Habits and Hustle - Episode 114: Tim Ballard – Founder of Operation Underground Railroad Rescue, Former CIA, and Special Agent

Episode Date: May 4, 2021

Tim Ballard is the Founder of Operation Underground Railroad Rescue, Former CIA, Form Special Agent. Listen to his incredible stories about literally going undercover in outrageously dangerous situations to save women and children from human trafficking all around the world. The subject is a difficult but necessary one and Tim and Jen take us gracefully through the importance of every individual for assistance, self-protection, and looking out for others. Tim also delivers on what to look out for yourself, keeping your attention on your children especially with online games, and absolutely from the computer reliance in the pandemic. As Tim says there’s no hope if we don’t do something, and we all have to do something. It’s a tough subject, we know, but if you’re gonna listen to an episode make it this one. Youtube Link to This Episode Tim’s Instagram OUR Rescue Site ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Did you learn something from tuning in today? Please pay it forward and write us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. 📧If you have feedback for the show, please email [e-mail]  📙Get yourself a copy of Jennifer Cohen’s newest book from Habit Nest, Badass Body Goals Journal. ℹ️Habits & Hustle Website 📚Habit Nest Website 📱Follow Jennifer – Instagram – Facebook – Twitter – Jennifer’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Whether you're doing a dance to your favorite artist in the office parking lot, or being guided into Warrior I in the break room before your shift, whether you're running on your Peloton tread at your mom's house while she watches the baby, or counting your breaths on the subway. Peloton is for all of us, wherever we are, whenever we need it. Download the free Peloton app today. Peloton app today. Peloton app available through free tier, or pay subscription starting at 12.99 per month. Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits in Hustle.

Pressure. So we have a really special episode of Habits in Hustle today. It may be some of the content may be hard to listen to, but I think it's really important that everybody listens to the full episode in its entirety. We had someone named Tim Ballard on, who is the founder and CEO of Operation Underground Railroad. And what it does is it's a nonprofit that basically goes around the world and saves children from sex trafficking. It's becoming the fastest growing illegal business in the world. And Tim has dedicated his last 15, 10 years of his life to this organization and

has saved thousands of kids. And the reason why I think it is really important that everybody listens, if you have kids or not, is that people are susceptible right beside you in your backyard, in your next door. It's happening right here in the U.S. much more than you would even think it's happening. It's becoming one of the largest rings for sex trafficking and human trafficking. So even though some of the content

may be difficult to listen to, please listen and hear what Tim has to say. Today on this podcast, this is one that I think is one of the, is not, if not the most important podcast we've ever done here. And because we have Tim Ballard and Tim Ballard is like a real life superhero. I said that when you walked in, I really, really mean it.

This guy is doing amazing things beyond beyond your imagination. He created something that is called, I mean, we'll talk all about it, but he basically is I mean, we'll talk all about it, but he basically is Saving children like sex trafficking is a massive thing. We're gonna get into it and he has the thing called operation What was up operation underground railroad operation underground railroad I always like and he basically goes around the world saving children and human trafficking is a massive One of the biggest or the biggest illegal businesses in the world, right?

It's because of the money. Festus growing, yeah, it's pretty. Yeah. 150 billion dollar a year industry. It's a buying and selling of human beings. And that's like, and 10 billion I heard are children, right? So there's in total, so it's 150 billion dollars a year and to kind of wrap your head around that, that's like the equivalent of,

with the amount of money that's paid every year and buying some of the people. That's the same as you could buy every Starbucks franchise, every MBA team, and still have enough money to send every American child to college for four years. That's how much money is spent yearly on buying and selling people. They estimate around about 40 million people in slaves today,

which is more than any time in the history of the world, that many people enslaved, and about 10 million or children. That's why I meant 10 million or children? About 10 million. Okay. And most of that's actually slave labor, which can quickly become sex slavery, but 2 million it's estimated are dedicated solely to being traffic for sex, children for sex.

I'm actually surprised. I thought it would be a higher number. I assume when people are captured as slaves, that's going to be part of the process. It is. When you're in slave labor, once you're owned by someone, they'll use you for whatever. Yeah, exactly. And it's very prevalent here in the US.

People think it's happening somewhere far, far away. And it's actually the most pervasive in the US. Or. So the United States is, then we just got ranked in the top three for destination countries. People need to understand that we are the United States, we are the highest consumers of child exploitation material, child rape videos. We consume more than anybody.

So the demand rests is here in this country. And so oftentimes we work in countries over several countries, over 25 countries, and these countries will ask us, basically, we're a nonprofit, we don't charge them, but they ask us to go undercover, because we look like the clients that those traffickers in their countries are looking for. But what the traffickers are learning countries are looking for. But what the

traffickers are learning is if they can get the kids and the women into the United States to feed that demand here, they can make even more money. So we're seeing an increase and people being brought into this country. Not to mention there's so many our own homegrown, you know, born in the US, victims, which range in between 150, 200,000, they believe children in the US are currently being trafficked from the US. What is such a disturbing topic, right? Like, because I have kids, obviously you have nine kids. I, you can't even, I can't even wrap my head around it. Such an awful, awful thing. Like, you know, I heard you speak about this because people don't think it's gonna happen and they're, you know, where they live

or like in their backyard. And with Instagram and social media and online gaming, I heard you say that that is one of the major places that this can happen. And people, parents are just, maybe they're not oblivious on purpose because they're busy doing, they're working wherever else and they think, okay, parents are just, maybe they're not oblivious on purpose because they're busy doing they're working wherever else and they think, okay, my kids just playing a game. But yet these kids,

that's how people are getting captured. Yeah, yeah. So I think parents, a lot of us who are at least my agent and older, video games in our day was, you know, you played the computer. Right. You don't even comprehend. We don't even register that you're playing some person that in another state or some other place. That's the reality. Any any any game these days are kids you think they're playing the computer. They're playing other people. And you don't know who those people are. And so these predators know what to do. They know that they can pretend to be a 12 year old girl,

trivial boy to connect with someone that age, play Fortnite or whatever game they're going to play. And then they start to, and there's always that texting app like, yeah, so what's up? And they become friends and then on the sudden they're calling and then inviting to go meet at the mall. And so that's, it is a very popular way.'s being utilized, especially in the last couple of years with the COVID restrictions. And how governments have responded. And you just told me, you don't want your kid be had a computer.

So you do school here, which is such a good idea. Because what's happening is these predators know and we have even darken that chat so we can show it. They know the kids are home on their computers. Mom and dad are trying to figure things out. And they're home on the computers. The pedophiles are home on the computers. And it's target.

It's a target rich environment for them. And they've even called it harvest. It's harvest time. The kids are alone. They're at their computers. Now we can get them. And I mean, we just had a case last year, just 30 miles from my house,

where there was a guy, 42 year old, a pedophile who was gaming with two six year old girls from Indiana and eventually coached them and taught them, desensitized them enough to where they started taking their clothes off and sent naked pictures to him. A six year old? Six year old.

But how does that even happen? First of all, because I have a six-year-old right now. I'm a eight-year-old. They're so innocent and they don't know what this even is. How do they even keep in touch these kids' attention long enough? Because when Mike, a six-year-old calls her grandmother who's in Canada, she can't stay on the phone for long

and in 30 seconds. This guy was gaming with him. Right. So he got onto one of their games. At a sexual level, they don't have the attention spent even speaking though you would think, right? Well, he just, he got him to the point where he said, okay, now take your clothes off, take, go here, push the camera function.

