Pantsuits and Lawsuits with Attorneys General Kris Mayes and Dana Nessel

Human Trafficking: Beyond the Headlines

• Attorneys General Kris Mayes & Dana Nessel • Season 1 • Episode 14

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Award-winning prosecutor Melissa Palepu takes us beyond the headlines to reveal the unsettling reality of human trafficking in America. This eye-opening conversation dismantles widespread misconceptions about what trafficking actually looks like and who it affects.

Forget what you think you know about human trafficking. The "white van abduction" scenario represents just 6% of cases. Instead, traffickers target vulnerable individuals through manipulation and false promises. Even more surprising? Labor trafficking—not sex trafficking—constitutes the largest category worldwide, hiding in plain sight in restaurants, farms, nail salons, and construction sites.

Palepu shares disturbing insights into how traffickers now target children through video games and social media platforms parents may not even recognize. With candid urgency, she emphasizes why open conversations with children about online dangers aren't optional—they're essential protection against predators who have adapted to the digital world.

Current political realities have created additional barriers to fighting trafficking effectively. Increased immigration enforcement has silenced many victims who fear deportation more than their exploiters. Meanwhile, high-profile cases like Epstein's become political footballs while actual victims are forgotten and trafficking networks continue operating with impunity.

For parents, educators, and concerned citizens alike, this episode provides crucial knowledge about trafficking's warning signs and how communities can respond. The prosecution of these cases faces enormous hurdles—from resource limitations to widespread misunderstanding of trafficking dynamics among judges and juries—yet remains essential to disrupting these criminal networks.

Join us to understand why human trafficking continues to flourish despite increased awareness, and what meaningful action looks like beyond hashtags and headlines. Subscribe now to hear more conversations that cut through misinformation and bring expert perspectives on the most pressing legal and social issues of our time.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

Hello and welcome back to Pantsuits and Lawsuits, your favorite place to learn about the latest about American law and ongoing litigation that might be of great interest to you.

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

Today we will be talking to some career prosecutors, or at least one career prosecutor from our department, about a crime that, quite frankly, gets a lot of airtime, yet remains largely misunderstood, and that is human trafficking.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

Human trafficking is pervasive. It's a global problem that generates between 150 to 250 billion dollars a year on the black market, and it exploits vulnerable populations by doing so.

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

Yeah, that's a huge number and to give it some context, you can sort of compare it to a couple of other big money-making enterprises. The NFL, for instance, makes about \20 billion dollars a year, and then Google, or its parent company, makes or is worth about 240 billion dollars a year. So human trafficking brings in a lot of illicit money and it's a huge, huge problem in this country.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

Yeah, it really is, and until and unless we all really stand united in the battle against human trafficking, this crime is just going to continue to grow, and so it's just so important that we devote sufficient resources to allow law enforcement to root out these criminal actors. You look at what's happening right now in terms of this discussion of, you know, the Epstein case and the president.

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

2024, Trump runs around the country and gets himself elected, in part, on the promise that he's going to release the Epstein files and he is going to disclose to the whole world all the bad guys who got on the Epstein plane and went to Jeffrey's Island in the Caribbean. And he's going to do it, right? He and Pam Bondi are going to release the files. And then Pam Bondi comes out and she says, "I've got it on my desk, I've got the files right here on my desk, right here. Here's the files," says Pam Bondi. And then, whoops, files don't get released. All of a sudden, they say it's not necessary to release the files. Wonder why that is.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

Yeah, and here they've diverted all these resources away from actual law enforcement. Whether it's to comb through these records and probably redact stuff that they don't want people to see, or whether it's having federal agents out on the streets of Washington D. C. right now, these are people that could actually be working on real human trafficking cases.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

And instead --

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

you know, yeah. They're being utilized for all kinds of crazy things where they are not needed and, frankly, don't have the experience to be doing that kind of work, oftentimes. So it's a, it's a disturbing situation all the way around, but if there's one thing that we know about the situation is that Donald Trump and Pam Bondi, they don't care at all about the victims.

