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Injustice Unspoken
Injustice Unspoken Podcast where silenced crime victims voices are heard
Injustice Unspoken
Following the Money to Save 22 Human Trafficking Survivors
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Award winning financial crimes and human trafficking investigator, Freddy Massimi explains how the financial institution community can combat human trafficking. He discuss his case with led to the freedom of 22 victims.
But on average, a girl is forced to sleep with eight individuals a night. Most people don't have that in their entire lifetime. And men, and it's not just women anymore, it's men and boys. That's right. And I say that, boys, girls, and men and women, they're forced to sleep to three to four a day.
SPEAKER_02Special guest with us today. It is Freddie Massimi. He is a an award-winning fraud investigator and human traffic investigator. He's a certified financial crimes investigator and a certified human trafficking investigator. Please welcome Freddie.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, ladies, for having me.
SPEAKER_05Yes, we're sorry. We're excited. Freddie, welcome to the show. I don't think we always think about all of the dynamics of human trafficking and what goes into it, but uh the work that you do is instrumental. Uh, one of our questions is always, what's your why?
SPEAKER_00It's funny. I I think everyone has that same story. You don't ever uh want to get into it. It just you know falls into your lap. Um, and back in 2012, when I started working in a financial institution, um, we're all fraud fighters. And as you grow in the different typologies, um, you just learn the in and outs. You know, you learn wire fraud and business human compromises, and then you get in the nitty-gritty of money laundering. Um, and then that hot topic of sex torsion and human trafficking comes along. And um one of the managers approached me and they said, Hey, we want to start a new uh group here um at the bank. It's gonna be called SOAP, which is the strategic opportunity action program. Um, and with that, I was able to um get in contact with a couple of organizations. One the Noble, which I've been a part of since 2019. Also do some work with the uh organization called Deliver Fund. Uh, they do a little a lot of the data behind the human trafficking, which has been wonderful.
SPEAKER_02Sometimes, you know, people don't have I'm super suspicious because I've been in law enforcement my whole entire life, and I was raised by a master criminal, so I've I've always been on uh conditioned yellow before it was conditioned yellow. So, how do you train someone who is it doesn't come from a background like mine to to see these signs when they do have these these people come into the institutions?
SPEAKER_00Um and someone is not gonna walk into a bank and say, hey, I'm being trafficked. Nine times out of ten, they're going into an individual, uh they're going into a bank with an individual that has their driver's license, that has their passport, they have their head down, they cannot speak because they are pretty much telling them if you speak in this bank, I'm going to kill your family.
SPEAKER_05So the trafficker bringing in their victim in, and that's what you guys kind of see uh the visual of it. Speak a little bit more into that too. What are they trying to do? Open accounts under the victims' names or absolutely more.
SPEAKER_00Yep. So um on average, you have an individual between the uh age of 18 to 25. Um, they go into a financial institution and they say, Hey, I want to open and they coach them. They groom them, they coach them, hey, I and and they they practice with them for days. Hey, I'm so-and-so, and I want to open up a bank account here today. Well, what happens is they go in, they have a driver's license, they give them an email, they give a phone number, and they give an address. Well, guess what? That email address does not belong to them, and that phone number does not belong to them. So all those alerts that that individual is getting that the bank thinks um is going to the Johns. Yeah. Um, well, I'll say this it is one of the most under-educated typologies and under-reported fraud types because one, people are embarrassed, yeah, they're scared, or they have the mentality of someone else will report it. It's kind of like, um, and I'm guilty of it. Someone looks suspicious walking down the street, and you know, other people think there's nothing to it, but just you know, we're investigators, we have that gut feeling that something isn't right. It's okay, someone else will report it. Well, that's what I try to tell people. My favorite saying in the book is see something, say something.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00Um, then you write a thing. Then do something. That's the problem. You do something and you have to. Um, so when I tell people, educate yourself is follow the money. That's the first thing that you need to do. Um, and then follow the signs. If, for example, if a girl comes in to a financial institution and that one that the first time you meet her, she's dressed beautifully, makeup's done, very, you know, well spoken, polished, put together. But then a week later, she comes in, her clothes are not very handy, her uh hair is not brushed, you know, she's covered in urine. Just something is out of pattern for that customer. There's nothing wrong with pulling that individual aside and saying and make it make it a story up. Say, hey, we need to speak to you about your account, you know, sir, ma'am, you're not on the accounts, just stay out here and pull them in the office and just say, Are you okay? Right. Um, there's nothing wrong with that. And some of them won't speak to you because they are scare for them life. But also then going into the signs of teaching them the different signs. If you have an ATM transaction between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., that's your first sign. Then I tell people this traffickers are wanting control more and more now. And with the creation of faster payments, that's Zell, that's Cash App, that's Venmo, um, traffickers are making individuals pay with Cash App.