Like, luckily the mom discovered before he got to the girls, but she said, I thought they were playing these shoot little game and I thought it was just playing against the computer. She had no idea that her six girls were playing with a dude or anyone. Right, because I think, I think, so my eight year old is always playing these video games,

right, and the other day I was like, oh yeah, I gotta say goodbye to so-and-so. I'm like, say goodbye. Who are you talking to on there? It's like, oh, my friend. I'm like, who's your friend? Like, this can easily be some like, you know, crazy pedophile somewhere. And then how long does the process take? What are some signs that you can, a parent can look for? How do we get more involved to even know that this is happening? Because this is happening because this is something I think happens every single day with with especially what you're saying with COVID, with people now even more fixated on the computer than ever before. You know, how do we how do we

how can we kind of help this from happening? Well, so first of all, the best kind of preventative strike on this is for parents to know the games their kids are playing, know the apps that they're on, understand how they work and monitor them. Now if it's gone on too long and the parents haven't done that, think you can look for, do gifts, shop to your kids doorstep, meld in, and it's like, what? That's an obvious thing. Any kind of communication that's strange.

Like you just said, your kid was like, I gotta say goodbye to my friend. What friend, what are you talking about? Or phone calls late at night. Because eventually these perpetrators want to get access to the kid. It's not enough just to game with them. So eventually they're gonna want a phone call.

They're gonna want, they're gonna send gifts. They're gonna want to invite them out. And they pray on the kids who are vulnerable as well. So they'll go on to Instagram and find the teenage girls or adolescent girls who are complaining about being lonely or you know they know what to look for and then they show up on the comments, hey you're beautiful, I'm a model agent, the photographer would you come to my studio

and they kind of lure them in slowly that way. So then, so what is the age range that is the most prep, is that more girls who are 10, 8, what's the, what's the biggest age range that you've seen? So the, in the United States, we're seeing that the average age is between like 12, 13, 14-ish, around that, where they get in duck, where they get kind of inducted into it, or forced into the commercial sex slavery. in duck where they get kind of inducted into it or forced into the commercial sex slavery. But that's just, that's the average.

But we've, I've seen cases six month old or younger up to, you know, into the 20s. So. Do you see boys ever that's having boys too? How was the ratio of boys to girls? I think it's still, there's still a lot more girls, but the boys often get forgotten about because people don't go there as quickly, but I was just all the time, a week and a half ago, I was working in a country with the foreign government and we had infiltrated a trafficking

ring, and they believed that we were there to be clients. Then they brought us six and seven year old boys to sell us for sex. And how much are they selling them? How much are they getting sold for? So it's kind of the markets are regional. So you can basically add two or three times to what the price would be for like an adult sex worker. So let's say in some countries that you could pay $200

for an adult sex worker, right, a prostitute. And then you can add price, it could be four to 600 in that same market for a child. That's it. Well, that would be for like the night or for two nights. Right, but do you ever see a lot of like people selling like so permanent permanently like yeah Exactly for an actual slave to live in the you know Outside and forever and for years and then that I know that you were saying with why it's such a

150 billion is because you can resell over and over again, right? Yeah. Like, drums, you sell once and then you're out, right? That person, but a person, you can sell until you get bored and then sell them again. That's right. Yeah, so I mean, I've been involved with those kind of deals and that I've seen them ranging from 15 to 20 thousand dollars to actually buy the child outright. Usually they don't need to do that. They can lure them or kidnap them, usually from impoverished areas. We see it happening on the border. I mean, if anyone walks in with a child,

they pretty much have free passage. They just told, they have 72 hours to be released if there's a child with them. And they're told to just show up at their court date, immigration court. And it's like two or three years in the future because they're so backlocked. So what smugglers are doing is they're taking children, kidnapping children from Central American or their places. And they're sparing them with their clients, who they're smuggling.

Say this kid, say this kid is yours. Kid say this is your dad or your mom, and you'll get right through. And then, and then call this number when you get through and we'll pick the kid up. And they're just recycling these kids. And eventually, when the time is right or the price is right, they'll sell the kid for sex. So, that's something right now at the border. That is unbelievable. And like, how do they, I mean, how do we see in the movies?

You see this in the movies, like with, you know, Liam Neeson, the take in, or all these things, right? Like these are just, you think it only happens in the movies, where do they drug these girls into a place where then they just are so out of it, they don't even know what's happening. Like what does actually happen? Can you walk me through the process?

So first, I think it's important to recognize that traveling has different faces and different places. And movies like Taken can wake people up in a good way but also can mislead people into missing the signs of what it is. A lot of girls are trafficked and they're living in their own homes. For example, we've seen cases where, even in affluent neighborhoods, and they live with an amazing family,

but they got caught up in a situation where they're dating some guy, and they're 15, 16 years old, they're having sex. He takes videos of it, and they break up, because for sure they're gonna break up within six months, right? And then that video is used by the boyfriend, hey, I'm going to show this to your pastor.

I'm going to show this to your grandparents. I have your entire email list. I'm going to email these naked pictures of you, unless you go sleep with my friend, or unless you provide sex for me or whoever. And that is trafficking. And these girls come home. their parents have no idea, and they're living in a hell, and they are being trafficked. So, and they're going to cheerleading practice,

they're going to soccer games. You know, everything looks normal. Right, I would think that was blackmailing, you know. Yeah. So it's basically this thing. It's that too, but it's also trafficking. It is. So it can actually just happen here

in that kind of way. Oh yeah, I happen to all the time. And so movies like Taken, can be a disservice to people who are looking for the white van kidnapping the kid. Now, like I said, different places, different faces, that does happen too. Now Taken, I thought was pretty accurate in how the girls were actually treated and yes,

drugged and desensitized. I've seen cases where they show them pornography or child exploitation material, child rape videos to kind of desensitize them. Right. And but generally, it's rare to see like the cold kidnap kind of case, like in taken. Yeah. Why? Because they're businessmen. And true to form, true to the movie, you kick up a lot of dust if you're just going to kidnap someone who has a family that's going to be looking for them.

So it's much better as a business, because these traffickers are evil, but they are, they're businessmen, they're evil businessmen, but so the lure is what they're going to do. They're going to go up to an impoverished area. They're going to offer a job, offer an opportunity to go to school and be a nanny or whatever. Right. And then the parents wish them well and say, call me every weekend. Oh, yeah, here's a cell phone for you. Your daughter will call you every weekend. And then they never hear from that child again. Wow. So, yeah, here's a cell phone for you. Your daughter will call you every weekend. And then they never hear from that child again. Wow. So that's, it's a much better from a business perspective.

So you see a lot of lure. And women, by the way, are four times more likely to be trafficked. And it's the same concept of lure. And we've worked quite a few of those cases in the last several months. So wait, so wait, so basically, I was going to say something like usually like here where I live in LA you have a lot of guys who are really rich who are super successful and they're going out or they're like doing all sorts of like nasty things with like really young

girls right and because I'm very this is very myopic and I'm not saying every single guy is like that don't get me wrong but I I would think, what is the percent? I would think when I think about this, a lot of those people who are paying that kind of money are guys who are, who kind of like look normal, so to speak, who are successful, who are people who, you know, they kind of like, they kind of like, look like they belong in society, just fine,

like anybody else, but they're the ones I would think we're a little more conniving who are doing those deviant behaviors because they can, they have access. And then they can pay other people to do it. Like, have you noticed that as something, or am I just gonna make it because I think people I know who are like just these rich dudes, private equity guys, whoever who are like just sleeping with a bunch of like

young 16 year old or whatever, that they're the ones who are the most, not the most, but is that like a, is that like a, one of these traffickers, do they look like that? Like how often is it like that? Yeah, so it makes sense. It does make sense. It does make sense and it's an important question because sometimes we want to we think it's gonna look like The crazy sick grease Exactly. It's not it is anybody. It is any walk of life. We've I've seen professionals. I've seen

You know lawyers Educators even law enforcement, right? I've we've had to arrest. So it's this sex addiction, which leads to this. Right, it's a deviant behavior. Yeah, it's a closet crime, a closet sin, and it affects anyone who lets that into their brain, into their heart. So there is no way to profile. There is no way to profile.

