Would-be pimp slapped down by Tijuana police

Police officers chased down and arrested a man on a downtown Tijuana street on Monday, February 18, after a young prostitute told them a customer had beaten and robbed her at a nearby hotel.

In a news release following the incident, Tijuana police said they had "apprehended an exploiter of women and helped one of his victims."

The 19-year-old woman, said police, had been held against her will at a Zona Norte hotel, where a customer had beaten her and robbed her of about $30 — 300 in pesos and $5 in U.S. currency. (The Zona Norte is Tijuana's infamous red-light district.)

The woman's attacker, police said, used a gun and a knife to force her to have sex with him, then took her money and told her that in the future she had to pay him $200 every 15 days if she wanted to continue her work as a prostitute.

The woman managed to escape and reported the crime to officers patrolling nearby, police said. Officers chased the suspect down First Street to Avenida Constitución after he fled from the hotel where the alleged assault occurred, the Tijuana daily El Mexicano reported.

When officers took the suspect before a municipal judge, five other women who work as prostitutes showed up to report that they, too, had been victims of the same man under similar circumstances.

Arrested was Jorge Pineda Ibarra, 38, who was later turned over to investigators for the district attorney's office.