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

No. Exactly.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

They have no interest in, in, you know, hearing from them and saying what would you like to see happen and how is this all impacting you? 'cause we know this is like a bandaid getting pulled off, you know, time and time again off of a significant wound and they're not consulted, and that that was the case with the original conviction, you know, nobody cared what they thought and still to this day it seems like their voices are not being heard.

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

No, I -- I totally agree with you, and I think that is one of the most disgusting parts of all of this is how the victims continue to be treated in this case.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

Yeah, and you know, I just want to contrast that to a fairly notable case that my office handled, which was the prosecution of Larry Nassar, and what we routinely did throughout the entirety of the case, which lasted a lot longer than just the prosecution of Larry Nassar, because there were many other defendants that were prosecuted, and then there was a lot involving the release of documents from Michigan State University that they refused to release until just recently. But we would call them in, we would have meetings with them, we would have discussions. We would always make sure that they knew what was happening before the general public knew. We never wanted them to find out about what was happening and something involving one of their cases by reading it in the news. And we wanted to have these discussions so that not just they knew why we were doing what they were doing, but that we were on the same page.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

And it was so important to have a victim-centered, trauma-informed approach where you're putting victims first, not last.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

And all I can say is, apparently Pam Bondi has never, ever heard of the victim-centered, trauma-informed approach, even though that is what most prosecutors, whether you're a Democrat or a Republican or a nonpartisan, that's the approach that all prosecutors should, you know, have as their North Star. It's so ridiculous that, as a result of the White House and Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice not releasing the files that they had promised to release for so long, who's the beneficiary of all this? Well, it's Maxwell, right, who is the one person who's behind bars, and just things seem to be going her way. It gets better and better for her in terms of the more that they try to be evasive about it, the more she gets. You know, transferred to, you know, a minimum security prison. And now I hear that she's getting work release, and all in an effort, I assume, just to shut her up because she knows a lot, and this is her reward for, you know, not blowing the whistle on what she knows about our president.

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

Obviously, the Congress, you know, ran out of town as soon as they could for the entire month of August to escape the Epstein scandal, and I guess they're coming back in september, right? And there's going to be a discharge petition to try to force the release of the Epstein files, which is bipartisan. I think that's going to be a really interesting to see that play out. And what -- the other thing that I'm kind of watching is, you know, I'm a, I'm a little bit of a, of a -- I don't want to say fangirl of some of the Manosphere podcasts, but you know I watch Theo Vaughn and Joe Rogan sometimes and they've kind of -- I think there's -- the light bulb has gone on for those guys in the Manosphere and they're like, "W wait a second, trump promised to release the Epstein files and he's not doing it and what is up with that?" And they're starting to question it on their very popular podcasts.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

It's interesting I've not yet heard this subject come up on my favorite show, "90 Day Fiance. So as of yet, I've not heard them discussing that. But I know it's just any minute now, probably on the very next episode.

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

It might, yeah, it might make it on. Once again, proving that you and I have very different tastes in podcasts.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

I'm really proud of the fact that my department has a Human Trafficking Commission that is housed within the Michigan Department of Attorney General, and my chair of that commission is going to be on with us in just a moment. Her name is Melissa Palapu and she worked at several county prosecutor's offices. She is an expert when it comes to criminal sexual conduct cases against adults, against children, and she's been handling some really interesting cases for us. She did get an award of the prosecutor of the year from the Department of Homeland Security, which I think is the first year that a state prosecutor and not a federal prosecutor was given that award. And we actually -- I'll give this away before it's publicly announced -- but she actually won a global award as well for her work on human trafficking that she's going to be presented with pretty soon, so I'm really excited to have her on. Hey, Melissa, how are you? AG Chris Mayes of the Great State of Arizona.

Melissa Palepu:

I'm good. How are you?