But if you, if you, what is the percentage of people who do look like everybody else who are like Considered in society to be like upstanding citizens What is the percentage of people who are these quote unquote? Upside so it might kind of anecdotal experience my opinion. I'd say in the 90s 90% is you would as just Regular people that you wouldn't think twice about Yeah, I mean it's unbelievable. So

Can you kind of okay? How did you even get to be this down the right? How did you start this? I know you were in the CIA. Can you kind of give your story a little bit? Sure Yeah, so I was an agent with the Department of Homeland Security. I was in the CIA briefly before that, but- Do you know what? I was just doing reports and nothing crazy. You weren't a Navy CEO or anything like that? No, no. I got into fighting trafficking as a special agent

with US government. Okay. I was also an undercover operator for Homeland Security infiltrating trafficking rings. So my first post was, I was a an undercover operator for Homeland Security in filtering trafficking rings. So, my first post was a decade on the border with Mexico and the United States. And I basically was, I speak Spanish. So in 2006, the laws changed in the United States and allowed US agents for the first time to go overseas and infiltrate trafficking rings where there were American tourists.

And it was this new law that still in effect, it's an awesome law. If we catch an American having sex with a child overseas, we can prosecute them as if they had committed that crime on US soil. So that opened up a lot of things. And I was spending a lot of time overseas in the Spanish-speaking world mostly, pretending to be a purveyor of child sex or a trafficker or sex tourist. And that opened my eyes. Before that, I did a lot of child exploitation, material cases, you know, where we're getting the end users for possessing this material.

But now we're going out and actually finding these kids. The problem that no one kind of intended was if I couldn't find the American, which usually it was hard to find because I only had a couple weeks or something to get. We'd always find the kids, but finding the Americans in that little window was hard. But what it exposed me to all this stuff, and I'd have all these, in my mind, pending cases, but there was no jurisdiction that I had to work them. Right. So that's why I opened my mind to, well, what if I just quit then?

If I quit, I would have no jurisdictional limitations and we could just bounce around from country to country and just find the kids. And so that was the beginning in 2012, 13. I was working a couple of cases, one in Columbia, where I was really just supposed to be consulting on the case. Oh, really?

And kind of got myself too deep and over-committed. That's the basis of the movie sound of freedom. Yeah, no, I just see the movie. Because I saw pieces of it, actually, this is the whole thing. But you have like a bunch of, you have two movies. Yes, so there's a couple documentaries. Other kind of things about's the whole thing. But you have like a bunch of you have two movies. Yes. So there's a couple documentaries. All the other other famous about the Columbia thing. There's a Columbia documentary which it's called

Triple Take. It's one three Emmys, but it hasn't been released yet. That's right. I don't know when that's going to get released. There's a there's a documentary called Operation Two Saint, which is on Amazon Prime. But wait a second, why hasn't that movie been released? It's one Emmys, you said? It's one Emmys because it Emmy's because they entered it in and they won. It's a really good film. But how does someone's bird you see? You can't see it yet. We're working on trying to get it released.

It's tied up in kind of bureaucratic business dealings with the owners of the, so we're just trying to work a deal to bring it out the right time and with the right people. So hopefully you can come out. I can send you a link. You can watch it. I would love to. What was the movie though? Was it Sounds of Freedom when I when you spoke at the Tony Robbins thing? Yes. Yes. Sound of Freedom is a feature film starring Jim Caviesel, Mayor Servino. Right.

Put your wife, right? Yes. And Jim Caviesel plays me in the film. And Tony Robbins is an executive producer of that movie. So we, yeah, so that was supposed to come out that summer of last year, but for the theaters all shutting down. So it's now we think, you know, probably come out this year, we don't know, I don't know. So how would someone see that?

It'll be a theatrical release, you'll everyone will know when it's coming out. But no, but to date, has anyone seen this movie? I'll just very private screenings. Yeah, I haven't seen it. So I won't know this. Can you send me that one too? Or I could ask for permission.

OK. They're pretty strict these guys. OK, well, listen, if you have a, you can pull a couple of you know, string to the cat. I would love it. I would love it. I'm like fascinated by all of this stuff, because it's just, I guess also because I have kids,

like I said, I'm even more like it's just like, it's like so heart-wrenching to hear all of this stuff because it's just, I guess also because I have kids, like I said, I've even more, like it's just like, it's like so heart-wrenching to hear all of this stuff. And if there's anything, you know, I can do, my audience can do, my friends can do. I think it's super important for people to know the options. We'll get into that after. But sorry, continue on with what you were. Yeah, so I was working on Case in Columbia and also went in Haiti where we had identified trafficking rings potentially, but we couldn't work the case because it was there was no American Involved that we could find eventually there were Americans we found them eventually, but I Didn't find them in enough time to convince

My boss is to let me stand the case and so in 2013 Both those cases kind of come to the surface for me, and I really wanted to work them. And I knew the only way to do it would be to quit my job and go about it privately. And so my wife and I made the craziest decision. You know, we had no money, we had, we had, I was friends and still am good friends with a Glen Beck radio broadcaster. I was friends and still am, good friends with a Glen Beck, the radio and broadcastroom. I told him about my idea. He says, well, I'll raise your first bit of money.

If you do it, I said, okay. So he started raising the money in December, November, December, 2013. And then that's what was really scary because once the money came in, I was like, oh my gosh, no, I have to do it. Now you have to do it. It's not enough to make me feel confident,

but it's too much to not jump in. It was a horrible time. How much of the actually raised that first? He had raised quite a bit. It was north of half a million that he had raised, but these operations can cost up to $100,000. If you're doing it right, and to really do the prosecution and the...

Well, how do you do it? Tell us how it was. Well, so... Because yeah, people should be giving donate into this as a result. People should know what the... What do those donations do? So first and foremost, we serve to empower law enforcement. We're not a rogue, original anti-group.

So we go find our law enforcement partners, ones that we trust, who we have spent time with, embedded in my former life life and the former lives of my operators have kind of lend ourselves to that knowledge. Who can you trust, which countries? And then you go sit down with them and say, okay, what's going on? What do you need? What leads do you have? And they all have leads. Well, geez, there's this place here, like we just did a case last year where a certain, the boss, I had had trafficking for the whole country, came to us

and said, I've got five locations where I know women and children are being trafficked out of and they're fronts, like maybe it's a restaurant or it's a spa or it's a, you know, a little resort, whatever it is, we can't get in because they don't serve people that look like us. They only serve people that look like you. Wow. So can you go in, get pictures, get intel, tell me what the guy is doing, what age is,

what, what, what the girls names. So we literally will send in operators pretending to be clients, and they'll go and hang out at this resort or whatever the target is. And so then we send the information back, we're basically just kind of like glorified informants. You know, that are clean, that pay our own way. And in fact, we'll even go beyond paying our own way. We'll provide technology, computer,

