Crime Weekly - S3 Ep270: Crime Weekly News: Cryptic 'HELP' Signs Spotted Via Google Maps

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

Mysterious messages—such as "HELP," "LAPD," "FEDERAL," and "TRAFICO"—were spotted via Google Maps in a vacant lot near downtown Los Angeles. These unsettling words, arranged using debris and visible from satellite imagery, ignited widespread speculation online, with theories ranging from cries for help to potential links to human trafficking. We're coming to CrimeCon Denver! Use our code CRIMEWEEKLY for 10% off your tickets! https://www.crimecon.com/CC25 Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod  

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Dip it in all the sauces. Dip it in that hot sauce in your bag. Dip it in your McFlurry. Your dip is your business. McCrispy strips at McDonald's. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Derek Levasseur. And I'm Stephanie Harlow. And as you can see from the title, we're going to be talking about something that went viral over this past weekend. Everyone was kind of working together on social

media, using open source intelligence to try to get to the bottom of this mystery. And we're going to dive into it because if you aren't familiar with it, you missed it because we were all working for once. The country was working together to try to solve this mystery. But how did I miss this? How did I miss this? The fact that you didn't know about it and I brought it up to you is very disappointing. This is so Stephanie coded and I'm over here. I feel like once again, I'm late to the game because I would have, I would have been right up in there in the trenches with everybody. I know. I know. This reminded me a lot of, uh, I can't remember the name of the submarine, but when the Titanic, uh, tourist submarine, what was that? Oh my gosh. What was

the name of that? Everyone's saying it in the comments right now. I know. Oh, it was, did it start with a T? I did a video about this. I have no, I have no clue. I can't remember. I should, I should be able to, but I remember everyone kind of got together and it was all these experts, like actual experts updating it, using different backgrounds. James Cameron. Yeah. Everyone was getting involved trying to figure out where this submarine might be at this point. And it was like, I know I was refreshing my Twitter like every 10 seconds.

Oh, I was so stressed out. Yeah, because there was boats going out there. And it ended up being a very bad case scenario, by the way. It's not like this had a happy ending. Yeah, it was horrible. I felt terrible. The Titan. The Titan.

There you go. The Titan. That was a whole crazy situation. And it's kind of reminded me of that. And we're going to talk about it and where it stands right now. But before we do, positive note, it's that time of year again when we start promoting CrimeCon. Why are we promoting CrimeCon? Frankly, we love it. CrimeCon is an awesome experience. And this year it is in Denver, Colorado, which is absolutely

beautiful. We've both been out there actually for the same thing. You went out there for Kendall, right? And so did I. Shout out to Kendall. And also Josh, by the way. We're not forgetting you, Josh. Love you too. But yeah, we went out there before and now it's in this beautiful city where it's supposedly going to be bigger than ever. From what I'm hearing, there's... It is every year. Yeah, 6,000 to 7,000 people already coming. And we want to see you guys there. Crime Weekly always has a cool booth.

We bring out a lot of Crime Weekly merch. We usually have an exclusive CrimeCon Crime Weekly merch where it's like you can only get it when you're there. A lot of you guys really like the Nashville one. I was talking to Ashley about it when I was in Rhode Island. We were already planning the design for Denver's. We're super excited. Yeah, that's going to be an exclusive thing that you can only get there.

And then we also bring out a ton of criminal coffee merch. We usually have criminal coffee there as well, although that's a little sketchy. Some places don't want to serve in coffee, so we just kind of do it anyways. Do it anyways. It's a great time. And also, Derek and I will be there. Yes, we will be there. Don't forget.

And besides us, there's just any of the big true crime podcasters that you can think of, a lot of them come. Also, if there's certain true crime TV shows that you like, you get a lot of them there as well. Oh, CrimeCon's amazing. You get a lot of them there as well. Oh, CrimeCon's amazing. You get to talk to family members of victims. That's my favorite part, meeting these people. Gabby Petito's family's there like every year. Yeah.

