful of Calgary police officers and Mounties dig through piles of online escort ads as they prep for Day 2 of Operation Northern Spotlight.

As they make calls to unsuspecting sex workers and set up “dates,” the door knocks.

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A woman thinks she is there to meet a customer, a person who will pay her for sex. Instead, she meets the officers, and explains what brought her to their door.

Like many Albertans, she says her family was dealt a bad hand by the recession. With no money and few options, she felt helpless. In desperate need for cash, she made a desperate decision.

I never thought I’d be here. I never thought I would be having to hide from my family, telling them my cleaning job runs late every night. I’m here because this would have been an easy $350

“I had a great job, then Alberta’s crisis hit and I got laid off,” she says. “Two weeks later, my husband lost his job as well. The bills don’t stop coming.

“I never thought I’d be here. I never thought I would be having to hide from my family, telling them my cleaning job runs late every night.