SPEAKER_05So for example, if our girls are have Cash App, yeah. That's uh I was certainly a way that most of the Johns are are paying for sex at this time. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yes. So how would you feel if uh your your wife, your husband, or your partner, if they want on a bachelorette party or a bachelor party, and at two o'clock in the morning you get an alert for $50 on Zell, and then you look at the beneficiary of that Zell as a first name only female or male. I'm gonna have questions like what is this for?
SPEAKER_02Somebody's gonna need a body bag, probably. Yeah, for my poor husband.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So that that's what I tell people is look at your transactions. Look what it's paired with. Is it paired with an airline? Is it paired with the hotel? Is it paired with Uber Eats at all hours of the night? Well, look, that could be normal activity for a college student because guess what? Was there times at two o'clock in the morning that I ordered Domino's pizza? Yes, I was in the fraternity. Okay. But maybe you knew you probably knew that about me as well with the biology and the fraternity and all that. Um, but it's there's education out there that I tell people is learn yourself, learn how to train yourself what to look for, ask the questions, don't just assume, because if you assume, that's that's a matter of life or death.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Well, let me comment on this too. You said something that I really appreciate, especially working directly with the victims of trafficking, is that you said when you see a woman come in and not in the same pattern that you've you know seen her before, to pull her aside and say something. And I think that is such an important thing to bring up is how do we treat the victims that we see in these spaces and how do we give them a space of trust to be able to speak out that, yes, this is happening to me. Yes, this is I'm being victimized or or trafficked. And the fact that you are saying in a banking environment you care enough to see that and then pull them aside and take them somewhere safe and have that conversation, I just have to give you credit for, right? If if we came at this um this crisis from that lens more often when we see a young woman who needs us most and we stand up and say, Are you okay and find a way to divert them into that conversation? I mean, that's critical. So I just want to tell you, tell you, thank you. And and can you train more banks to do just that, right? Um we have women who are in our program that have been coming out of trafficking, that we go in and we help them open their bank accounts. And you can just see kind of almost the fear of like, Am I even going to be able to use this debit card? Is it going to be taken away from me? Are we able to make this a consistent thing? And you know, the last thing they want is to open a bank account, really, until they feel comfortable.
SPEAKER_02And that's another thing I'd like to talk and to address to you too, Freddie, is like when you do train these employees, uh, getting back to my question before, is that um a lot of people have the bystander where they're just like that that really doesn't happen. That's just in the movies. That that that doesn't happen. And they, you know, and they believe that's some type of shadow area that doesn't exist and it could be right in front of them and it could have been right in front of them the whole time. You know, how do you get past those barriers as well? Getting, you know, when you are training people in that space because Well, it's like, what's the data?
SPEAKER_01How many people, how many cases do you have to say, like, oh, we've had X, Y, Z.
SPEAKER_02And a lot of people don't want to get involved because they think, well, what if I I'm just that's their business. You know, I I I'm just I'm just a banker, I'm just a teller. I'm just I'm just trying to get this person, you know, signed up for it. You know, how how do you get that? Because they don't come from that that background, that mentality that this does really happen, and it could be right in their face, you know.
SPEAKER_03That's right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, one thing that I'm trying to think how to put it, and I wrote some notes, is that awareness should not be fear-based, that it should be all about education. And I what I mean by that is is that if you when I go speak, you know, in person at events, and I, you know, you kind of have to read the audience. Are you talking to law enforcement? Are you talking to senior citizens? Are you talking to um students? It's all gonna be a different presentation because when you speak to law enforcement, believe it or not, what I realized I took a poll about it's a 50-50 shot that law enforcement knows exactly how to work a human trafficking case.
SPEAKER_05Which is that lack of education, right?