And you get to talk to not just some of your favorite true crime podcasters, but the people you see on TV like Keith Morrison and Nancy Grace and stuff. And they're walking around and they're also friendly. Nate Eden, Brian Enten, they're usually there. Othram's there, like all the different labs. You can talk to them about forensics and stuff. It's very, it's demonstrations. Sometimes John Walsh was there with Callahan. John Walsh was there last year. That's right. He got an award last year. It's a, it's a really great time. We love it. It's kind of the one thing that we do every year. We already always lock it in. And if you want tickets, you have to go now. I know it seems soon because

the CrimeCon this year is September 5th through September 7th. And you might say, oh man, I got a ton of time to do it. I'm looking at the website right now, the Platinum VIP, it's already sold out. They sell out fast,man. They do. The gold VIP is still available. They also have standard passes still available as well. And if you use our code Crime Weekly, it's all one word, Crime Weekly, you'll get a discount. I believe it's 10% off. I was just looking at videos from the last two Crime Cons, videos of those exact moments and those exact nights. Because when the convention shuts down and everybody's unwinding, it gets kind of crazy, man.

It does. It gets crazy. I always have a sing-along in the bathroom with my girls and my girls is whoever happens to be in the bathroom with me at the same time. Yeah, I mean, anybody who's been, definitely don't take our word for it. Weigh in down in the comments below if you're on YouTube.

Let us know about your experience. It's a really great time. Again, you can go to crimecon.com. They have the CrimeCon drop down menu there. Again, use our code. If you've already used our code, let us know in the comments. We want to hear from you, but we always have a very good turnout. We're looking forward to seeing you guys. So hopefully you're able to make it and it's a great city. So if you're going to go, now would be a good year to do so. Yes. Okay. Let's transition here to why we're all here. The important stuff. So over this past weekend, I was kind of dabbling on Twitter and something came across my feed and it just, it

just blew up where essentially someone was just kind of like, you know, web sleuthing on Google maps. I don't even know why they came across this. Maybe they were looking for something else. They definitely were looking for something else. But there are people who just like look for random stuff. They do it all the time. They find coordinates and sometimes there's like scavenger hunts and stuff, but I digress. Really? However, yeah. Yeah. Like little things they do like Reddit pages and stuff, but they'll even hide things on certain things so that when the, when they update it, you can see if you can find it. Good luck with that. I don't have that type of time. That's awesome. Basically someone who was on Google maps found this location and the location where this was found was near the

Los Angeles river. And it's described as North mission road and East Cesar, East Chavez Avenue. And what was disturbing about this is as you're looking on the map, we're going to have the photo up here. You can see that someone wrote help both on the dirt and with like items and materials from this like construction site, right? You see words like help, help, help. Then there's traffico. There's FBI. There was a couple other ones.

LAPD. What were some of the other ones? I'm looking at it right now. There's a bunch. Traffico, federal. Just a lot of words. Terismo. Terismo, exactly.

So people are looking at this and thinking the worst, which understandably. Of course. I get it. So they start to share it. It starts to go viral and people are wondering, oh my God, this is kind of located in like an area that not a lot of people go. It's shut down. I think it's like close to the public. It's close to the public. And there's a, there's a shipping container yard right next to it. Some people were describing that there

were holes and tunnels located nearby. So when you see this, what's your first thought? Oh, I would think that human trafficking is happening. Human trafficking. It's not a leap, right? That says it right there, Trafico. Somebody's in trouble regardless. Somebody's in trouble. And they're being held captive. So this is the only way they can get- A message out. A message out. Imagine being the person who stumbles on this, man. I would have been like, I would have stopped breathing, man. A message out. Imagine being the person who stumbles on this, man. I would have been like, I would have stopped breathing, man.

Oh my God. Right. So basically it's all hands on deck. Twitter's going crazy. They're all looking it up on Google Maps, but obviously you have people who are close to that area. So they start to share the coordinates and this Twitter handle. I'm going to give them a shout out right here.

It's at LA guy 310. He goes over to the site. He's going to be the one that his video is the one that kind of goes viral. It had like 42,000 likes at the time when I was looking at it and we're going to play it for you right here. Yeah, I'm illegally parked on this bridge, but there's a dog. If there's a dog, there's a person. Okay, there's the help sign right there. The big help.

