Law enforcement officials announced today that an organization of self-identified sex soliciting “hobbyists” who called themselves “The League” and sex trafficking site they frequented were raided and shut down this week in the culmination of a months-long, country-wide investigation.

“We all know about backpage.com and how bad it is. This was like backpage.com on steroids. It was much, much bigger,” King County Sheriff John Urquhart told the media during a press conference on Jan. 7.

During a nine-month-long investigation, The King County Sheriff’s Office and the Bellevue Police Department gathered evidence on a sexual services review website called The Review Board in which verified members could post and read reviews on the services they received from different prostitutes and women could create postings offering sexual services. During their probe, law enforcement discovered a separate organization of men who solicited sex whom called themselves The League and also 13 individual apartments in seven upscale apartment complexes in Bellevue that were being operated as brothels.

The women involved — a dozen of whom have since been rescued by police — were largely brought over from South Korea through a debt-bondage system in which they were required to work off the debts of their families through sexual service, sometimes servicing up to ten customers daily, six or seven days a week.

“It is unlikely that many of these victims will say that this is what they had in mind when they came to King County, Washington,” King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg said Thursday.

The Review Board had 14,000 members across the country, and police were able to make links between their case in King and Pierce Counties to 15 states. A separate website linked to The League — Kgirlsdelight.com — had millions of hits per month, police reported.

Approximately nine members of The League were arrested on Jan. 5 during a meeting at the Pumphouse in Bellevue and five additional group members were apprehended by police in the following days. Among them were two Bellevue residents who operated brothels in the city and were members of group.

Police also shut down The Review Board website and served 126 search warrants and court orders related to the case this week.