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
• Deploying a bait car to catch an auto thief
• 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 herhttp://www.kesq.com/Global/story.asp?S=1878103&nav=9qrxNETb

Law-enforcement may have to be careful not to provoke the commission of a crime by someone who would not normally be inclined to do so. In common law jurisdictions, the defendant may invoke the defense of entrapment.

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.

Occasionally, a sting operation is kept secret from other associates. Additionally, sting operations may be a component of a conspiracy.

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