I mean, I honestly don't know if this is just kids fooling around or something real, but you can get into the yard through there because there's a hole in the fence right there. And here is something written right there. I mean, hell, we'll take some photos. But I just like to believe it's just a prank. It's just a bunch of kids messing around. Because this is like, this is the street. And over there is where I took my first video, where you can kind of see there's a hole but all this is exposed

I mean if you're writing that Everybody sees you I Mean it's as out there too, but I don't know it seems to me like it's just a bunch of kids playing a prank Going in through that hole right there. I Mean I don't know maybe it's not not. I hope it is, I guess. But this is what it looks like. And I'll take some more photos and stuff. Okay. So that's the end of the video. And before I want a question for you, Stephanie, but also I didn't mention that this is near the union Pacific

railroad as well. So you have these shipping containers, you have the railroad, then you have these words help everywhere. You're thinking, oh my God, this would be a perfect location. If you were trafficking humans, this would be a great spot to do it. But after seeing that video, what are some of your thoughts? Well, first let me comment. Yeah. LA guy. He's awesome. He's awesome. Brave for going there. Number one. But you could tell he was genuinely kind of terrified when he was there. He parked illegally and he didn't care. It wasn't that he parked illegally.

It was that he was like, I'd like to think this is just a prank. But it's also kind of like super sketchy there. So he's kind of like, I'd like to think. It's not the best area. You can tell. It's not the best area, but it is like, basically, it looks like it's on a main highway. There's people going by all the time. Yeah. Yeah. But that could be a good thing for human trafficking. Like that'd be convenient.

Yeah. But either way I'm looking at it and I like how he too, he's like, well, there's a dog there. If there's a dog, there's a person. It's like LA guy, you have not been to some cities. Okay. Dog does not always equal people, but it looks like a very sketchy, sketchy area. I personally would not have gone there myself. So I give him props because what if something like nefarious is going on? He's doing it for the greater good. Yeah, he's doing it for the gram. And he's got the phone up, you know, and they're going to be like, what's that guy doing? They're going to snatch him.

Like, yeah, I wouldn't have done it. McCrispy strips are now at McDonald's. I hope you're ready for the most dippable chicken in McDonald's history. Dip it in all the sauces. Dip it in that hot sauce in your bag. Well, the good news is we're going to be hearing more from L.A. Guy because he's not done with this. He's committed and we're going to be hearing from him in a second. But my observations are kind of what he's saying. If this was, in fact, a human trafficking operation and one of the victims was able to get away long enough to make this, first and foremost, they would probably, once they encounter or see what the victim did, they would get rid of it. They wouldn't want to leave that there out in the open in these big, like, tubes that're not watching on audio video right now they basically use like not just like sticks it's like these huge construction tubes that they probably bury under underground for like electrical lines and pipes and all that they're monstrous so if there's offenders there if there's criminals there that

are actually in charge of this they've seen these help signs and more than likely they would have destroyed them after discovering them and yet they they're still there. So my initial thought is a lot of what LA guy thought, which is, is this some kid, you know, just pulling off a prank, trying to scare people like it's like it's currently doing, or is there somebody over there? It's a big homeless area, a large homeless population. You have the dog near there. He had mentioned that there was a hole in the fence leading into that shipyard or that little construction site. So there's access to it. It doesn't really seem like it's being monitored. And I'll also say this, if it is the location for human trafficking, there's going to be some activity going on, whether it's just people

monitoring the perimeter to make sure the victims don't get away or making sure law enforcement isn't nearby. There would be some activity to preemptively stop anyone from discovering them. And yet, at least in this video, we have nothing. So it continues on social media. It's big on Twitter. It's on Reddit. You got people weighing in. They're calling the LAPD. They're calling the FBI. I didn't find any official statements from the FBI or LAPD that they put out. It was more so just people kind of giving updates as you go. And also, I want to put the photo up right here, Shannon, if we didn't do it. Here's another. If we already did it, then we already did it. But there's the overview shot right here. This is the photo from Google Maps where you can actually see what whoever discovered this first was seeing. And so then we get a follow up. And LAPD guy or and LA guys basically says there's help signs everywhere. They're all over the place.

