Human trafficking organizations in Detroit find a way to continue mission during pandemic. … According to statistics collected by the Polaris Project, the National Human Trafficking Hotline identified 383 cases of human trafficking involving 863 victims in Michigan in 2018.
Michigan Ranked #2 In The United States For Human Trafficking. Human trafficking in Michigan has skyrocketed over the past decade. Now more than ever people need to be on the lookout to keep their family safe. Michigan is ranked #2 in the country for human trafficking, right behind Nevada.
1 (888) 373-7888 Human Trafficking Hot-line number
BEAUMONT, Texas — Two teenaged girls are now free from being “commercially sexually exploited” thanks to a tip from the National Human Trafficking Hotline.
Beaumont Police say they received that life-saving tip on March 1. The tip called into the hotline said that two 16 year old girls were being sexually exploited, Beaumont Police said in a news release.
An investigation helped detectives identify the girls and led them to websites used for sexual exploitation, police said.
The girls were rescued from a home in Groves two days later on March 3. A joint investigation with BPD, Nederland Police and Groves Police led to the arrest of Jake Knight Jones, 39, of Port Arthur.
Police tell 12News Jones was arrested Monday by the Jefferson County Warrant Division and the U.S. Marshall Service for two counts of trafficking a person under the age of 18.
Jones is in the Jefferson County Jail on a $1 million bond.
“We would like to thank the anonymous citizen who had the courage to submit the information they had about this crime to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, which ultimately led to the recovery of two minors and the arrest of a trafficker,” Beaumont Police Officer Haley Morrow said.
This is one of thousands of trafficking incidents happening across the state and across Southeast Texas.
The Texas Attorney General estimates that there are 234,000 victims of trafficking at any given time. 79,000 victims are sex trafficking in Texas are youth. And officials say that Southeast Texas is a hotspot for this heinous crime that is on the rise.
“We have people in our community that are considered professionals, that are former law enforcement officers, that have been arrested (for trafficking),” he said.
In June 2020, two teenage girls were rescued at the Executive Inn off I-10 in a human trafficking bust. Two suspects were arrested.
Four months later, a sting operation in Beaumont led to 21 people being arrested for human trafficking. The majority of those arrested were from around Southeast Texas — including two doctors.
Texas is also one of the largest border states and has a vast interstate system, making it easier for traffickers to flee.
But Jefferson County leaders said that will not stop them from doing their best to keep everyone safe.
“[If] there’s a victim in Southeast Texas right now who sees this air tonight, we want her to know that there are people who are willing to fight for you, who want to help and whose job it is to help,” Jefferson County Assistant District Attorney Kim Pipkin said in a 2019 interview.
1 (888) 373-7888 Please Call National Human Trafficking Hotline
BROKEN ARROW, Okla. – A Broken Arrow man is behind bars after he was arrested for allegedly distributing and soliciting child pornography and lewd proposals or acts to a child.
Christopher Edward Kuhn, 51, was booked into the Wagoner County Detention Center on suspicion of pornography, violation of the Oklahoma Computer Crimes Act, lewd or indecent proposals or acts to a child under the age of 16 and solicitation for child pornography, according to an Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation news release.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) forwarded a Yahoo cyber tip to OSBI’s Internet Crimes Against Children Unit (ICAC).
“Yahoo reported to NCMEC that a user with an Oklahoma IP address emailed numerous videos that depicted child sexual abuse. After a forensic evaluation of evidence, additional sexually graphic videos of children were located in Kuhn’s email account,” the news release states.
The Broken Arrow Tactical Team, Wagoner County Sheriff’s Office and OSBI ICAC agents executed a search warrant at Kuhn’s home and took the suspect into custody.
GREENVILLE, SC -Greenville County deputies said Friday that a man and woman had been arrested as a child sex crimes investigation continued.
Deputies said they first began investigating after a social media company reported a video that showed three young children, roughly 4-5 years old, performing sex acts on an adult.
The investigation soon led deputies to 22-year-old Brooke Schmitz and 23-year-old Donovan Williams.
“Since then, Investigators have learned that the pair have committed criminal sexual conduct on multiple children by way of offering child homecare services to parents in need of a babysitter,” said Lt. Ryan Flood in a news release. “Investigators have been able to identify and make contact with some of the victim’s parents thus far to notify them of their findings.”
Deputies said they believe these crime are connected to the child homecare service and fear there may be more victims.