SPEAKER_00The lack of education. So, you know, that's why, you know, one of the organizations that I'm a part of, Deliver Fund, that's what they've been doing. They've been educating law enforcement, incredible things in industry. And then on the noble side, we're we're doing you know educations, you know, to banks on, you know, we have a human uh human trafficking, um, a human crime specialist program, uh, cohort number two.
SPEAKER_05Um tell them about that program. What is it? What is it built for?
SPEAKER_00I was gonna I was gonna slide it in here in regards, slide in in the DMs.
SPEAKER_01Yes, do that.
SPEAKER_00Yep. So uh the human crime specialist um is a cohort um and involves a coup uh two in-person meetings. Um, and you also will have a couple uh virtual sessions, and there's a test at the end, and then you um it's kind of just like you know, uh a regular certification program. You'll be able to be a certified crime specialist, or excuse me, human crime specialist. And what it is is it teaches you how to investigate, how to talk, how to train, how to advocate. Um, I'm going through it this October, but with my experience, I'm really excited about it because it kind of gives me the motivation and push to go talk to law enforcement, to go talk to teachers, um, to go talk to doctors because people just don't think about it. Right.
SPEAKER_05So anybody can take this training then? Is this a it's an open training?
SPEAKER_00Well, uh you you have to apply for it. So if you go to the noble.com, which is knoble.com, and you scroll to the bottom, and then there's like programs that will say human crime specialist, um, you're able to apply. There are a couple of scholarships available. Um, and I encourage any students or law enforcement that are listening to this podcast today. It is a great program, super excited about it. Um, it's going to be hosted in Chattanooga, Tennessee, um, in October. And then um, yeah, really, really excited about it. And it's very scary because a lot of times when they get out of the life, which is on average about 25 years old, 26 years old, um, they they throw them out like trash. It's it's horrible. Um, they go to apply for a mortgage, they try to get a car, and then they find out they have a charged off account at a financial institution.
SPEAKER_05Is there anything that they can do to rectify that when they are out of the life? What are the steps that uh you know can be taken to be able to clean up their credit, their banking history, sometimes rental history?
SPEAKER_02There's jobs you can't even get sometimes with uh with bad credit.
SPEAKER_00So correct. So there's actually a attorney out of Charlotte. Uh, I'm not gonna drop her name in here. Um, I'll I'll let you guys put the link in there after. Right. Um, she is wonderful. And what she does is she works pro bono cases that if someone's account was opened by false pretenses, um, she gets them their their credit back. And I tell people this all the time if they're a victim of identity theft, which kind of goes hand in hand with this. Right, sir. Um, to call Xperian. And if you the good news is if you call Equifax or Xperian, they're gonna go ahead and put it on on all three. Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. They'll put credit phrases, and then you can say, and you write you have an attorney write a letter. Hey, I was a victim of human trafficking, I was sex trafficked. A lot of times, um, these individuals they go to prison or jail for crimes that they were forced to commit. Absolutely. Um one of the most I just got done speaking in Texas last week, and uh when I was putting the presentation together, I was kind of not shocked, but on average, a girl is forced to sleep with eight individuals a night.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Most people don't have that in their entire lifetime. And men, and it's not just women anymore, it's men and boys. That's right. And I say that boys, girls, and men and women, they're forced to sleep to three to four a day.
SPEAKER_05Um unimaginable, unthinkable.
SPEAKER_00It is extremely unimaginable because you know, my I have a son, and I cannot imagine him being kidnapped one day and then him being forced into the life. That's right.
SPEAKER_05Uh uh we recently supported law enforcement uh with an operation where search warrants were served on a couple massage parlors. And one of the real focus points um on that operation, and I think it's because there's a lot of international trafficking going on there, but um, was the the ATM machines. Uh and it kept being brought up. And then I'll I'll tell you when one of the um officers was coming out of um the search warrant, he he had the machine with him and it was it was almost like a prize possession. Uh, we've got the ATM machine. Can you tell me about why in my perception that seemed like a prize possession? But what are they looking for um in the ATM machines other than just transactions? And what are the ties back to and how does it help uh solve these crimes?
SPEAKER_00So an ATM machine is um it's important in two ways the time of the ATM transaction and also the location where it's happening. So if an account was open in the state of New York and all of a sudden you're seeing ATM withdrawals in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, what that's telling you is is that you are having individuals being trafficked along the I-95 corridor.
SPEAKER_05Got it.
