Police have caught a potential child pimp by using the fake profile of a 16-year-old youth on a gay chat site, the AD reported on Tuesday.

The 54-year-old man was arrested after offering the youngster, in reality a police officer, a place to work and clients in return for 50% of his earnings.

The public prosecution office wants to increase the use of fake profiles – officers posing as children and young teenagers – to trap people traffickers, spokesman Warner ten Kate told EO programme Jojanneke uit de Prostitutie, which is featuring the sting operation.

‘The method is born of frustration,’ Ten Kate said. ‘’We see so much is happening on the internet – contacts between punters and minors and the people traffickers and pimps who are facilitating this. It’s new world and that means new methods.’

Ten Kate said decoys had been used in vice cases before but never by Dutch police to entrap pimps and people traffickers.

The case is meant as a test of the legality of entrapment as a way of catching child pimps. ‘We trust that the judge will back us. If not, then an important tool will be left unused,’ police spokeswoman Daphne van der Zwan said.

The police investigation is ongoing.