Both suspects are charged with criminal sexual conduct with a minor under age 11, first degree.
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An 85-year-old former doctor has been convicted on sex abuse and child porn charges.
Shelby County District Attorney Jill Lee said Ruepert Don Bryan, a former ear, nose and throat physician in Alabaster, was convicted Wednesday after a three-day trial on charges of first-degree sex abuse and three counts of producing child pornography.
Shelby County sheriff’s officials in June 2016 issued a plea for information upon release photos of a then-unidentified man, saying he was a suspect “in a crime that would shock any member of our community.” “If this person is still alive, he is a threat to our communities,” the sheriff’s office stated in a release on that day.
Authorities later said Bryan, who lived in Calera at the time of his arrest, was developed as a suspect after a member of the community came forward with “an abandoned videotape.”
According to court records in the case, the videotape contained images of at least one juvenile engaging in sexual activity. The video was produced sometime in 2002. Bryan was also accused of sexually abusing at least one juvenile between May and August 2003, his arrest warrant stated.
During trial, Lee said, prosecutors presented evidence that included numerous recordings Bryan made of his child sexual abuse. “The jury also heard from multiple witnesses who were victimized by Bryan when they were children before the allegations came to light and he was brought to justice,’’ Lee said.
Sheriff’s investigators Robert Rodriguez and Heather Parramore led the investigation. Assistant district attorneys Daniel McBrayer and Ben Fuller prosecuted the case.
“We’re grateful for the victims who stepped forward to share their stories of abuse. It’s only through them that this day has finally arrived,’’ McBrayer said. “We also appreciate the members of the public who answered the sheriff’s call to help identify this abuser who was only a face on a video when the investigation first began.”
PORTLAND, Ore. – A 32-year-old is facing rape, sexual assault, kidnapping and several other charges as the suspect in a human trafficking investigation in Portland, and investigators say there could be other victims in the case.
Police said the incident took place over several hours on a day in late February. At one point, the survivor of the crimes managed to escape and call 911.
The suspect managed to elude police when they were responding to the call.
Investigators with the Portland Police Bureau’s Human Trafficking Unit identified Johnel Johnson, 32, as a suspect in the case. They presented information to a grand jury, and Johnson was indicted on numerous charges.
On March 1, law enforcement served search and arrest warrants in east Portland and took Johnson into custody. He was booked into the Multnomah County Jail on the following charges:
1 count of Strangulation 3 counts of Kidnap I 3 counts of Rape 1 1 count of Sodomy 1 1 count of Sex Abuse I 4 counts of Robbery I 2 counts of Unlawful Use of a Weapon 1 count of Felon in Possession of a Firearm 2 counts of Promoting Prostitution 2 counts of Compelling Prostitution Investigators say they linked Johnson to another person impacted by sexual abuse, and they presented additional evidence to the grand jury. He was indicted on more charges.
Investigators say there could be other people who have not yet reported incidents related to Johnson. If you have any helpful information, police ask that you contact Detective Kyffin Marcum at 503-823-0462 or Detective Scott McCollister 503-823-0424.
The coronavirus pandemic has made minors and immigrants increasingly vulnerable to human trafficking, experts warned Thursday in an online panel discussion organized by the Inter-American Development Bank.
“Boys and girls are at serious risk of becoming victims of trafficking via the Internet. They make up 31 percent of all victims recruited via social media and 24 percent of victims recruited through classified ads,” said Jessica Bedoya, the IDB’s chief of staff and executive advisor of the office of the presidency.
She said during her participation in the “Second Technical Dialogue on Trafficking in Persons in Latin America and the Caribbean,” a virtual gathering that brought together officials and experts from Colombia, the United States, Israel, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and other countries, that in most regions of the world immigrants “account for a high percentage of the victims” of that crime.
“Traffickers take advantage of their economic vulnerability, the language barriers, their irregular immigration status and, in the case of boys, girls and adolescents, the absence of caregivers,” Bedoya said.
“All of this has become more acute in the context of Covid-19,” she added.
The leader of the anti-human trafficking and migrant smuggling team of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Ilias Chatzis, said an increasing number of children are being targeted by the dark web of sex trafficking and expressed concern about the effect of the pandemic-triggered confinement measures.
He added that online technologies are becoming a part of children’s daily lives and that parents will find it very difficult to fully monitor their access to the Internet.
