WEARING nothing but a white thong and bejewelled pink bikini top, a sex worker strolls into a highway petrol station on her lunch break.

Outside, dozens more women parade the streets half-naked in underwear and bikinis, trying to catch the attention of the 300 rich businessmen looking to buy their services each day.

It's a common sight here on The Blade, an area of North Seattle that has become an open sex market - just minutes from the offices of tech firms like Apple and Amazon.

Locals say the Aurora Avenue strip, also known as ‘The Blade,’ has become a magnet for prostitutes, pimps, gangs and 'Johns' - the slang term for people who buy sex from sex workers - since the pandemic.

But the problem had got even worse in the past year.

On average, 300 people buy sex there every day, and

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