SPEAKER_00Well then if you see then if you see Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, and then you're coming up this way, you're gonna see it on the I-85 corridor. And the I-85 corridor is known for HITA, which is your um high-intensity drug trafficking areas, and then you have your um uh HIFTA, which is your high-intensity financial crimes area. And what's hard for people to decipher with those two is is that law enforcement is extremely underpopulated or you know, lack of resources there that they just can't handle the volume. So you're having highway patrol, you're having local law enforcement, you're having homeland security, you're having all these resources tied up in other pat you know, other projects. And as you can see, what's happening in this world right now, the nonprofits are getting hit the worse, which we cannot have because, for example, Seattle, um, it's a major city. It's got airports, it's got uh water ports, it's got hotels, it's got what short-term rentals, nightlife, and looking at a website, you guys have a major visitor economy there, right?
SPEAKER_05Yes, yeah, big time.
SPEAKER_00And get and and guess what? That's that's where trafficker traffickers can hide in plain sight.
SPEAKER_05Well, and we have a lack of policy, right? Our policies are are unfortunately almost sometimes re-victimizing um the victims of the the cases. And that's the part that's really concerning to me. And then we were just talking about this on a previous podcast, but then we also have the traffickers almost doing a cattle call uh to you know, yeah, come here, this is where you bring them. Um, but it's it's that underbelly piece, and so I I'm I'm so intrigued by uh the footprint, as you say, and how we can uh see the patterns of it because you know how how do we stop this crisis or at least put um some kind of uh bump in the road, if you will. And I feel like it is through the financial side because that's where that's the motivation to begin this to begin with, right?
SPEAKER_02And and when you get people that like car rental places and and things like that, they can because they you have to transport, but the motivation is money. So we should be having the financial conversation with financial.
SPEAKER_05What is the one thing that you could see on the financial side that we could do immediately that could help stop some of this in the tracks? I mean, being being from your lens, I can only imagine some of the frustration, like if we just did this, we could, you know, and tell me something that we could we could see could really drastically change the outcomes.
SPEAKER_00There's a couple of things that I can say and a couple of things that frustrate me. So I worked for a financial institution for 14 years. But though the good thing about human trafficking is that if you um for people listening that are on the financial crime side and we uh file something called a SAR, which is a suspicious activity report, there is a zero dollar threshold that I can say that this activity is indicative of human trafficking. Usually you have to have a threshold of $5,000 for a suspect and $25,000 for a victim or an unknown suspect.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_00So there's a lot of SARS that we're gonna file and say that so-and-so has activity that's uh appears to be money laundering in relation to human trafficking, and you put the flow of funds, how it's happening. And this is how I always say this. Banks, yes, we are supposed to catch everything and we look through the financial system, but this is I I wrote a few notes down and I'm I'm not reading here, but I didn't want to forget to say this.
SPEAKER_05Oh, this is because this is wonderful information for people to know.
SPEAKER_00So the training that needs to happen is to hotel staff, airport, and this is huge right now, ride share workers, yes, restaurant, and bar employees. Like if you are a bar employee, you have to tend to look after the girls and gals that look like they're in distress. You need to rescue them. Pick up the phone and call on force. Hey, there's this guy. Um, you know, human trafficking is three things force, fraud, coercion, and coercion. Okay. And what people don't realize is that when you're coerced to do something that you don't want to do, that's where it starts. And that's where you need to stop. And here's where it comes into you have to have that first line of defense out there that are that is not the bank and police officers that can't get there. Here's where your bouncers and your security teams need to come into fact.