digital forensic equipment, whatever is needed. In three weeks, I'm going down to another country that has never had digital forensic capabilities. Imagine you arrest a petafile or a trafficker and you got yourself on, you got to get the data off, find the child exploitation material, whatever it is. They have no equipment. So we're going down and setting up to build this, start to build a lab. So we provide all of those kind of services for them. And then they instruct us, we go back and say, okay, here's what he said, okay, go back and say this to him, okay, go back and say that until they've made their case. Right. And then they can then make the arrest and prosecute and get the girls out. And then comes in the part that's most important, which is our aftercare. Right. And we have a very kind of robust program

amazing people running that program that we make sure that before there's any kind of law enforcement action on a case that we are supporting there has to be that aftercare piece in place first. So the minute those kids are women or rescuing, there is a place for them to go, opportunities for them, and so forth. Right, because you can't just say, you can't just save somebody, but like, okay, we'll see, yeah,

peace have a nice life. I mean, there's such damage mentally, I would imagine, and, you know, I mean, and they're also probably abused physically, it's such a large degree, right? So, it's called a face forward, right? That's what it's called. And so, you guys have, that's a huge job in itself,

my gosh, just to do the actual thing. Yeah, so part of that, we have an aftercare partner, hearing in the LA area Santa Monica called Face Forward and they're a group of medical specialists, plastic surgeons that will for free take the survivors and fix them. So for example, I was just in Africa a few a month or two ago and we're helping a bunch of survivors who have been exploited, trafficked,

and their abusers, their traffickers will be the heck out of them and make an example out of them if they don't cooperate. And what they do is they'll throw acid on their faces. And it just little just burns as it melts their faces right off. And so we met a lot of those women in Africa last, uh, a couple months ago is, it's horrifying. You look, you look on their eyes or just melted into their face and they're just, it's just, it's just, and there's no hope where they are. So we bring them to, we'll bring them here

and they'll fix them. They'll fix them. Yeah. I mean, I want to get back to how you, you blend back in the money and the Haiti. But But so as that, I don't understand that I was someone who was paying for a sex slave. You would think that wouldn't happen, right? Because you'd want someone to have aesthetically look a certain way, right? So what's the, why would they do that? So the reason would be because they'll control like 15, 20 girls, to say. And this one keeps acting up. This one keeps running away.

This one's not doing what the client wants. So it's worth it. Say, you're not making me any money. Anyway, I'm gonna scare the rest into compliance by melting your face off. And that will scare the others. Okay, we better be compliant with this. So that's what it is.

And how are these people kept? Like, what have you seen when you've gone into these trenches? Like, how typically is, what does it look like? So we've seen everything from, they live at their homes. I worked at a case, one of the early cases we worked actually was a case where these children,

as young as nine, 10, 11 years old, had been giving scholarships to a modeling school. So every afternoon from three to five, they'd go to a modeling school. So every afternoon from three to five, they'd go to the modeling school and it would be taught by the person who was, the winner of the pageant in that town. Right, right. So it kind of known.

And these kids think, the parents think, oh, this is great. My daughter's gonna be famous in rich and well, they don't realize it's between that that, between hours or three and five after school, they're being shown pornography or they're being, they're being shown child exploitation material. They are being besensitized, sometimes drugged, and then eventually told, okay, part of being a model is you go into that room and do what you saw in the video to that American. Right. Right. But they're going home every night. Right? In some cases,

wow. In other cases, they're not in other cases, they're held. They're taken. I've seen cases where they actually live with the trafficker. The trafficker has lured them out of a country into another country. And again, it's almost always these impoverished families that have no recourse. They wouldn't even, the police don't even work in their country, or in the region where they live, they say. And so they have no recourse, and they just, they lure them moving two countries away, and don't ever see them again.

And they'll live in apartments or homes with the traffickers who keep them. And I've seen those cases, by the way, in the United States, especially when they still, they'll smuggle girls from Latin America, Mexico, and they'll basically keep them trapped in a house in New York City. And they've taken them out every day, and they've served 20, 30 clients in a day. Wow.

Was that like something that Jeff Epstein was doing? Did he have any of these girls that were traffic and smuggled and yeah so what he was mostly doing was kind of the the local girls right the local girls in West Palm and then also in the in New York and the Virgin Islands right but and he would just have someone just go pick him up and he his was a kind of a slow roll but it's not a little traffic? Oh, yeah. Totally. Yeah, he'd have him come and give him massages, but he would turn it into.

But those girls, I felt were like part of this whole thing with him. They would have to travel with him. And it was like, that's kind of what, when I think of a, a trough, I think of him as someone being a trafficker, right? Sure. He was.

Is there a profile of like a girl that's the most considered to be the most valuable if they're let's say blonde and blue-eyed and Occasion or the premium would be placed on how vulnerable They are in their lives. Do they have a stable family life? These guys know how to pray on those who don't have that right like there's not on those who don't have that. Like there's not a stable family life. There's no mom or no dad, or you know, it's some senile aunt or grandma

who's kind of taking care of them. Those are the cases you see. I've seen most often, and they know how to look for that. And then they offer them a job, and then they bring them in, just like Jeffrey Epstein. No, no, just gonna come massage my feet or whatever. Right, right, right.

And then pretty soon it's... But what I mean is like, in the dark web, what you want to ask you about, is there like a profile or girl that's saying, these are the most wanted, the blo- you know, this who looks like this or- So yeah, I'd say, for example, we worked the case in Haiti last year. Right. Crazy case where these Venezuelan girls were, they were promised jobs in the Dominican Republic, like legitimate jobs. They had 15 little babies amongst all of them. One was a police officer.

Others were professionals. And they went to get this job for a certain amount of time and they ended up with a lot of them were drugged, others taken, they all woke up in a brothel in Haiti. And why? Because in Haiti of Venezuela and girl, anything new would be valuable in that region. So we ended up getting, there's actually a documentary being made about this case. It's crazy. The White House was involved. Tony Robbins was actually involved.

He helped us fly them out of the country, but it was a crazy case of how these girls really escaped with our help. How? Well, so our guys went in as clients. We got the lead as something was wrong. They could someone, you know, we've learned that they didn't want to be there. Where did you get this lead from?

I guess you have so many people now that are like, kind of like years to the ground or not. Exactly. Yeah. This place was like the largest kind of club in town. And word got back to us at all these Venezuelan girls were there. Exactly. Yeah. This place was like the largest kind of club in town. Right. And word got back to us at all these Venezuelan girls were there. Right. Which is suspicious. Why would they come to Haiti? Do they want to be here? Because what they do is once you have the girl, they take their passports, they don't speak the language. Yeah. These girls were actually locked

in a literal gel cell behind the brothel, but even if they weren't, like, okay, go for it, where are you gonna go? Where are you gonna go? The police are coming here to use our services. You don't speak the language, you have no passport. What are you gonna do? So, they have them. So, we went in as clients, acting like we want to run out

the whole place for a big party. And one of the girls sent something different. They were praying every day that someone would come get them. And they walked up to one of our guys. In fact, that guy sitting right here, he actually was, was the guy that, don't bring him on the camera, but he's, but you can wave to him. So he led that operation, actually. But wow.

So you said you're, you're just the driver to him today. I knew that wasn't true. I know that wasn't true. We're going to get to the Nazarene fund, by the driver to him today. I knew that wasn't true. I know that wasn't true We're gonna get to the Nazarene fund by the way So and it was a joint actually oh you are a Nazarene fund operation this this one Oh, that's okay in Haiti So this one of the girls who just sensed a light with your praying girls asking for God's help Because they're just stuck and he he she handed a

Little piece of paper to him and that just said, help us please. I knew that I was going to support her. But she even wrote it in her left hand in case it got tracked back to her and he wasn't a good guy and he gave it to the traffickers like it wasn't me but they just took a risk and sure enough he called me right now in tears just like you won't believe this. So within 24 or 48 hours, we had them all out. But what happened was the police that were supporting us, which we knew would happen, thought would happen.

