Interactive map: Nearly 60 Long Island hotels tied to sex trafficking and prostitution on Long Island.

From small mom-and-pop operations to high-end national brands, Long Island’s hotels and motels are convenient hubs for sex traffickers and their clients. Hundreds of online ads placed daily on adult websites reveal rampant prostitution occurring across Nassau and Suffolk counties.

Despite high-profile law enforcement takedowns of trafficking operations and local government efforts to add tougher laws and better enforce codes, the illegal business is thriving.

Newsday compiled a first-ever database documenting sex trafficking and prostitution charges at hotels and motels across Long Island, offering more details than even local law enforcement officials have been able to piece together.

After reviewing police and court records, the Newsday investigation uncovered nearly 60 hotels or motels across the Island where these paid sexual encounters occurred in recent years, one involving a victim as young as 11.

Records could not be obtained in time for publication for every hotel or motel where trafficking and prostitution have been alleged. Of the 59 hotel cases reviewed by Newsday, about 17% involved minors. Six of the hotels have closed. Three were deemed public nuisances, one was closed after a fire and one was closed after its owners were charged with trafficking. The reason for closing the sixth is not known.

A 2022 study by researchers at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, found 79% of victims calling the National Human Trafficking Hotline had been exploited at hotels and motels. A 2023 study of federal prosecution data produced by the Human Trafficking Institute, a nonprofit based in Dallas, found hotels and motels were the most common location for commercial sex.

Click on the dots on the map for details in each case.