Little signs, big signs. Sidewalks. Everywhere. Everywhere. So something's not adding up. And it seems like, again again to what i was saying if this was a victim trying to get help the offenders the criminals would have noticed it as well and you would think they would have dispersed it but yet it's all still there

available so that leads us to la guy coming back on twitter again with another video and we're gonna let him explain and then we'll we'll dive. Okay, what's the name of the dog? Seuss. Seuss? Yeah, Seuss. And Seuss belongs to someone here? Oh, sorry. Careful. Careful. Yeah, Seuss belongs to... She has an owner.

Okay. Yeah. So that dog is named Seuss. And Seuss has an owner. Because you know what? She was tied up in the rain. Heath. Heath.

Oh, I thought it was a Heath. Yeah, he was tied up in the rain. Oh, wow. And so I was filming because everybody wants to know why there's the help sign you see all those oh this is this one guy he always he puts that is that guy's name jose yes okay that's what they told me yeah he is jose so there's a guy named jose who just keeps putting help always yes he does that and do you is jose here he's not here but he's always like on that that side, under the bridge. And he just messes around?

Always writes that down. Yes, all the time. The reason people are probably coming today is because they put it online. Yeah, no, no. He's the one that puts it all the time. But he puts it all the time. Yeah. He writes it everywhere.

I don't know if you see it everywhere. Yeah, there's like help and then a bunch of stuff in Spanish. Yeah, he puts it. They're supposed to be human trafficking. Yeah, human trafficking. That's what everybody's saying online is that they're worried about it is it that or is it like a prank we don't know i mean he just always for some reason it's been years that he's been doing yeah it's been on google maps shows it yeah but you know really i don't know he just always writes that down for what reason i do not know no i don't yeah. He just always writes that down. For what reason? I do not know. No, I don't. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Have a good one.

All right. So there you have it. Mystery potentially solved. Potentially. What do you think about that? I mean, I didn't hear her say it wasn't about trafficking. He's like, is it? So is it about trafficking or not? She's like, we don't know. He's just been doing it for years. So here's my thing, because apparently other residents came out and said yeah it's him writing it on the sidewalks too uh yeah he's he's not all there that's what they that's what they're yeah may have some mental health issues yeah that's their description he's not all there that's what they said that's not what i said yeah either way it's a cry for help you know people are like i don't

know why he's doing it well because, because he probably needs help, dude. Yeah. So it's very sad. But even though this sort of explanation seems to have quelled some people's suspicions, there are still some people who are like, hey, we don't know. We should get a hold of Jose and kind of see what he's writing that for because it may still be something that he knows about yeah you know that he's trying to like communicate maybe he's witnessed by living there yeah homeless person

living on the property he's trying to communicate this to you know a lot of people and the only way he knows how and so like you said at him living there maybe he's not a part of it maybe he's not a victim of it but he knows what's happening and he may not be quote-unquote all there but he's not a part of it. Maybe he's not a victim of it, but he knows what's happening. And he may not be, quote unquote, all there, but he's there enough to know, hey, this isn't right. And in his way, he's trying to send a message. So I still would want to, yes, LA guy, find Jose. Yeah. And to your point, we do need to find Jose, but there are people that are not completely

buying it. And as you mentioned, they want more done. There's been a couple of verified accounts that have come out and said, yeah, listen, I'm not buying the Jose theory. One of them was at Cyrus shares. He wrote, there's a deep subterranean system under the surface that the access points are covered by containers. They use cranes to remove. There's a lot more going on than what's visible on the surface. And they have a couple of photos here. Shannon will throw those up.