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

It's great to meet you, too. Thank you so much for being on with us, and AG Nessel was just singing your praises and talking about amazing work, and we're going to dive into the amazing work that you have been doing in Michigan. We also have a human trafficking and sex trafficking effort here at the AG's office in Arizona. It's just such an incredibly important topic and timely topic today.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

Tell us, Melissa, a little bit. I think that there are a lot of misperceptions about human trafficking and what human trafficking really is. Obviously, as AG Mayes and I were just discussing before you came on, of course everyone is talking about the Jeffrey Epstein case and the Epstein files and whatever connection there is to Donald Trump himself. But that's not always what human trafficking looks like and, in fact, it might not even be what trafficking looks like most of the time. Can you sort of disabuse, I guess, us of whatever false notions we might have about what it is and what it isn't?

Melissa Palepu:

Yes, absolutely. So there are so many myths that are out there regarding human trafficking. I feel like when you say human trafficking to the public, they mostly will think of two concepts. So they mostly will think of a white van driving through a neighborhood and abducting somebody. But the actual truth of it is that only 6% of traffickers even report that they were abducted in any form. So that's really just not the most common type at all.

Melissa Palepu:

The other thing that people think about often when they're thinking of human trafficking is they think of the shipping containers filled with people or people being smuggled in. But that's not actually human trafficking. That's an entirely different crime called human smuggling. So but people will get those confused. And when they're thinking of the smuggling, they're kind of forgetting that oftentimes, smuggling will go hand-in-hand also with human trafficking. So what will happen is the person -- the people will get smuggled in

Melissa Palepu:

The other thing that people often will think about when you say human trafficking, the first thing people will think about is commercial sex, and they will miss an entire -- the largest part of human trafficking is actually not even commercial sex, it's labor trafficking. So what labor trafficking is, just to give a general sense to it, is it's just when somebody's been forced to provide labor or services. W e're talking about, like, actual work, and so, oftentimes, they're forced into these situations by forced fraud and coercion. But they're in these situations where they might be getting some pay, but it's little to no pay. The work conditions are always -- they're terrible, they're overworked, they don't get breaks, they have these very long hours. Sometimes they're required to live on site or be very close. They get housed by the company and so they're in these trailers, multiple people crammed in together in trailers. They don't have adequate housing at all. So that's really the most prevalent form of human trafficking worldwide, and that's including in the United States.

Melissa Palepu:

Excuse me, labor trafficking can be found in places, really anywhere, but most prevalently, they're found in, like, illicit massage parlors. You find them in nail salons, restaurants, the construction industry, farming, factory work. All of those are really -- they draw in people who are going to be trafficked and there's not a lot of oversight in those as well, and so it's easy to house. When you have a farm community, you can put the trailers in the back of the property. Nobody really notices them. And it also really preys upon the most vulnerable of individuals which, oftentimes, are immigrants. And so they come in and they're unaccounted and people aren't paying attention to them.

Melissa Palepu:

So when we're thinking about human trafficking, those are the biggest myths that I've really encountered. One is that just that lack of recognition of labor trafficking, just thinking about commercial sex trafficking, and then that white van scenario. I always tell people just, you know, always, of course, be teaching your children about stranger danger, but that is really not where you should be focusing all of your attention. You need to be focusing on how traffickers are going to get into the communities and what they're doing to get people's attention.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

Melissa, I have a question and a concern, and that has to do with, of course, the way that the Department of Homeland Security has been operating, and I know that in the past we've looked to them, and also to the FBI, to be partners with us. You know, most human trafficking it's not contained just within one state. The traffickers and those who are being trafficked move from state to state, and that's why we need the federal authorities to assist us. But I think it seems like people are really afraid of DHS now and in the past you know when DHS would be cooperative and treat victims like victims and again to get their cooperation, to give them the special visas that they're entitled to as victims of human trafficking, that instead they're just moving to deport everyone and anyone that they can possibly find. So how do you see this impacting your work, and has it made it more difficult because of this emphasis on deporting people who truly are crime victims?