SPEAKER_05I'm so glad you're bringing this up. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yep. And then you have a bill that just came out, and uh, you know, I know it's different, you know, a lot, you know, North Carolina is primarily red, California and the West Coast is primarily blue. But we we have to work together as a country when it comes time to this. Enough is enough. That's right. Um, but one thing I'll say is that the bill that said that all short term rental hosts must go through a Trafficking program in order to continue to host. And I remember going downstairs and telling my wife, I was like, Man, I'm tickled to death right now. You know, and that's that that's a southern term. I'm from New Jersey, and that's a southern term. I'm tickled to death, you know. Um, she's like, What's going on? I says, Man, these Airbnb people have to like take this human trafficking course because guess what? When you look, it's all keyless entry. Right. They put a code in, they walk in. No one wants to stay at Airbnb with the camera. I don't.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I'm going in there and I'm looking. Okay, does this clock look suspicious? Does this coffee pot look suspicious? I don't like this. I'm leaving. Yeah. And that's what people don't get. They don't want cameras. It's invading their privacy. So they don't stay in hotels anymore. They're staying at Airbnb in Verbos. And then what happens when these girls are getting pregnant or they're getting a sexually transmitted disease? They're going into hospitals and they're going to healthcare workers. And a lot of times the healthcare workers are scared to confront them. Is there is there a case that just really highlights in your I was working at my old company, um, and I always tell people is that um if something doesn't seem right, keep digging, right? So we had a fraud system where it alerted where an email has changed. It was a newly opened account for 90 days. So I went to go look at it, and just the email was like um at me.com. I'm like, I've never heard of me.com. Let me do some research on it. Um, so did some research and it came up as a uh email pro email service provider that was highly used for identity theft. Okay, I was like, oh, here we go. This is gonna be a good one. Well, when I did something called a sketch match, I was able to find that sketch match. A sketch match is pretty much a link analysis. So link analysis to the IP address, the DI print, which is the device, um, where the logins were coming from. So this happened down in Aventura, Florida, which is the Miami, Florida area. It's in Dade County. Um, or is that Brower County? I think it's Dade County. Um, I had a homeland security agent that I've worked on cases before. And I always tell an investigator this if you're if you're a financial crime investigator, don't let something sit in FinCEN for six months. Pick up the phone and say something. Hey, I have activity. Here's the BSA ID number. Please look at this. So I'll go back to the details of the case. Um, as I was looking at that email address, I also realized that 22 other accounts that were opened all have the same email address and the address as well as the IP address. Wow. So I started digging a little and I I did a Google search. Okay, it was a this beautiful home down in Aventura, Florida, in a nice neighborhood. So I pick up the phone, called Homeland Security, I says, look, I need you to do something called an alive and well check. Just just see if something's okay out of there. Whenever they uh knocked on that door, there was 22 Asian females that were trafficked from Vietnam that were there, that they had like uh those buses, like those vans, like a church van that they were bringing them to massage parlors, uh, they were bringing them to nail salons as well as restaurants. And I remember getting a call that day from our FIU director, and he said, you know, come to my office real quick, because at that time he was in Wilson, North Carolina. So he said, I just want to tell you that you just saved 22 girls from a household because you said something. Easily you could have just said, activity appears, uh abnormal, there's an anomaly, closing this as fraud, you block the account, and hopefully that individual comes to the bank. And I think, you know, the average now, you have to have $25 to have the account opened, um, which I think is a a little low because it kind of opens a door for fraudsters as well as traffickers to open multiple accounts at one time. Uh your synthetic identity theft, uh, your regular check fraud. You know, account opens on a Wednesday, you put a check in there on a Thursday, you use a portion of the funds, and on Friday, that check comes back as ultra fictitious or counterfeit.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Um like the check kiting kind of what they do.
SPEAKER_00Pretty much. Um, and what's hard for me is is that you know, you want to block these funds all day, but sometimes, you know, in order to catch something, you have to allow them to spend the money. You got to see where they're going. Um a lot of times they'll do a $500,000 or a thousand dollar um ATM withdrawal in the middle of the night, and they they'll think that you don't have any um investigators looking at those accounts, but we they're always on it. Yeah, you know.
SPEAKER_05Have you ever had any uh circle where you thought maybe the bank was involved in any of this? Or like you know, on the on the I did I just open up a hot topic?
SPEAKER_00Oh man.
SPEAKER_05Tellers involved, anything like that? That's and in four weeks. 100% stop hundred percent. Thank you for what the work you did in that last case. But yeah, speak to that a bit.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so it was always that you always had the individuals that had to see the certain teller or the certain banker, and they would wait for hours. And then when they went on vacation, the individuals they left the bank. And I remember talking to an individual at a conference, it was uh it was a fraudster that went that got arrested and then went public. Um, and I said to him, What was the easiest thing to do to commit this fraud? He was like, I had insiders that helped me commit it. Yeah, I paid them off. So he was like, if I had a thousand dollar check, I would give them two hundred dollar cash, I would meet them at I'm making this up Walgreens or Ride Aid, so it would be undetectable so they wouldn't get in trouble. And that that is where you know you open the door to the Epstein case. That's right.
