A teenager who trafficked young girls for sex when she was just 16 years old has been jailed for 13 years.

Jelinajane Bedrijo Almario, from Hanford in California, was arrested in May 2016 when she was 17 years old and tried as an adult for human trafficking and making terrorist threats.

The trafficking ring went on for several weeks and the court heard Almario would post pictures of girls as young as 14 and 15 on prostitution websites and then take them to motels, the Fresno Bee reported.

View photos Jelinajane Bedrijo Almario was arrested in May 2016 when she was 17-years-old. Photo: Kings County Sheriff’s Office More

“These girls would run away for weekends or work a couple of nights,” Police Detective Richard Pontecorvo alleged.





Almario met the teenagers on social media and Detective Pontecorvo said these kinds of people locate teenagers with "low self esteem and try to be their friend".

On Monday, just two days after she turned 18, Almario was sentenced to 13 years jail.