Listen, I am with this person as far as they want to take it. As long as they want to ride it, I'm with them. But saying there's like a subterranean system, all of L.A., there's tunnels under all of L.A. Yeah, no, I'm with you. I think because I'm not investigating this, my opinion is it's probably nothing. It's probably exactly what we're hearing. Somebody who's in the area, whether it's kids or a homeless person who's nearby, maybe has something going on and they're, you know, continuously making these help signs and other signs. Like you said, we don't know the motive behind it, but it could just be because that's what they do. It appears that multiple people

are saying it, but regardless, it needs to be looked into. I know L.A. is very busy right now with the fires, but at minimum, we want to send people over there. We want law enforcement to go check it out, investigate it, see if there's anything valid to what some of the concerns might be. And if not, make a public statement, because at the time of this recording, the Daily Mail has reported that the Los Angeles Police Department has not publicly responded to these claims

or these concerns, which is not good. Have someone go over there, even if it's a couple patrolmen, have them take a, and maybe they did, maybe they didn't, that's why they're not singing. Yeah, they got a lot going on. They got a lot going on, but send a car by, have them do a quick patrol of the area, get in contact with the property owners, see what you lot going on. They got a lot going on, but send a car by, have them do a quick patrol of the area, get

in contact with the property owners, see what you got going on. And at least at minimum, it shows that you're looking into it. So that would be my suggestion is to go over there, have law enforcement look into it. It can be at the patrol level at this point, see what they observe. If anything stands out to them, then we act on it. But it wouldn't be the first time that some private citizens stumbled on a crime. We've had multiple crimes solved because of just civilian initiative to go out there and do it. And I do want to talk about something bigger because the reason why I was fascinated by this story wasn't necessarily because of this particular incident.

But it's more so what social media could be, right? Like when you think about all the toxicity on social media, when there's something that we can all as a society become unified behind, even with our, despite our differences, like the Titan, you know, situation, this was something where within days, people were on this, not even days, within a day, you had experts, you know, pinpointing on this, not even days, within a day, you had experts, you know, pinpointing the location, bringing up history, actual people on the ground, going by the location, posting it online. We see it all the time where cold cases are solved because of geo-tracking and using open source intelligence to find things in the background that they can map

out. You see these YouTubers that can sometimes get a location on street maps or whatever. And within like 30 seconds, they can find it anywhere in the world just because they know the topography of that area so well. It's crazy. So all the negative things you think about when you think about social media, it is good to see that there is a positive to it. When used the right way, it can be an extremely valuable tool. And imagine if we did that all the time. McCrispy strips are now at McDonald's. I hope you're ready for the most dippable chicken in McDonald's history.

Dip it in all the sauces. Dip it in that hot sauce in your bag. Dip it in your McFlurry. Your dip is your business. McCrispy strips at McDonald's. I always think about how when Gabby Petito was missing and it went so viral. Oh yeah, that's another great example. Red, white, and Bethune, the van family, they had their eyes out. They were in the area. They

saw the van. This is huge. This is what social media should be used for. It's pretty cool to see everyone's all hands on deck. Everyone's invested in the outcome. And I know there's some people that are probably disappointed that it may not be more, but that's okay because there is crimes like this happening all over the country, which is why it's important to be vigilant and be cognizant of your surroundings. Because if it was overtly obvious what was going on, we wouldn't have to do this type of stuff, but it's not. There's means of defense that are taken by criminals so that we do not find these locations. And even though this may not be one of them, they are out there. I remember even at the local level, a lot of the human trafficking that I dealt with was in massage parlors and in areas like that where it was a front.

And a lot of these women were there against their will. Dude, I just did a video on a missing woman and there's a ton of these in Florida. Like Florida has a huge, they just did a whole bust and it's been going on like for the past few years and it's like every year, 50, 60, 70 of these places getting raided and shut down. And it's crazy to think about how it's happening

on your streets, in your communities, right under your nose. So you don't want it to communities, right under your nose. So you don't want it to be happening right under your nose. Keep a lookout. So stuff like this is great because it's better that it comes to nothing, but somebody noticed. Absolutely. No, it's a pretty cool story. We'll keep you updated. If something changes, and this isn't just a nothing burger where it's like, hey, it's exactly what we're telling you, we'll obviously give you an update, especially if law enforcement comes out and says, hey,

there's something here we're looking into. I don't know if they would do that publicly, especially if it's this big of an operation. But if it's not, I'm sure if they continue to get the public pressure, someone's going to come out and say, yeah, we looked into it, that those things have been there for eight months. There's no activity over there. We were able to go back and look at some things. We have identified the person who's been doing it and they're okay. Only final thing I want to end on. It's not even a big thing, but I was telling Stephanie before we started, I know a lot