Melissa Palepu:

So I will say that we used to have a great working relationship and to some respects, you know, I still believe the people we have been working with still very much care about human trafficking and fighting human trafficking. But it is really difficult to tell our victims to come forward and that we will help you when they're from the immigrant population, because there's just -- we can offer no guarantees. I used to feel confident in being able to tell them, you know, like, don't worry, we will work with you. There's all these visas out there that we can help you get. You know, there's services that we can get you into, and now, with funding cuts, those services are really falling aside. Legal services are falling aside and those visas are becoming very difficult to even obtain. But the first problem is even getting them to step out right? Because they're so afraid that if they just come forward at all and say anything bad about their employer or about their situation, that they're immediately going to be deported or that their family is going to be targeted for deportation.

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

I mean, the fact is, they might be immediately deported. I mean, that's the problem, right? Is the Trump administration right now is deporting anyone and everyone, no matter what, you know. If they are not here lawfully, or even if they are here lawfully in some cases, and so you know why wouldn't a person be, you know, afraid to come forward?

Melissa Palepu:

Yeah, I agree, and I just I can't offer them any more support and the same things that I used to be able to tell them I'm never comfortable telling them anymore because there's just -- I can offer no guarantees. So then we're no longer protecting and helping our victims, we're actually putting them more into harm's way or more uncertainty, and so that has hindered our ability to be able to have people come forward so that we can prosecute traffickers, and it allows traffickers to run rampant because they know that there is nobody who's going to come forward and that there's nobody who can prosecute.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

So not only of course are they not doing anything to stem the tide of human trafficking, they're enabling it and allowing it to proliferate.

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

In your experience, what have you found to be the key to stopping this? And then what you said about, you know, immigrants often being the victims of this. That is so true here in Arizona. We're right on the border.

Melissa Palepu:

So I think one of the best ways to really combat human trafficking is in education, and I think you have to start that education early and it has to be often. So I don't think the public is equipped to identify human trafficking if they're not educated on human trafficking and, honestly, a lot of times traffickers will take advantage of those vulnerabilities and that lack of education. So, especially when it comes to our youth, our youth get targeted by individuals that they believe they know and I say " in quotations because they don't really know these individuals but they are getting at our children through online means and the means change so rapidly and they always go beyond me. I always feel like the older I get, the less I know about what kids are actually on in the technology. But they are using social media apps and not ones that we, like, use. Like they're not talking about Facebook and snap is kind of moving along out of the way as well. They have new things that are always evolving. They're talking to kids in video games. In fact, there was, there's this horse game that my child plays on and it's just -- you wouldn't even think anybody can talk, but there's a chat group that goes on there and that's really like traffickers target individuals through those means and I just think it's really important that we educate everybody: parents, students, teachers, people in the hospitality industry.

Melissa Palepu:

Like we should be having mass education on human trafficking. Human trafficking should be a part of health class for schools and that should really start in elementary school. But, you know, if we can only get middle school and up, then we can only get middle school and up, but I think that's really really important. I think it's important to educate the parents of children, as well. I think PSAs need to go out more from states and just put out there for the communities at large to be able to identify human trafficking. I do not think that you can beat the traffickers if you are uneducated. In general, education is the building blocks to life, right? You can't beat anything without being educated, and I just think that education, in this sense is very, very critical so that we can actually stop traffickers before they even start. You can prevent trafficking when you've educated people on what it is and what it isn't and how to identify it, where to look, what are the things that you should be concerned about if you see.

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

So, I mean, you know, you've identified some of the signs of it, and I'm really intrigued by your point about how these bad actors are recruiting kids even and through video games, and I think that's absolutely true. Um, what, as a -- and you know -- dana and I are both parents um, you know. What, as parents, what should, what should parents be looking for or talking to their kids about? So, I mean that -- it strikes me that that is definitely something that we can do, is that education piece to stem this before it even starts.

Melissa Palepu:

I think people need to not be scared to talk about it. I think a lot of times you have education in general too scared to talk about topics that they believe are controversial or they believe are too, you know, you've got to talk about sex if you're talking about human trafficking and that's something people are too scared to talk about with their children, but really all you are doing is making your child more vulnerable, more easy to target. So I think it's very important that parents just have open conversations with their children. Explain to your children that they cannot be on this chat group.