They are literally getting paid off by the traffickers during the rescue. So then we literally have to throw the girls in the van and get out and now we're being chased by traffickers and police. Oh my god. So this is where the story just goes crazy. And then we finally find another law enforcement unit that will come in. Our guys, we won't pay a bribe. The traffickers will. And so it's just who's going to pay, but we're not going to pay. They wanted us to pay for the passports. Like the cops were trying to negotiate a deal. Like if you just give me this money,

I'll go in and we'll buy the passports back. Like we talk about buy the passports back. These are slaves now. With the minute you've limited their movement, they're no longer owners of their own lives. How come it's a percent? And we didn't pay, we ended up just working every angle we could get and got the girls out,

got them into the Dominican Republic where they went into hiding, and then finally, we had friends at the White House at the time who got them pass our visas. Wow. Because they couldn't go back to Venezuela. So we got them visas and then we had to figure out how do we get them home?

Because we don't want to take them through a commercial airport because the traffickers were on the loose. And we're on the same island, right? It's the same island. They shared Haiti and Dominican. So eventually we, so I call Tony Robbins. I said, Tony, I need your help. I need you to get these girls out of here. I can't take them to an airport. No problem. He sends his airplane down. He's 737, Jeff. These girls go from, go from living in a gel cell

to walking onto Tony Robbins plane. We had to remind them this is not America for anybody. Right, right, exactly. But Tony's one, Tony and his wife say just so sweet and they said they're one request as if please, because they're actually, the White House actually said, fly to DC, we're gonna welcome you properly in the White House, welcome you to our country.

Really? Yeah, it was really cool because they didn't do any publicity around it, even though it was an election year and they didn't even ask. It was just, this just kept, they got a tour of the White House private tour and but on the way there.

And when did this happen? You said this was August. Like just recently. So yeah, this was, it was like September,, October, I think September is when they actually finally got free. And Tony just asked that their first day of freedom be at his West Palm Beach home.

So literally their first steps on American soil were his house. Because they literally got off the jet into a bus, taking to Tony's house, and they walked out onto his backyard that overlooks the ocean, and then just, on his house and they walked out onto his backyard that overlooks the ocean and then just... Oh my God. So it was not a dry eye in the place.

Oh my God. It was all filmed. So this will all be in a documentary, probably hopefully by next year, amazing story. And the thing that's so amazing is these women are the heroes because they want so badly their story to be told because they will rescue so many more by saying don't get on the plane. The job sounds too story to be told, because they will rescue so many more

by saying don't get on the plane. The job sounds too good to be true, because it is too good to be true. Don't get on the plane. And this is happening all over the place. Yeah. We, we, we, same thing and to answer your question about what, what's the ideal look?

Again, it's usually the exotic look. So we're in Africa. Same thing happened. I'll show you a video after this, because they're not home yet, but they're going to be home in a couple weeks. We were to Africa, and they had done the same thing to these Thai women. They offered them jobs, stalled their passports, they don't speak the language, they're stuck in Africa, and they're told, yeah, you're going to start having sex to make money for me. That's the job. And they're told, yeah, you're gonna start having sex to make money for me. That's the job.

And they're stuck. And how one of these girls, the Thai girls? They're anywhere between 18 and, I mean, there's younger, there's minors as well. But we actually open our mission statement to include women now. It's women and children because it's just, they're four times more likely and it's, and because of COVID and the lockdowns, they're four times more likely, and it's because of COVID, and the lockdowns, they're people are desperate. So someone comes and says, hey, come,

come move to Kenya for a little bit, and you'll be a domestic worker, you'll help it. No, they steal their passports, you're gonna turn sex tricks. Mornings are coming on strong with dark and bold from community coffee. Mm. I feel like bustle loose, ah, bustle loose, come on.

I feel like bustle loose, come on. I feel like bustle loose, come on. I feel like bustle loose, come on. I feel like bustle loose, come on. I feel like bustle loose, come on. I feel like bustle loose, come on. I feel like bustle loose, come on. I feel like bustle loose, come on. I feel like bustle loose, come on. I feel like bustle loose, come on. I feel like bustle loose, come on. I feel like bustle loose, come on. about best to lose dark and bold from community coffee. Look for it at your local grocery or community coffee.com.

She's I also think because I think you said women, is it because also with COVID people are more lonely than ever? And so they're more vulnerable because of that. So yeah, for kids, you know, it's not the same. But for when you said women, like, I know, uh, women that, um, who just kind of like, there's all these like things happening on, like, even linked in where these guys are posing as real guys, and they're just people looking for money, let's say, but same thing happens as you're looking for like a sex traffic, right? Like, you can say the same, you can, you can finagle your way to get to somebody when they're vulnerable, you know,

if they're lonely or if they don't know any better, they don't have, so that doesn't surprise me that there's women. I'm just surprised that like I would think as a client outwant a young girl just because I think it would be, it would be easier to manipulate when they're married. Sure, absolutely.

Yeah, you know, and that happened, I mean, I want to downplay minimize that at all Yeah, it's just that it's just the more we look for kids We're always finding these women who have kids by the way And so it would just we've got to have husbands or boyfriend Or sometimes yeah, oh, I would think that was because sometimes they do is in fact sometimes their husbands Okay, yeah, go you know, you'll make some money for us But they think they're gonna go have legitimate jobs. Right.

And then they never hear from them again. Cause once they leave that country, and they can, they're gone. I mean, to be able to find, I wanna ask you with the dark web, I'm very curious, but you seem to film everything, you seem to film as much as you can. Like, isn't it kind of hard to do this job

while having video cameras running around? Because, isn't that kind of like, don't people kind of realize if something's happening? It's not like you're that inconspicuous when you have a whole... Sure. Well, the cameras, if we film things, usually it's for the evidence that we're going to turn over to the police. Right. And then if... Even so, you have a camera. But they're hidden cameras. They're like in here. Oh, wow. In fact, this is a camera. I'm filming you. Yeah, really? In that bottle?

Oh, oh. Uh-oh. So, yeah, there are cameras that you would never... Oh, so you're not off. You're not going in with like, you know, 48 hours of like, basically that's it. And that's just the hit. Like, and when it's in the cats out of the bag anyway, sure.

They'll go home. They don't have a real camera. But yeah, it's all hidden for evidentiary purposes. And then on the cases that makes sense, if it's good for the cause, those can be turned into videos, but not the vast majority are not, especially if we're doing things that we wouldn't want the bad guys to know. Stagers, too. I mean, you must be, do you have to wear like a bulletproof vest?

And sometimes I have. But usually, you know, usually it's best not for me. I don't like to do that because I actually could alert them. Yeah, I was, that would be obvious. I really just rely on our skills to be undercover. But is it that it's best be dangerous for all you guys though to do that? Yeah. Because anyone could just pull in a guy.

We were in a place that earlier this month where the trafficker was being protected by the local police. The local police were showing up to the meetings. And so we're looking at the police outside like, wow, these kids have no hope. Their only hope is out there protecting the perpetrator. Right, I mean, how often are the local police involved? Like, how often are they shady? I would imagine they're getting paid off all the time.

How often are they getting paid off? So that's why we use, in fact, I'll show you a video after this. We just got back and it's the clip that we sent to the... So we'll work with a federal and national police force that would come in and be new. Like, you can't use the local police in those places we work. You have to find vetted units. Our embassies are often helpful to put us in the right direction to find the vetted units that are trustworthy, at least have a proven track record.

