What’s In Your Backyard? Human Trafficking is Modern Day Slavery

If you haven’t seen the movie, ‘The Sound of Freedom’ starring Jim Caviezel, you must slide over to the Royal Cinema on East Main and check it out. Like most people, I am familiar with the term human trafficking but don’t know all that it entails. Believe it or not, we have human trafficking right here in our own backyard in Warren County. Essentially, it’s everywhere.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, over twenty million people worldwide are victims of human trafficking. “Human trafficking is a form of slavery involving the illegal smuggling and trading of people for forced labor or sexual exploitation. It is estimated that somewhere between 14,500 and 17,500 individuals are trafficked in the United States each year. Interestingly, as of 2021, Virginia was ranked 6th in the nation for active human trafficking cases.

Most of our perceptions are gleaned from movies like the ‘The Sound of Freedom’ or the ‘Taken’ trilogy starring Liam Neeson. The movie, ‘Taken’ was the first to portray international human sex trafficking – but ‘sex trafficking’ is only a portion of the overall human trafficking problem.

I called a friend in the FBI, Agent Cindy Hazel, who works for the bureau in Tampa, Florida. Tampa is one of the major human trafficking spots in the United States. She provided a few insights into some of their cases but added, “Let me provide an email introduction to a Sheriff in your area that taught an introductory human trafficking course when I first joined the FBI.

We still coordinate with him on occasion.” So, Agent Hazel put me in contact with the Sheriff in Warren County. The Sheriff’s Department is winning several awards lately, so I stopped by to see what I could learn. The deputies pointed me down the hall to the Sheriff’s office, saying, “Go talk to Sheriff Butler; he used to infiltrate those networks. He’ll tell you all you want to know.”

Interestingly, after chatting with Sheriff Mark Butler about his previous life as an undercover agent infiltrating human trafficking networks, I realized his stories could easily be expanded into a novel. However, for brevity, I’ve condensed this for you.

“Potential victims of human trafficking can be found everywhere and especially on social media. Our children are getting proficient with social media at a very young age and are extremely vulnerable. This creates more and more potential victims. When you use social media as a great recruiting tool, a trafficker can patiently wait under the cover of false names, profiles, and accounts. They groom the victim and wait till the perfect time and place to overtake their prey.”

Sheriff Butler states, “The first thing to know is the difference between smuggling and trafficking. Not everyone smuggled is trafficked, but everyone trafficked is smuggled at some point. If you can’t find a victim, you only have smuggling. [People may be paying to be smuggled across borders]. If you do have a victim, the next question is, will the victim confront the trafficker in a court of law? If not, you have no case.”

“Most Law Enforcement has never been trained to identify suspicions of trafficking. I have spent a career tracking, teaching, arresting, and combatting Human Trafficking. Involuntary servitude is one of the best foundations for Human Trafficking. We have had that right here in Warren County. If you ever see a person in the workforce whose green card, passport, or license is being held by another person – like their supervisor – that’s a red flag. Usually, these people work all day in the back of a shop or business and take their meals inside. The only time you see them is when they are walking from their ‘stash house’ to their place of work. Often, they are driven to and from work and enter from the back. Essentially, those individuals have been smuggled in and are being held in servitude until they work off their ‘debt.’”

Example of a local alleged human smuggling shop in Front Royal that closed when allegations surfaced; photo by Sheriff Mark Butler.

Sheriff Butler went on to say, “Potential victims of human trafficking can be found everywhere and especially on social media. Our children are getting proficient with social media at a very young age and are extremely vulnerable. This creates more and more potential victims. When you use social media as a great recruiting tool, a trafficker can patiently wait under the cover of false names, profiles, and accounts. They groom the victim and wait till the perfect time and place to overtake their prey.”

Every Nationality has its own criminal groups, and many have more than one. A few that come to mind are Triads, Yakuza, MS-13, 18 St, El EME, and so on. With our Nation’s Borders being overrun each day, there is no way U.S. Customs and Homeland Security has any chance to slow down this criminal activity. We as a community must be vigilant and aware of the ‘tell-tale’ signs.
Human trafficking is real, and it’s often a component of other criminal operations, including terrorism.

The rat lines from the ‘Americas’ initially used by narco-traffickers are used for human trafficking. Human trafficking is the second most profitable crime, next to drug trafficking.

Trafficking in the United States comes from our southern and northern borders (Canada). Both borders are very porous, and the bad guys are very organized, including an array of strategically placed stash houses and drivers in the U.S. When we bust a human trafficking ring or smuggling operation, we often find fraudulent documents, drug trafficking links, stolen goods, and other counterfeit goods that offer quite a few clues about their journey. Money laundering is another part that usually surfaces during an investigation.”

As our country attempts to survive radical societal changes, we must be better trained to protect our families and communities. Unfortunately, most human trafficking operates under the cover of our day-to-day lives and is never found.

What’s in your Back Yard?