A Local 6 News investigation found that racy ads for escort services that were removed from the Yellow Pages during a Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation years ago are back in the latest editions.

In 1996, The MBI persuaded advertisers to pull escort service ads from phone books during an effort to stamp out illegal vice in Central Florida.

A MBI agent posing as an escort operator talked to a Sprint phone book sales representative during the 1996 investigation.

"I'm selling sex," a MBI officer can be heard saying on an video tape obtained by Local 6 News. "Full service denotes that customers when they read that I'm a full service. I deliver the product. I deliver the girl , I deliver the sex to them that's my focus."

As the MBI hidden camera rolled, the Sprint sales woman even offered a tip on avoiding arrest, according to the report.

"If somebody says on the telephone 'I want sex,' you have to say that's not part of the service," she is heard saying.

Two weeks later, MBI met with Sprint executives and persuaded them and BellSouth to drop all escort ads, Local 6 News reported.

MBI also dropped its investigation.

"We think this is going to cripple the ability of escort services to remain in Central Florida," MBI spokesman Joe Cocchiarella said in 1996.

Since then, MBI claims 250 escort services have shut down.

"An awful lot of that had to do with the fact that the advertising mediums in this area agreed with us that escort services were essentially call girl operations," MBI Director Bill Lutz said.

In 1998, Local 6 News reported that escorts ads again showed up in Sprint's entertainer's section.

MBI then warned Sprint that it was again profiting from prostitution and threatened to talk to Walt Disney World about it, Local 6 News reported.

Pipitone asked, "Why?"

Local 6 News obtained a tape of another Sprint salesman from 1998;

"As you know I guess the folks at Disney has a lot of power and they can exert a lot of pressure and they have done so," a salesman is heard saying on a tape obtained by Local 6 News.

Sprint said that no other police agency in America has insisted on escort ads being pulled.

"We try and keep vice, all kinds of vice businesses out of our community. we have a world-class reputation as a family oriented, tourist-oriented destination," Lutz said.

In a failed attempt to withhold these videotapes from Local 6 News, Lutz argued that the companies could still face criminal prosecution.

Pipitone asked, "And the investigation is still open?"

"We don't always close investigations if there's going to be the potential that people might begin accepting ads from illegal services," Lutz said.

Pipitone asked, "So, it hangs over their head?" "I don't say that," Lutz answered.

"I'm not going to discuss any open, potential investigations."

The agency claims that some of the millions spent of vice enforcement over the years have made Central Florida "devoid of mainstream advertising of escort services," according to the Local 6 News report.

However, the latest edition of the Sprint Yellow Pages looks very similar to the escorts section in the 1996 phone book, Local 6 News reported.

One advertisement called Eye Candy "promises good times and pure ecstasy with personal entertainment in your home or hotel."

Sprint and Bell South said they will cooperate with MBI but declined further comment.

MBI said that they never threatened to prosecute the phone companies for aiding and abetting prostitution based on the videotapes.

However, they tried to claim the tapes were part of an on-going investigation, Pipitone reported.

Local 6 News expects some developments soon from MBI on the escort service front. Watch for updates on this story.