We go and look in very different, like I'll show you this picture. You didn't look very different at the Tony Robbins scene when they showed the video. You look exactly the same like this. Which one? I don't know, they were showing all these videos. Remember, and I was volume, I was by the way, I was like, was I doing, was I undercover? My eyes were blurry, I don't know. So, the more, the more video might have been from before we got bigger.

Okay. Once we got bigger. So this, so, that's you? Yeah, I see. No way. Yeah, don't show the camera. Okay, okay. That is not you

I would never have you would never get like your face looks different right how I Can toward it like Jim Carey? I can't you know, I'm just you don't look at the same person I know and I talk differently and I have contacts changed the color of my eyes You would never recognize me so you basically you basically, you have to be a commute. Yeah, and I have several makeup artists. I could have a scar down my face. Like there's a big beard, like that dude over there. Like, you're real beard for a moment.

I know, I was gonna say, I mean, now I don't know who you are. This is unbelievable. This is like mission impossible, literally. Yeah, because we move around a lot of countries and I'm careful because I'm out there, but if I'm confident, like, okay, there's some cases that I feel like I need to be involved in and I'll do it if I feel like I need to,

or I'll be the guy in the van, or directing it from, we have software to where I can direct operations from 3,000 miles away, but still have birds eye over everybody and see their movements over the satellite imagery. Well, how often are you traveling? How often are you doing all of this? Recently, we've had a really good year, so we're trying to increase open up countries.

So if we're opening new countries, I personally like to be involved with the initial work, even getting into the weeds and everything. So there's two countries I'll tell you offline what they are that are new that we opened up. And so I'm probably gone, what, every two weeks, guys, I'm probably running an operation right now. That won't last forever, but... So you're going every two weeks for how long? Oh, anywhere between like a week or wow A week we can have but then we'll go home and then go back again and go back

We'll do two or three trips to the same place until we finally Yeah, but okay, so how of of throughout all this how many people have you actually? What's the number of people you've actually the number of people that we've directly had involvement in extractions over 5,000. 5,000. And how many people have you caught, like traffickers that are... What's that number? 3,000? Or a fraction of 3,000?

We're getting closer. It's going up so fast. So... Wow. 5,000 the right number too? Yeah. So almost 3,000. And what happens to those people, the traffickers, do they go to jail? Was the process? So yeah, we work in countries that have pretty

good laws in place and we try to bring our embassy friends in. Don't they get killed in jail? I mean, that's a bit pedophile number one. Yeah, that can happen. That can happen. The pedophile is not safe generally and a lot of jails. No. But they should think about that before they raise. It's going to be a bad for them, I guess, right? I guess that's their problem. But we don't, I mean, we really, this is where we can't really, we have to work within the bounds of that government. Right.

We are just basically guests, informants, signed up registered informants for that government. It's that government that has to make those decisions and has to do the prosecutions and so we can just advise on that. Where we don't turn it over to the governments is the aftercare. Because too often in some of these countries it's not a good aftercare system program. So we will, so we will, we find our own partners and we tell our law enforcement partners, we will help you, but anyone that's rescued has to go to this place or this place, because we've vetted them out. We know that they're safe and good. So that's how we run our aftercare. So anytime I'm doing an operation, I have an aftercare

team with me. They're even before I get there, or while I'm there, to make sure those relationships are solid. And if we don't have them, we won't even do the rescue operation. And then how often are these traffickers, like, do they get off? Like, how often are they? They just kind of, they have a good lawyer, or they have a good thing. Does it happen often? No.

No. No. It's, I think we're pretty good at our, when you're filming everything, for evidence, it's really solid. Right. We show up. Yeah, it can happen.

We're in, look, we work in country, we're like Haiti, for example. Right. Those are just rescue operations without any hope, a very little hope that there's gonna be a prosecution. Right. The bad guys paying off the cups. And so people would say, don't work there.

What are you doing? You're crazy to work there. Well, ask those 10 women who we just attended their graduation, by the way. Wow. Because they got scholarships to the university. And just last week, we're all in tears watching them get the diplomas.

So ask them why we went to Haiti, even though we didn't get to arrest anyone and no one went to jail. I mean, that guy's still active and we're still trying to do what we can, but, you know, it's worth it anyway to get them out. Absolutely. Now, can we talk with this dark web?

Because, you know, I'm not, okay, I'm not, admittedly, I'm very tech unsavvy. I mean, like, it's untairable with my computer. But how do people even know how to get on to these things? Like, where is this dark, I mean, I know you don't want to talk to all of a sudden everyone's going to be doing it, but I mean, how easy is it to even access? I don't even know where to begin.

Yeah. I know Google. And then you go Google dark web. Like, what do you put in there? You know what I mean? Yeah. So these are systems that are kind of off the grid, meaning it's not part of the traditional internet. Right. So where are they going? So for example, when we picture the internet, we put you the internet and websites, right?

We're going to, these are controlled by servers, and some there's some corporation. Right. And they're, they're working with investors, providers, and it's all kind of, there's structure to it. So, imagine if there's a place where that doesn't exist, there's no central server somewhere, there's no one. But let's say LA, we're here in LA, right? And I was a pedophile, but I was like, you know, if I was, I was not savvy, I'm not a IT person. How would I even begin?

So, there's software, for Okay, so there's software for example Okay, that you can download That and people use it all the time they might not even realize it's called the dark net right but wow They'll download software that brings them into the new portal and that portal will just be like computers talking to each other Oh, there's not like a central server. It's like a million computers, and let's say your computer is connected into that network because you download a certain software that you're now connected to, a million computers throughout the world. Wow.

But it's not the traditional system. You're not going to Google and find that material. You only can find the material once you're in the network. And now it's just period-appeared, for example. This is one example where you're just computers talking to computers. I'll just individuals. So now what a great place to share illicit material. Right. Exactly. Where there's no one really watching, right? So that's an example of... Is it easy to find the software? Yeah. Yeah, if you know what to look for. And it's not all... It's not like... The illicit parts are small. It's potent, but it's not like, the illicit parts, small.

You know, it's potent, but it's small. People are doing legitimate things on these networks, sharing music, sharing images, sharing whatever. But, and then it goes deeper from even there to where, you know, I mean, it's just a way to be super anonymous. Now, you also, I said you had nine kids, you adopted two of the kids from one of these missions, correct? There was the Haiti mission, right?

So can we just, you were saying earlier, I know we jumped a little bit because I'm riveted by you, but like, the, how you initially got in and glenn back raised money, and is this the mission that you're talking about? That was the first mission. That was the first mission. That was the first mission. Yeah, so we got Intel on a trafficking ring

that was kidnapping children in Haiti. And I met the family of one of those kids that broke my heart, and I promised the family we would always try to find their child. And that led us to Intel, where we found almost 30 children being sold in what was a false orphanage. Said orphanage on the wall, but it wasn't.

Right. And in most places exist all over. I mean, how do you get two million children or more into that black market? Well, it's modeling, it'saked modeling schools, fake orphanages. There's gotta be a way and then pedophiles or slave labor folks show up and buy the kids out of the orphanage.

And there's no record. These kids don't even have birth certificates. So in all of these countries, we take from granted the kind of the controls put in place here. I mean, in this country's like my kids, but we adopted it, we had to guess on a birthday. There's not even a paper trail that they even live. Wow.

And I know it was that mission that one of the men that you, the boy's father, you never found that boy. Correct. That was two years ago. Did you ever find that boy? No, we never found that boy, but we, as we look for that boy. Correct. That was two years ago. Did you ever find that boy? No, we never found that boy, but as we look for that boy, it's so funny because we find other kids.