Melissa Palepu:

You know, I have an 11 year- old.

Melissa Palepu:

She wants to be on social media. She wants to chat in that horse game I talked about, and we just had this conversation yesterday where I turned off all the ability for her to have friends or to chat with anybody because it's unsafe, and then I had to tell her why it's unsafe and, you know, that's a difficult conversation to have with a child, that you have to explain to them why they're vulnerable and what could happen if they tell somebody their address, if they tell somebody their real name, if they talk about those things.

Melissa Palepu:

But you cannot be scared to talk about them with your children because otherwise your children are just -- they're sitting ducks for people who will talk about things with them and will mislead them into things. So I think the first thing that parents really need to do is be open with your children and monitor your children. Your children's phone is -- it's got the world at their fingertips and it's also traffickers are in that phone and you don't even know it. Like, there's no harm in going through your child's phone. There's no harm in telling your child why you're going through their phone. I think it's just being very observant and being very willing to have open conversations with your children and letting the school educate your children as well as to the dangers of trafficking and what it really means.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

You know we've not talked about this but, Melissa, I would love to get your perception of everything that's happening right now with the DOJ and the White House and, of course, the Epstein files, because, I mean, you know, I think a lot of us are, you know, we're really invested in it because it's just such an insane story on every level and it's so scandalous. But, like, from the standpoint of, like, real victims of human trafficking, what are your thoughts on this?

Melissa Palepu:

You know, it's desensitizing the communities as to victims of human trafficking is really what it is. And it's a shame because what you're having is people explain away the victims. In the Epstein case, you're having people make -- say, "well, you know, this is okay in this circumstance or because you know, because Trump is involved, like I just -- I'm not going to believe that that really happened, or I'm not-- " you know. So you have where people just are taking those victims who -- they've already come forward. They've already, you know, adjudicated in many -- in the almost the entire circumstance. I believe everything's been adjudicated in that case. And so now what you're showing other victims is, if you come forward, it's never going to end for you. People are going to continue on a grand scale to think that you're not credible, to think that you're lying. It's making it so traffickers and abusers are seeing this and are seeing the rationalization of allowing for such an enterprise to continue, and that's what that is. That is a criminal enterprise. And so you're -- people are taking notes and you have juries who are watching this, right? Members who are going to be in juries and they're seeing this and they're thinking it's not that big of a deal because our president says it's not that big of a deal. The entire DOJ believes this is not a big deal. So why am I here listening to this person and why do I care? Why -- this isn't a big deal for our country. So why are we prosecuting? And I just worry about what that -- what message that really sends to our citizens, what it sends to our victims and really what it sends to the abusers.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

Yeah, melissa, can you tell us a little bit more about some of the challenges that you've had in bringing these cases? I know that, you know, you've said before, and I've heard it said on many occasions, that human trafficking cases are some of the most difficult types of cases, first of all, to charge at all and, secondly, to gain convictions on, even when you have pretty strong evidence.

Melissa Palepu:

So human trafficking cases are just very difficult to present to a court and to a jury. You have so many obstacles before you even get there first. First you have to get the survivor, the victim, who is now going through a big transition and needs a lot of services and a lot of assistance. You have to get them to agree to cooperate and you have to get them to all these hearings that continuously get delayed and this system that just constantly will call them bad names. Criminalizing being a victim is really what has been happening, at least what I've been seeing in Michigan. And, just as a side note, michigan has been graded as an F from both recognized sources that do evaluations of states, and that's from the Polaris Project, which runs the National Human Trafficking Hotline, for how we treat victims, and also from Shared Hope, which rates the states for how they handle human trafficking in general. So we are not doing a great job when it comes to our victims, and they're really the key and the crux to the cases, right? So then, if you do get a victim who is willing to come forward and willing to go through all of these hurdles and all of these obstacles, they get to the court, the court does not understand. Unless it's a commercial sex case, the court does not understand in any way, shape or form what is happening. The victim is up against a judge who doesn't understand what labor trafficking is and thinks maybe she's overreacting and this is just not a big deal. And then you have a jury that you have to put this victim in front of, and the juries don't understand human trafficking. They've never been educated on it. So the prosecutor has to take the time to try to educate within the confines of law, right? We can't just provide an educational piece on human trafficking to the jury because we have legal rules that we have to follow in regards to what we can and cannot say to a jury. In fact, the judge is the one to provide the laws. But if the judge doesn't understand the human trafficking laws, they can't adequately provide those laws to the jury. So it's just this big mess when it comes to presenting a case in the criminal justice system. So then, say you get a conviction, the laws are just not stiff penalties, and so even if you get a conviction, the trafficker is not necessarily even going to go to prison and if they do go to prison, it's not going to be for that long of a time. And while they're in prison, they get to have access to their phones and to a phone, to an iPad, and they just continue their enterprises while they're in prison. So this victim never really gets away from any of that.

Melissa Palepu:

So it makes it incredibly difficult to even start the process, to even have somebody come forward. Oftentimes, they've already been -- they're already tainted with the system in general because of all of its failings that happen. And then you've got a jury that just is uneducated on it, doesn't understand it, thinks this victim is a criminal themselves most of the time or is just, you know, complaining about wages. And I feel like it's just, it's a really, really tough situation to be able to prosecute these cases. But I do feel like, no matter the outcome, we still have to try. We still have to show up for our victims and say, you know, "I will stand beside you and we will fight this together." And the more you do it, the more the community gets educated on it. Just because you're out, you're trying them and juries are seeing them and, hopefully, talking about what they're seeing. But it is very difficult to try a human trafficking case.

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

Last question I have for you, Melissa, is what -- in terms of what you see going on in other states and efforts in other states or at the federal level, what kind of additional resources do you need, or does this field, this area of prosecution and investigation, need to really, really make a dent in this problem?

Melissa Palepu:

We need more financial assistance, right? These investigations take a very long time and they're very costly. So we're prosecuting right now a large illicit massage parlor ring and that took a ton of resources, and we did it with some help from the federal government, but there are so many more of those that are out there, as well. There just isn't enough money that goes into being able to prosecute these cases. We need that. We need a lot more funding for the advocacy groups so that our victims can get the assistance they need because my case is only as strong as my victim, right? So if they're not able to get the assistance they need so that they can be stronger by the time trial happens, then trial can't happen. So we need to make sure that those advocacy groups are getting the funding and the resources that they need so that our victims can get the support that they need to be able to withstand going through a trial.

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

Thank you, Melissa, for all of the amazing work that you're doing in Michigan and that our team is doing down here in Arizona. Wanted to also say the victims of human trafficking or those who have identified someone they think may need help can contact, obviously, our offices, but also the National Human Tracking Resource Center at 888-373-7888 or text 233-733. So please reach out to law enforcement if you think this, if you see this happening.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

Well, thanks for all your great work, Melissa, and thanks for being on the podcast.

Melissa Palepu:

Thank you so much for having me.

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

Well, thank you everybody for tuning in to this episode of Pantsuits and Lawsuits.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

And remember the first step to end human trafficking all starts with you. Talk with your friends and your neighbors and if you see something, say something. We all have to work together if we're going to actually make a difference.

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

It could be a hot flash, it could be, you know, it's just humid.

Attorney General Dana Nessel:

Yeah, so until next time, stay safe, stay cool. The one good thing I will say about all the humidity that we have here in Michigan that you now have in Arizona, is that people can't tell if we're going through menopause or not. So I will just say that one very positive thing. You know, is it menopause or maybe just the weather?

Attorney General Kris Mayes:

It could be a hot flash. It could be, you know, it's just humid. AG NESSEL: Exactly. So I guess that's the one good thing we can say about climate change. AG MAYES: We'll see you next time.