SPEAKER_03That's right.
SPEAKER_00JP Morgan Chase and Wells Farr go up and into those fake accounts. That's what happens when you don't have people monitoring. So I think that I'll say this every bank listening, make sure that you have a human trafficking program because great info you have to be proactive instead of reactive. We tend to be reactive in this industry, and sometimes we can't help it, but being re uh being proactive, it again it can mean that you know the difference between life and death or stopping the fraud or allowing the floor.
SPEAKER_05Saving 22 women. I mean, that alone. I think if somebody hearing that, that doesn't motivate them to stand on the right side of the window. Well, that's it, right? Stand on the right side of it, the noble, yeah. It is.
SPEAKER_00Um, this was um exceptional leadership in the fight against human trafficking. I got that in 2024, but I also got uh an award when I worked for um the bank I used to work with. Um uh and it was uh the performance award, and the top one percent got this award, and I and I was just like stoked to receive it just to be recognized because I tell people this don't follow money in your career, but sometimes all it takes is that recognition that you've never gotten from anywhere else, and you just get the you know, your leadership saying, Great job, this is what you're doing, this is the positive influence.
SPEAKER_05Well, you found your purpose, Freddie. I think that's the piece of it. Like, you know, finding your purpose is where the money doesn't need to be involved, you know, so that's not the motivating factor.
SPEAKER_02That's how you go from being a um biology student frat boy to saving 22 people or a mortgage loan officer to running a shelter, right?
SPEAKER_05You stop caring about the money when the heart purpose is what motivates it. And and when you stand on the side and you look at a victim in the face and you know that you were a you know a piece of being able to rescue them from the the pure terror that they've been enduring, I mean, keep going, keep going, right? And and you know, as you were talking, uh you like I just said, we just worked a case where we helped support uh victims of um human trafficking in these massage parlors. And yesterday I had to bring um some evidence back to one of the young women that we're working with, and I and I brought it to a home that's 11 bedrooms, eight bathrooms right off of you know Aurora where these women are being trafficked. And I know what is behind that door of women that are just being exploited, you know, out of out of China. And to hear that you helped rescue, you know, 22 women, um, you know, I was tearing up because like I said, when you look in the eyes of these victims and just the fear that they have, and and when they're you know trafficked here from out of the country and they don't have anybody here, I need people like you to help out about them more, you know. And sorry for getting emotional, but this work is really real, and we need more people standing on the side of like we're gonna fight for them because they don't have that voice that they need so desperately. And and you know, even to the point that they have nobody that that they can turn to. Just I it's unthinkable.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so today is that uh people need to understand that yes, the World Cup is a celebration, but it it is bigger than soccer. Um, it is a moment where the whole city is preparing, and that preparation has to include human trafficking prevention. So for the people listening today, if you work in hospitality, banking, transportation, security, healthcare, education, and the most important, law enforcement, please get trained before this starts. And please, please, please, this is where I plead with people. If you are a parent, talk to your kids about online grooming and sex torsion. If you get a message from an individual that you do not know, and they say you're pretty, and all of a sudden they send a a picture, a nudity of you, if as you want to say, and and they say, Hey, please send a picture back to me. Nine times out of ten, they're trying to extort you. Yeah, they go after politically exposed individuals, they go after big-time people, most likely.
SPEAKER_05Can I go back really quick, Freddie, to the trafficking of uh the the financial um repercussions of the World Cup and what what we are to see? You know, the average person says this human trafficking, it's not gonna happen to me. I'm just going down to enjoy soccer FIFA World Cup, right? That's what this is all I'm doing. You can say all you want to say about the human trafficking, but it doesn't affect me. Tell me how it does, because it it will, right? If it's not your taxes are gonna go up because something, but tell me how it does affect the person that's just gonna be fenced. Right, you know.
SPEAKER_00Well, one, it's gonna affect their their city because they're getting prepared, they're gonna need more security and more resources, but it's also gonna affect the way we look at things, you know. Um a lot of people are on edge, you know. Think about going to Target or Walmart. You have somebody following you around that looks suspicious. Um, there's a lot of kidnappings that happen this time of year because school's getting out, you know, uh parents are putting on their uh my kid just graduated from Joe Jones Elementary. His teacher's name was so-and-so. It was a great year. Well, what is that doing? That is giving information to the traffickers that they can go online, look at hashtags. And guess what, people? Hashtags are not private, they are public.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Does it change the dynamic that there's international uh you know, soccer matches coming in? Does that what does the shift look like when we're talking about international um guests coming into our our city and around that human trafficking and that this still won't happen to me?