So we've actually rescued hundreds of kids looking for this kid. Wow. And the first group of kids that we rescued looking for that kid, because we did find the place where he was. The orphanage, right? Yeah.

So we went in undercover and they offered to sell us these kids. And the two that I bought was a brother and sister. Right. We bought them in a sting operation and then I ended up bonding with them and we ended up adopting them. And wow. But no, we have yet to find him, but we are doing everything we can in that area. Still.

Yeah, still, but always finding others along the way. So, and then what is the, okay, so can you explain what this Nazarene fund is? You have, I mean, obviously. So the Nazarene fund is an amazing organization that was founded by Glenn Beck and Mercury one back in 2014. This is when ISIS, remember when ISIS is all over the news and they're making a mass comeback right now by the way, they're coming back. They are.

There's more numbers, there's more number now than ever before and they're still alive and well, they're just waiting to spring in and what they did was they went into parts of Northern Iraq and Syria and just took over entire towns and just said, we are now on these towns. And if you were the wrong religion, so if you were Christian or Yazidi or some ethnic or the religious minority, then you were a slave. You were told to get out, convert, or become a sex slave. And so these Yazidi people were especially hit hard.

And they wouldn't even give them a chance to convert. It was just all the men are dead. all the women and children are our sex slaves. And they set up these like in Mosul and other places in northern Iraq where they took over the town, they had these mass sex markets, sex slave markets where they would just pass around these kids and women. And so what the Nazarene fund does is go in and and One try to get them out before I just gets to them or once they they were Got get them out. So we're extracting these people regularly

Still to this day. There's thousands missing. We have the list of all the missing Christian in New City women and children and we work to get them out and We have operators in the ground who are you know, they're foreign nationals. They're middle-easterners who just skilled, passionate, risking their lives to find these kids who aren't even their religion, by the way, right? They're these Yazidi are people that are very, they're beautiful, peaceful, agrarian type people that have just lived peacefully for thousands of years.

And I see saw them as nothing more than cattle to be butchered or whatever. So that's what the Nazarene Fund is. It works, so Glenn Beck founded it and then he turned it over to us in 2017 18 And so oh you are in Nazarene front archives sister organizations the run completely separately But I'm the CEO of both so wow how many people do you have working for you now?

Like how big is this or? So oh you are we have how we're growing so much right now what what are we at fifth? 40 40 about 40 employees and then probably how we're growing so much right now. What are we at? Fifth, 40? About 40 employees and then probably in terms of contractors, probably 40 more partners at our partners were in the hundreds. We partner a lot, we find our other organizations like MINDED. So we will work side by side with them and they have their own groups on the ground. So the more we partner and build the network, like minded. So we will work side by side with them and they have their own groups on the ground. So it's the more we partner and build the network,

the better. The better, for sure. So, okay, so how can people listening? How can they help? Where are some easy ways that they can help? Well, they should go to ourrescue.org or website and hit the tab that says join the fight and there's all sorts of options.

They can, things they can do to get involved with. There's fundraising or getting involved in some other way of awareness, events. So. And then do your kids know what you do at this? How old are your kids? You know, I know you're at a hundred of them, but how old are these kids? They understand. Well, this is 21. Even 21 year old. Yeah. Thank you for anyone. How long do you know? At 45. Like, God, give it 21 year old. I swear, you look like you're like 21 years old. Thank you, because I don't feel like I am. And my younger is four. So we run the whole thing.

So it's crazy. That's amazing. Do they know? Wait, I mean, the 21 year old doesn't work. Yeah, so the older ones, they want to come work for me. So I tell them, you go get trained. You know, you got to get, you know, that's amazing. Well, how old is how the older ones do you have?

You're before your old, they're not working for you anytime soon. Right. But the 21 year old cut, how old is the other like? So just there it goes 2018, 21, 19, 17, 15, 11 and then there's two of the same age, because we adopted two. Oh, you talked exactly. I have two girls, a biological and my Haitian child. Oh, they're the same age.

They're the same age. In fact, they have the same birthday. Are they, well, how do you know? You don't have the one. Because it was arbitrarily given, and then once they got here, it bothered my biological daughter that she had a birthday that was arbitrarily given,

because she knew because the two kids had the same birthday, which was February 19th and then we rescued them. Oh, my. And my daughter, Della, said that's, they were nine at the time. She said, I don't like her birthday, it was just made up. Mine's a real birthday, I'll share mine with her because then we both have a real birthday. Wow. And eventually we just said, to find.

That's nice. That's cute. Yeah's a good chair birthday Switch to boost mobile and get the ultra smooth ultra powerful iPhone 11 for 49 99 See every angle with dual cameras all on America's largest 5G networks largest 5G networks. Large and in charge, baby. Yet with the power of boost and get the iPhone 11 for $49.99. That's half a Benjamin. Boost mobile.

Unleash your power. High-ede verification required. New customers only at one per line. Additional restrictions apply. See Boost Mobile.com for details. I'm talking about being a good role model. You know what I mean? Like how does any parent even like come close to being

like someone like you? I mean, literally you've given your entire life to like help and save children like around the world. But, but you know, it's funny to say that because I always feel the opposite because I'm never home. You're never home. So I hope I just hope that they know why that is. Right. And I think they do eventually, but it hurts being gone so much. Oh, I can imagine your wife is an angel.

I mean, she's just looking after all of these kids and she's the one who actually pushed you a lot, right? To like to walk this stuff. Oh, yeah. I never would have done it. We're not for her. Yeah. Wow. What was her background?

Was she like a teacher or like just a saint? Or what was her whole thing? She's a saint, mostly. Just a saint, okay. That's what I thought. Yeah, when we got to that point where I was like, what do I do? I can work these cases in Columbia and Haiti.

I know we'll rescue kids. Right. But if I do the case, I have to quit my job. And if I quit my job, we have no money. Right. And so she said, that's what she said. She pushed you out. She's like, who cares about the money?

Who cares? Like, if you think you can rescue kids, how are you gonna meet your makers, what she told me? And how could you say no to this? Right. And that was kind of, she kind of put an end to the argument. But I fought her on it. especially when the money started coming in.

I was like, let's just donate this to another charity that does similar work. Absolutely. And I'm going to stay in my government job. And she's like, oh, no, you're not. I mean, mentally, though, like what you have, are you, I mean, have you become somewhat disanstitized because you've seen so much? Like, you must have mentally, so strong, or do you have to see somebody

to deal with all this wrong. Because you're seeing over here, because he knows I'm mentally not strong. I am. So you would have to, because obviously you're a cop. Thank you. You have to be a very compassionate, sympathetic kind human to be able to do this.

But with those character traits, come, like, you know, you have to, it must be very difficult daily to see such trauma and such awfulness daily. It is so, so hard. It's really hard this work. And not for reasons you might think it's hard enough. Right. That you're seeing, like, just two weeks ago, it was in a place where I was brought six year old boys who are being sold for sex. And it's just devastating. But you know the hardest part,

and this is gonna take a little twist, the hardest part is I was warned when I started this. Like the non-profit world is horrible, don't do it. Why? Because it's back biting and mean and I'm like, no, not on this. Thousand times worse than I thought. Why? Because it's backbiting and mean and I'm like, no, not on this. A thousand times worse than I thought.

Really? Oh yeah. The solution to fighting human trafficking and ending modern day slavery really is, I believe, in the NGO space. Working with law enforcement, but that NGO space, that nonprofit space is super important.

