9,000 European Sex Workers Plan 2026 World Cup Trip to US, Canada, Mexico

LONDON — About 9,000 sex workers from Europe are planning to travel to the United States, Canada, and Mexico for the 2026 FIFA World Cup as millions of tourists are expected to visit North America, according to a survey conducted by the European erotic website Erobella.

The survey, released on June 10, 2026, found that more than two per cent (9,000) of respondents, who are sex workers, said they already planned to make the journey for the tournament, while over 22,000 others said they were considering it. “We asked hundreds of sex workers advertising on Erobella across the United Kingdom (UK) and Germany whether they’re heading to the North American World Cup. 2% told us they’re going,” the platform wrote. “Another 5% are considering it. For many, the harder question isn’t whether they want to go; it’s whether they’ll be allowed across the US border at all,” the platform added.

The study found that more than 1,100 sex workers are planning the North American trip for the World Cup from the United Kingdom and Germany alone. The survey covered the UK and Germany only, which Erobella said are high-end countries whose workers can readily afford the trip. In the UK, 634 reported plans were in place for the journey, while 1,585 were in a state of consideration. For Germany, 515 sex workers said they were going, while another 1,289 were weighing their options.

Sex work is traditionally associated with major tournaments such as the World Cup, creating a huge revenue stream. Erobella reported that some sex workers in the U.S. charge up to $800 for an hour session** and up to **$10,000 for a full day. Recall that the Peoples Gazette exclusively reported during the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco that sex workers charged visiting football fans between 300 Moroccan dirham (N48,000) and 1,500 dirham (N240,000).

While the survey highlights significant travel interest, the biggest obstacle for many European sex workers may not be distance or cost, but US immigration law. Under Section 1182(a)(2)(D) of the US Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) , entry into the United States can be denied to any person who has engaged in prostitution within the past ten years — regardless of whether the activity was legal in the country where it occurred and even if the person has no intention of working while on US soil. The law applies even to those who only wish to attend matches as fans, without any plans to engage in sex work during their stay. The provision renders inadmissible any alien who “is coming to the United States solely, principally, or incidentally to engage in prostitution, or has engaged in prostitution within 10 years of the date of application for a visa, admission, or adjustment of status.” Crucially, the mere suspicion of a border agent can be legally sufficient to deny entry. According to the Code of Federal Regulations (22 CFR §40.24(b)) , a finding that an alien has “engaged” in prostitution must be based on “elements of continuity and regularity, indicating a pattern of behavior or deliberate course of conduct entered into primarily for financial gain” — but border agents have broad discretion in making this determination.

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The threat of denial is not merely theoretical. Erobella’s investigation documented real cases of sex workers from Canada — a country whose citizens normally enjoy visa-free travel to the US — being subjected to intense border scrutiny and long-term bans. Lucy Huxley, a Canadian escort, told Erobella she was pulled for secondary inspection, interrogated for hours, had her phone and baggage searched, and was ultimately expelled from the United States and issued a ban. Another Canadian erotic performer, Milo Miles, reportedly was detained for over eight hours by US border agents before being slapped with a ten-year entry ban. According to Huxley, US authorities use sophisticated methods to identify suspected sex workers, including escort directories and adult advertising platforms, arrest records and law enforcement databases, and facial recognition technology to match travelers with online profiles. Crucially, these methods require no proof of intent to work in the US — a simple suspicion by a border agent is legally sufficient to deny entry.

While the Erobella survey focuses on independent sex workers traveling by choice, authorities across all three host nations have issued stark warnings about a related but distinct threat: human trafficking. Officials say criminal networks are actively attempting to exploit the World Cup’s massive influx of tourists to traffic victims into forced labor and sexual exploitation. Canada’s anti-money-laundering agency (FINTRAC) issued a bulletin urging companies to monitor labor-intensive sectors, including hospitality, construction, cleaning, and security. The agency warned that the sudden surge in demand “may create opportunities for traffickers to exploit vulnerable individuals through deceptive, coercive, or exploitative recruitment” — even within seemingly legitimate subcontracting or temporary staffing setups.