SPEAKER_00Yep. So internal everyone thinks that human trafficking does not happen in their hometown. News flash, it does. It could be in the form of online sexual um sex torsion or trafficking. Uh, here in North Carolina, labor trafficking is extremely high because what they're doing is they are taking the IDs and passports away from these farm workers. And they're, I mean, and it's it's cross-border border. And then you have you run in from international to domestic, you have to run into organ trafficking. They are literally killing people, taking their organs out, and trafficking across the lines to take care of that. They're they're promised these jobs, and people are like, what is organ trafficking? It sounds exact and some people will have their kidneys cut out with them being alive, and then they they get an infection and they get sepsis and you know they pass away. I'm so it's it's really, really hard. So I want people to understand that this is not only an international problem, it is domestic and it is happening in your backyards.
SPEAKER_05Oh, yeah, I may have like a kind of a hot question for you. I just but I gotta ask it, right? Uh I am uh I suspect my husband, I'm not married, but I suspect my husband is um out uh per purchasing sex potentially. Uh what do I look for? You know, can I find it on my bank statements? What is it that I can find and and uh be able to protect my family from maybe my spouse purchasing sex?
SPEAKER_00Yes. So a couple of things that you can do in a just like uh your uh your your kids. So check. Let me do this. It is a calculator app, and I always tell people this.
SPEAKER_05Oh, there we go. You probably got some uh wives and girlfriends getting ready to download now, but you know, how do they protect themselves from that?
SPEAKER_00And so when you look at you know the calculator, right? Okay, it's a little fuzzy. A lot of times if you type in an actual code, people can um hide pictures, they can hide text messages, they can hide all that or transactions that happen. Look for the signs of Venmo Cash App. Got it.
SPEAKER_05Um so you're talking about apps on an actual phone. There might be an app on there that's hiding some of this information showing that these guys are out buying sex or even women out buying sex, but 100%.
SPEAKER_00You know, I always tell people is you know, if if your spouse says, Let me see your phone, let them see it. Yeah, and if they fight it, then you know there's an issue.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Yeah, well, there you go. It's just that basic asked to see their phone and see what apps you're busy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you gotta be nosy. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, we're we're investigators. We're we're we're going to. Um, and I always say this is that women make the best investigators. And I always joke because I have a lot of friends in the industry that are that are um at a conference two weeks ago. It's called Fraud Fight Club in Charlotte. And um I joked with somebody, she works at MT Bank, and I said, uh, you know, I says, You're a really good investigator. She says, Why do you say that? I said, Because you ask a lot of questions, you know how to ask them, and you know exactly what we're thinking before we answer.
SPEAKER_05And I think that's the manipulation that happens a lot in trafficking. Um, you know, I it's also a defense mechanism in a lot of those spaces, right? Like the fight or flight, it teaches you to how to make sure that you can coerce yourself if you need to, right? And pretend it is.
SPEAKER_00And and don't only pay attention to the commercials on TV and this this girl in an airport is walking and she's walking behind doing this. And it's not that. No, you know, pay attention to the signs. Yeah, does something not sit right? Does something feel off? Like I did a training to an airline um a couple of months ago because they don't have a human trafficking program. And that's one of the things. Hotels, unfortunately, they don't care because regardless of what happens at their hotel, people are still gonna stay there, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Well, and they're often sometimes propping open the back door and and you know, the manager, somebody's contributing. We were working with uh having a conversation with a private um uh law firm who is uh who is working on trying to change the some of the policy here in Washington State where they make hotel workers mandated reporters. And I think that would be a huge thing to shift so that it's you know to see. But one of the things is I think people are are trying to see human trafficking or even sex trafficking as the obvious. It's like somebody being snatched and then they thrown into a car and then they're gone, right? And that's not the truth. There's absolutely not the truth behind it. A lot of you who whom are getting exploited traffic is uh you know generational, it's families trafficking, uh, it's poverty sometimes that is a result, and you know, people putting themselves on the street and then they become um, you know, victim to it. And so the signs are vast. It's not just looking for what you see, you know, in the movies or on the TV. Um, it's much deeper. And it's also this online trafficking that is the scariest piece of it all because it's so it's so hidden and the underbelly and why you need to pay such great attention. This has probably been one of the better conversations educational-wise. Um, but I'm gonna need your phone number on speed dial. Um as you heard, we work directly with the victims. Yeah, and I'm going, wow, the things. But you know, is there uh a training that you have possibly put together that if there is a bank or uh listening or anybody listening that would love to access your training or some of your wealth and knowledge and your expertise, is there something that they can access to to find you, Freddie?