There was Kevin Bale, who was kind of the premier academic in this space, and he said, nonprofits are the key, but they just will never get along, because they have the scarcity mentality. So they would know you are got really big, we got really big last year. All so many of my friend organizations turned on us.

Like, just out of jealous. Right, and it's just like, what are you, we're working with you. Right, and nonprofit, you think, we're working with you. Right. And nonprofit, you think that it would be the opposite. Scarsity mentality. Right. If you get the money, then we're not.

And it's like, wait, wait, did you forget why we're, what everyone's doing here? Right. Oh, they might see easy for you to say, you guys got so big. I'm like, well, we just try to partner with everybody. Right. So that's one of the hardest things,

like coming out the airplane after seeing a six-year-old kid and strategizing and then having to deal with. Oh, guess what? Your friends over here just did to you, you know? Yeah. I won't say names, don't worry. You should. I want to know names.

I should say names. You should say names. I won't, though. See, what was it? What was the precipice? Like, what made you, like, last year was a tipping point of some kind? What was it? It wasn't Tony's birthday.

What maybe it was, I don't know. But what was that precipice, that moment that made you guys just kind of become? I think we're kind of growing aggressively. But 2020 was a big year. I don't know that any of us have been able to totally figure it out. I think it had to do with,

I think there was an increase in the amount of abuse because we got a call and shut down and that societal infrastructure that keeps kids safe. Schools, after school programs, that actually keeps kids safe from pedophiles and traffickers, but no one knew that, or they knew it, but they didn't listen. And so when that kind of collapsed, there was people saw it.

The National Center for Missing and Spoiled Children reported double, like millions of additional leads, reports of child sex abuse that originated online. For example, so you see all these cases going and people are seeing it, they're recognizing it and they're just like, what is going on? And we do something very unique. I love all the organizations and all the focus

on different areas. But we're unique as we, and not saying, there's others that do this too, we're not the only ones. But our kind of specialty is going into the darkness. Like we work with the police, but we go in. We go into the darkest corners, like the story I told you in Haiti,

or the other one I just told you about. We go in there. And so it's very direct action. Yeah, where other things are important, but they're very indirect. So I think that when people were seeing that and they saw what we do, it was interesting to them. And we had a lot of very influential partners.

Right, they brought more attention to it. you know, we had a lot of very influential partners, you know, the brought more, the brought attention to it. And I think, I don't know, would you explain it that way too? Yeah, I think there was a uptick with the wafer. Um, he heard about that last year. You mean, you mean in Atlanta? Is that no? There was, there was talk of wafer. So wa So wafer was this furniture, online furniture company? Oh, oh, yeah, I know who they are. And they were like, there was like this conspiracy theory

and it turned out to the total conspiracy theory about how they were selling furniture for like a lot of money more than people thought they should be and they were all named after names. And then people would say, oh, there's someone in Brittany who was missing, well yeah, there's every name in the world doesn't mean that's the first one.

And of course, by lots of them. So they just kind of lined it up and said, look, they're selling people. Well, that's not the case. And so I actually, I think there was one post I did. Oh my God, he's like, it's crazy. And I just went on and said, I said, look, I don't think this wafer thing

that hasn't proven out to be true, but I will tell you that people are sold online. I've been undercover on every social media platform that exists and there are traffickers selling women and children through those means. So I kind of went through that and that just resonated and in like millions of views, and that was one big thing that kind of threw us

into the front. Wow. Or the public's mind at least in this fight. Well, I'm so glad it did, because this is one of those things that it's been good and bad. I mean, it's been really good overall, because it's allowed us, we've just opened up four new countries

in the last several months. But we have people now know who you are, so that can also be uh, despaments. It's been really good. Yeah, and bad for other reasons, because of the other reasons I told you about. Yeah. You know, absolutely.

No, no NGO should grow that fast. Right. Exactly. No, it's 100% true. Even though we're saving kids, that's that secondary. I know. To the fact that you just got too big. Sorry. They're yelling at me.

Well, why don't you? He, I like, I like brutal on honesty. And so that's, this is great. And I, I'll, how about TikTok? Has TikTok been a big place now because they're such young, like there's many young people there is at like a place where you're infiltrating a lot now too. I think any social media.

Any social media has the potential. And I'm not against any of them. I'm not, we use them all for good. I'm not the person I get it. I get it. But yeah, they're going to be exploited. All those platforms will be exploited by evil doers who are accessing kids or selling kids. Absolutely. Well, I mean, case, so we people should go to the website, which is Operation Underground Railroad. Oh, you are rescue.org. Okay. And to get involved. Or the Nazarene fund.org.

Or the Nazarene fund.org. Do you want to learn about that? Yes. And is there anything else that you want to add before? I mean, I know I've kept you here a little bit, but is there anything else that you want to share? I would just, yeah, the thing I would share to people is there will be people that watch your podcast

that are like right now just like, about to turn it off. I know that. Okay. They're like, yeah, how much am I going to listen to? Because it's hard. It's heavy to talk about this stuff. And I would just ask people to not turn it off.

To don't be deterred to go into the website and getting involved. Is it hurt? Yes, we're not going to lie to you and tell you that this is easy. Just go and learn more about children being raped. Right. Okay. It hurts. You shed a lot of innocence. But if we don't do it, then these kids will never be rescued. It's the one thing I always take note of, like I just told you, I got back from an operation a couple weeks ago. Yeah. We are in places all the time where it's just like,

if we weren't here, because basically we're into the government of that country and they said, okay, be the tip of our spear. Right. Where do you want to go? We want to go here, because here's the intel we have. Okay, we'll support you. Show us what you find and they're shocked. They're just like, what are you showing us? Absolutely. I'll show you, show us what you find. And they're shocked.

They're just like, what are you showing us? Absolutely. I'll show you the video after I can't show you here, but I'll show you after. I want to see it. And so the highest levels of their government are just like, what? We all know this town, we all go to this town.

We had no idea this is happening. Okay. And then when they find out that even the local police are providing support to the traffickers, right? So what hope do those kids have? Zero hope if we hadn't gone in with that government to go extract. So that's what I say to everybody. There's no hope if we don't all do something in our hurts to do it, but it's worth it. Right. So please everybody, I mean, it's going to be, we're saying it at the end, but I'm gonna say it again.

I'm gonna do it again in the beginning that people should listen. They should go to your website. They should go to the Nazarene Fund also. They should help. They should do whatever they can because this is a A really big problem and if you have, even if you don't have children you have children This is one of these things that needs you and needs your help, so need your attention. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you, Jim. It was so nice to have you. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I'm Heather Monahan, host of Creating Confidence, a part of the YAP Media Network, the number

one business and self-improvement podcast network. Okay, so I wanna tell you a little bit about my show. We are all about elevating your confidence to its highest level ever and taking your business right there with you. Don't believe me, I'm gonna go ahead and share some of the reviews of the show so you can believe my listeners.

I have been a long time fan of Heather's no matter what phase of life I find myself in, Heather seems to always have the perfect gems of wisdom that not only inspire, but motivate me into action. Her experience and personality are unmatched, and I love her go getter attitude. This show has become a staple in my life. I recommend it to anyone looking to elevate their confidence

and reach that next level. Thank you. I recently got to hear Heather at a live podcast taping with her and Tracy Hayes, and I immediately subscribed to this podcast. It has not disappointed, and I cannot wait to listen to as many as I can as quick as I can. Thank you, Heather, for helping us build confidence and bring so much value to the space. If you are looking to up your confidence level, click creating confidence now. If you are looking to up your confidence level, click creating confidence now.