Sting operation
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In law enforcement a sting operation is an operation designed to catch a person committing a crime, by means of deception. A typical sting will have a law-enforcement officer or cooperative member of the public play a role as criminal partner or potential victim and go along with a suspect's actions to gather evidence of the suspect's wrongdoing.
Examples:
- purchasing illegal drugs to catch a supplier
- posing as a client to catch a prostitute or pimp / escort agency
- posing as a prostitute to catch a client
- posing as someone who likes child pornography to catch a supplier
- posing as a supplier of child pornography to lure a pedophile
- posing as a child in a chat room to lure a pedophile
- police arranging someone under the legal drinking age to ask an adult to buy alcoholic beverage for him or her (May 2004, Indio, California [1] (http://www.kesq.com/Global/story.asp?S=1878103&nav=9qrxNETb))
Law-enforcement may have to be careful not to provoke the crime. In common law jurisdictions, the defendant may invoke the defense of entrapment.
A related term is agent provocateur.
A related matter is parking a car as a honey trap for car thieves, etc.
In computing, a honeypot can be used to gain information about a potential cracker.