It is no longer the case that there is just one computer at home in the living room, according to that expert, who noted that minors increasingly have access to the Internet via mobile phones.
The head of the prevention area at the General Directorate of Cybernetic Research and Technological Operations of Mexico City’s Citizen Security Secretariat, Elizabeth Melchor, advised parents, caregivers and teachers to maintain “close communication” with minors and be attentive to the conversations they have and the information they share on social media.
She said an additional problem is that many parents and guardians “do not know how to use technology.”
On the relationship between migration and human trafficking, the director of the Migracion Colombia border-control agency, Juan Francisco Espinosa, referred specifically to immigration from Venezuela, a pressing matter considering that more than 1.7 million Venezuelans have fled the economic and political crisis in their homeland and relocated to Colombia.
“This whole pandemic process and the difficult situation in Venezuela have caused the migration (situation) to deteriorate. In other words, when we look at migration eight years ago, five years ago, four years ago, two years ago and today,” there is an increasing emphasis on the cross-border movement of people in situations of vulnerability, he said.
“A person in a vulnerable condition, a person who is escaping from a reality with their family and who is responsible for feeding their family, is more likely to fall victim to criminal networks,” Espinosa said.
He also noted that it is a challenge to protect these people and to effectively leverage technology for that purpose.
Agueda Marin, a senior regional specialist in migrant assistance and protection at the International Organization for Migration, said for her part that the fight against trafficking should not exclusively focus on capital cities but also include border and rural areas and take into account indigenous communities. EFE-EPA
SEBRING, Ohio – Bond was set at $20,000 for a Sebring man who is facing child pornography charges.
Cameron Schmid, 18, had his arraignment in Mahoning County Court #3 on Thursday.
He’s facing charges of pandering obscenity involving a minor or impaired person after police say they found child pornography in his home.
According to Sebring police, officers were alerted in September to Schmid’s E. Oregon Avenue home after getting information from the Ohio Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.
Items were seized from the home and turned over to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation for analysis.
If Schmid posts bond, he will be on electric monitoring.
DALLAS-FORT WORTH — Thirty-one North Texas children are now safe following the month-long “Operation Missing in the Metroplex,” the Department of Justice announced Wednesday.
Federal agencies partnered with Arlington, Dallas, Fort Worth and Grand Prairie police departments to find the missing minors, some of whom had ties to sex trafficking.
The U.S Marshals and Homeland Security Investigations led the operation.
“To observe law enforcement partnerships and community concerns culminate into such a successful recovery outcome is rewarding,” said Acting U.S. Marshal Quintella Downs-Bradshaw. “Victims should know they are not forgotten, there is hope and a way to return home.”
At least seven of the 31 children were girls rescued from sex trafficking. One was just 13 years old. Two others were 15, three were 16, and one was 17. At least two were found with ties to prostitution.
The other 24 children recovered are now with friends, relatives or with legal guardians and have been removed from the missing children databases.
The Department of Justice says it records more than 420,000 reports of missing children each year.
If your child is missing, the DOJ says to call local law enforcement immediately and give them as detailed a description as you possibly can. Then consider calling the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST.
DECATUR, Ill. — A Decatur man will spend nearly three decades in prison for the distribution and possession of child pornography.
Christopher Bailey, 40, was sentenced to 324 months, or 27 years, in federal prison on these charges.
In addition, he will remain on federal supervised release for 15 years after his prison sentence.
Bailey will also have to register as a sex offender.
According to the Department of Justice, Bailey has engaged in a pattern of sexual abuse based on his prior conviction in California in 2008 for abusing two children — ages 5 and 6 — and continuing the sexual abuse of children aged 5 and 8.
In October 2020, Bailey pleaded guilty to two counts of distribution of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography.
He has been in the custody of the U.S. Marshals service since his July 2020 arrest.
The charges were investigated by:
Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Decatur Police Department Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force led by the Illinois Attorney General’s Office
PENDER COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — Another man has been arrested in connection to a human trafficking investigation in Pender County.
Demond Ca’Quan Conyers is charged with one count of human trafficking, two counts of prostitution, and conspiracy to commit human trafficking.
According to an arrest warrant, the crimes happened between June 1-26, 2020.
The warrant states Conyers reportedly used the social media website “skipthegames.com” to arrange meetings between the victim and several men for prostitution and required the victim to bring in a certain amount of money from customers.
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