In the United States, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) appealed to financial institutions in host cities to remain vigilant for transactions tied to sex and labor trafficking, noting that perpetrators are eager to “exploit the surge in economic activity” brought by millions of visitors. FinCEN Director Andrea Gacki stated: “Financial institutions are essential partners in the fight to counter human trafficking. Timely reporting on suspicious activity potentially connected to human trafficking, regardless of threshold, is crucial in helping law enforcement aid possible victims and prosecute their traffickers.” FinCEN specifically requested that financial institutions filing Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) on potential trafficking related to the World Cup include the key term “FIN-2026-HTWORLDCUP” and select “SAR Field 38(h) (human trafficking).”

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Mexico has also seen a proliferation of online scams. Federal security officials and Mexico City’s cyber police have flagged false promises of immediate hiring, high salaries, and fully paid travel expenses sweeping across social media, fraudulent websites, and messaging apps like WhatsApp. Mexican authorities warned that job-seekers are regularly being conned into paying bogus advance fees for uniforms, visas, or training, and that criminal networks may use employment fronts in bars, nightclubs, and escort services to mask illicit operations.

The 2026 FIFA World Cup poses an unprecedented human trafficking risk across North America due to its extraordinary scale, duration, and geographic spread. Unlike the Super Bowl, a single-day event concentrated in one metro area, the World Cup spans more than five weeks across three nations with 104 matches and an estimated 6.5 million visitors. Nayely Sánchez Estrada, a senior official with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, explained the dynamic: “In general, when it comes to human trafficking, every time there is a major sporting event — whether a World Cup or the Olympics — the number of people and actions that move and converge is impressive, and that is why risks increase.” Human traffickers and organized crime groups often exploit major sporting events as opportunities to make quick money because the massive influx of visitors, temporary workers, and strained infrastructure creates perfect conditions for traffickers to operate while being largely undetected.

Large-scale sporting events have historically been accompanied by spikes in human trafficking and sexual exploitation. During the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, local charity data showed that child sex cases surged dramatically, with an estimated 500,000 underage girls becoming victims of sexual exploitation around the tournament. Ahead of the 2014 World Cup, Brazil’s Labor Ministry (MTE) also reported widespread issues in tournament-related infrastructure projects, including false recruitment, unpaid overtime, and excessive workloads. Many impoverished migrants and unemployed workers were lured by promises of “high-paying jobs” and “room and board,” only to find themselves trapped in exploitative conditions. The 2026 World Cup is the first to be hosted across three nations simultaneously, creating unprecedented coordination challenges for law enforcement.

The threat of fraudulent recruitment has become so pervasive that it has even targeted the tournament’s organizing body directly. Last month, a FIFA employment recruiter took to LinkedIn to warn applicants that scammers were using her name and photograph to run a fraudulent recruitment process and defraud candidates. In response, FIFA’s official World Cup recruitment channels issued a public clarification, stating that legitimate communications are conducted only through official avenues. The organization emphasized that it never requests payment, financial information, or conducts interviews over messaging apps like WhatsApp or Telegram. A FIFA spokesperson told the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) : “A key focus is encouraging everyone involved to recognize and report suspicious activity — whether related to potential human trafficking or individuals in restricted areas without authorization.” Across North America, sweeping awareness campaigns are now underway to train frontline workers in the hospitality, transportation, and entertainment sectors to spot the signs of exploitation.

FinCEN has identified specific transactional and behavioral red flags that may indicate human trafficking activity during the World Cup. These include unusually large local travel expenses in short timeframes near host cities; accounts lacking transactions for essential needs such as groceries, rent, and utilities — indicating a trafficker’s financial control over a victim; business accounts with absent or abnormally low payroll expenditures; frequent peer-to-peer transfers from unrelated accounts with vague payment descriptions; payments for online escort advertisements made by a single person on behalf of multiple individuals; clusters of hotel charges coinciding with frequent late‑night or early‑morning cash withdrawals; and excessive rideshare charges by the same person, as victims are sometimes forced to have sex up to 20 times per day. The Thomson Reuters Institute notes that understanding human trafficking as a business model depends on the recruitment of vulnerable people and access to money flows. These aspects of the business are also where detection can occur.

9,000 European Sex Workers Plan 2026 World Cup Trip to US, Canada, Mexico