SPEAKER_00There is. So tell them to follow me on LinkedIn and we'll love for you to put um the my LinkedIn um great notification within the podcast. Um I do trainings all the time. Um I actually just spoke in Texas a week ago at SaaS Innovate. It was incredible. Um, my session, I did two sessions. My first session was the mental health of fraud fighters. We fight fraud and we fight for advocates and we we fight traffickers all day long. But at the end of the day, what about us? You know, we need to take care of ourselves, and sometimes it's hard to speak about it, especially a male, um, because sometimes we're not the rescuers. Yes. And then I also did another presentation. It was called, and it was and I was gonna say you hit the nail on the head is that it was called Hinning and Hidden in Plain Sight, um, Human Trafficking as it relates the data. And I talked about how um a company with their AI analytics and what we have done in the past, you know, doing some volunteer work with DeliverFund, kind of doing mapping of investigations and pinpointing escort ads when it comes time to these high-risk events. What are you looking for? You're looking for branding tattoos, you're looking for traffic verbiage. Um, you're looking for is the girl young? I saw an ad two weeks ago where it was a mom and daughter performing sexual acts. Um, and they had videos up there, and I'm sitting here. Why these websites allow them to keep these videos up is beyond me. And we have to do a better job of advocating as senators and congressmen, you know, forget about worrying about stuff that is just, you know, uh, how can I make this where it's it's not obvious? Um instead of uh worrying about uh lovely things at a uh golf courses and all the other stuff, we need to worry about nonprofits. Are we taking care of our veterans? Are we taking care of our victims that have no money because everything was taken from them because their traffickers took their life? They get pregnant, their children are taken from them. Like I had a girl tell me is that I was in the life at the age of 16, I got pregnant at 18, and by 19, I had a one-year-old that was taken from me, and someone else raised them, and I wasn't even allowed to hold my kid. Like I cannot imagine that.
SPEAKER_05But then we have those cases every day at the at the shelter, and that's one of the things that we work so hard on is uh making sure that the woman when the woman is out of the life and in a very um you know strong space that they get their kid back, that they they deserve that opportunity to be able to raise their child in a good atmosphere.
SPEAKER_00It is, it is, and and one of the you know, other closing things I want to say is is educate yourself, advocate for yourself, yeah. Um, especially law enforcement, go out there and you know, go to thenoble.com, go to deliverfun.org. There are trainings on there to show you the signs of trafficking, what to look for, um, the resources, um, and you know, one of the organizations, you know, your your guys' podcasts and organizations will add to the list. Like, hey, this is a good resource, please listen to it because you have so many followers on it. Um, but all in all, is that the World Cup should be remembered for the right reasons. And if we prepare now, Seattle, where you guys are, can welcome the world while protecting the vulnerable. And that's what I'll leave you as because you know, there's just nothing else that can be done until people start making the proper action.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01Thank you.
SPEAKER_02That's wonderful so much, Freddie. You've been so such a great help. We could just sit and keep you on here all day.
SPEAKER_05But well, now I'm gonna get his number. So I'm sorry, Freddie.
SPEAKER_00Well, Betty has it because I called her before. I was like, okay, am I supposed to be getting this link for the podcast? Like, what is that? But you know what? I'll I'll say this is that all it's better to ask than assume. I always tell a new investigator that's when I train them. Don't assume something and just disposition that this is fraud or this is not fraud or this is suspected fraud. I uh ask the questions and as and and disposition and know the why behind you're doing something.
SPEAKER_05I want to thank you on behalf of the 22 women, Freddie. That's uh the one thing I want to say. So thank you from the bottom of my heart.
SPEAKER_02No award in the world is worth what you did for that case. But uh if you like this content, subscribe, hit that notification bell, and as we always say, be someone's constant.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Freddie. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, ladies.
SPEAKER_01Have a good day.