of you guys have been commenting down below about traders. I won't spend too much time on it because I don't know how many people are watching it. I thought we said this the last time and Stephanie said it as well. This is live. When we're recording this, you're seeing Stephanie said it as well. I'm not, this is live when we're recording this, you're seeing it. I'm home. I'm not in Scotland. A lot of people are like, how's he doing this? If he's currently on the show, I thought, like Stephanie said, I thought we mentioned it before, but if we hadn't, Stephanie was a rock star. This opportunity

came up last year, right? Literally from crime con, I hopped on a plane and flew to Scotland. And Stephanie was willing to record a bunch of episodes while I was gone. I was only gone for like two and a half, three weeks. So I didn't record them while he was gone. In the month leading up to CrimeCon, we did our regularly scheduled episodes and then shoved in a bunch of future episodes, batch recorded those so that he could go because nobody was able to know that he could go because nobody was able to know that he was gone. So we couldn't be like, sorry guys, Derek's on Traders. We can't. And even if we said, sorry guys, Derek's off for a few weeks, the people who knew that Traders

was happening would have known. It was very covert. And I have to say, I told nobody, dude, I was a vault and it was hard sometimes. It was tough when I was down there too, because people were like, I would love to see you on Traders. I haven't done a reality show in 10 years and I probably won't do another one again for another 10 years, but it was a great experience. Thank you for everybody who's posting online saying you're going over and watching the show because of Crime Weekly. That's really cool. And I really, I do appreciate it. And it's a cool show. If you want to check it out, it's on Peacock. But if not, I am back home, even though you might see stuff on social media that looks like it's from the castle. I'm here. This is, these are not prerecorded. His normal house

looks like a castle. Yeah, it does. My house is just like that. No, I'm back home. I don't want anyone thinking like we, we bulk recorded these and we're not answering things. The bulk recording happened without you guys even knowing it. So we pulled it off. It was tough sometimes because we would record in like future tense or instead of like present tense

or like, hey, I'm like, oh shit, we got to go back because this is two weeks from now. Yeah, we didn't do that much of that though because it was hard for us and we felt like kind of slimy. So we really didn't do a lot of. No, no.

And frankly, I can say this now because we're in episode six. I didn't know how long I was going to be gone. I told Stephanie, I was like, I'm going to get voted out first night. So we might only need one bulk episode, but at least we'll have a couple of weeks off. But fortunately I'm still there. And I just wanted to clarify that. He's not there though. I'm still in the house or in the castle. He's still in the house on TV, but in real life, he's here. I am here with you.

Derek comes, he's like, I'm still there. But no. Oh, he slipped up again. I know, dude. There's actually a room in the castle just like this. They're out there right now. Yes, exactly. They were kind enough to let him continue doing Crime Weekly.

Thank you, traders. Thank you, traders. Yeah, so that's really it. CrimeCon, we'll have a link in the description box below if you want to go check it out. Again, make sure you use the code Crime Weekly so you can get that 10% discount. They always keep us up to date on the numbers. I think we had hundreds of people sign up last year with the code. So let's try to beat that this year.

Let's try to do that. Anything else from you? Any final words? No, but I am looking forward to CrimeCon. We love it every year to see you guys. It's the only time of year we get to actually meet a lot of you in person. We hug, we cry, we laugh, we drink, we talk about cases, we talk about life. It's great. So come on down, use the code CrimeWeekly. We will see you soon and we will see you on Friday for another episode. Friday. Well, you'll hear us on Friday will see you on Friday for Friday. We'll hear you. Well,

you'll hear us on Friday. See us on Sunday. Yeah, absolutely. Ray Rivera, part two coming at you guys. Everyone stay safe out there. We'll see you soon.

Bye. McCrispy strips are now at McDonald's. I hope you're ready for the most dippable chicken in McDonald's history. Dip it in all the sauces. Dip it in that hot sauce in your bag. Dip it in your McFlurry. Your dip is your business. McCrispy strips at McDonald's.