MMA Fighting - ‘Vigilante Justice’: UFC Hopeful Takes Fight To Streets To Catch Predators & Protect Children

Episode Date: February 21, 2023

MMA Fighting's Mike Heck brings you the story of UFC hopeful and TUF 29 contestant Dustin Lampros, who along with friend and partner Ryan Montgomery is taking his fight outside of the cage, into the dark web, and onto the streets to stop child predators before they can strike. In this mini-documentary, Lampros and Montgomery discuss how they came together, what they have learned since teaming up, how their stings are put together and the addition of calisthenics to them in order to embarrass the suspects, Lampros' fighting future and what he learned from his appearance on The Ultimate Fighter, and more. *Warning: This podcast deals with subject matter that may not be suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion advised. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Warning to the Vox Media Podcast Network Warning, this podcast may contain disturbing content and language that may not be suitable for all audiences. There will also be audio included throughout the podcast that includes the subjects of the piece involved in a sting,

confronting a suspect who was subsequently arrested and charged with obscene communication with a child. Listener discretion is advised. Being an MMA fighter is a path not many people on Earth take. Utilizing the tools learned over many years to use inside of a cage or ring is one thing. But utilizing those skills for good outside of it to help people, and in this case, children, is another altogether.

Dustin Lamprose, an undefeated fighter and recent contestant on the Ultimate Fighter 29, has teamed up with a partner to do just that. Their mission is to investigate and stop child predators in trafficking. For the past couple of months, the current Shamrock FC Featherway champion has done his part to try and stop children from being abducted, trafficked, or worse. I didn't realize how bad this was. I mean, I always heard about sex trafficking and had some very, very close people to me that have been victims of these situations. And I didn't realize how big it really was. And then when he, you know, brought it up to me and we realized there was no one down here in South Florida at all doing anything like this.

I was all for it, you know. But yeah, I was completely blown away. Like, it really made my stomach turn, like, the first couple of weeks. I was just, like, disgusted. It was terrible. Now, with the help of a friend, Lamprose is doing his part to stop the problem while still continuing on his journey to getting to the highest level of mixed martial arts. I'm Mike Heck from MMAFiting.com, and this is his story of taking the fight outside of the cage into the dark web and out on the streets to stop potential child predators before they can strike.

Around 18 months ago, Lampros was introduced to Ryan Montgomery, who has been in the cyber security field for many years. The two went on to former friendship, and Montgomery let Lampros know that he had been doing work behind the scenes, assisting in thwarting child predators. The eight-no fighter suggested they joined together and do it as a team. Montgomery has accounted for thousands of cases over the years, and he believes the problem is only getting worse. You never know when you meet these guys whether they're going to be more than just a predator. They could be, like you said, a human trafficker. They could be trying to kidnap the child. They could even murder them.

I mean, but thankfully when we show up, it's not a 13-year-old girl. It's us, you know, and then the police. Yo, what's up, man? What's you doing here, ma'am? Chilling. Just chilling. Not here to meet anybody? Listen, we don't want to go with the cops.

We have all your information. I'm sure you do. So we can have a conversation or we can go to the conference. I'm good. Thanks guys. Guys. Just have a conversation. Just talk to us.

Great talk. All right. Why do you think it's okay, man? It's not okay. I was just talking. But in 13, you have grown main. You're a grown man, right? You're absolutely 100% correct.

I mean we have all these like different. I never said anything bad. Yes, I said one thing bad. I said one thing bad that was it. bad that was it I understand that you have everything please I don't know I'm trying to listen I know because obviously you know how this could go understand that all I was going to do was talk and that's okay and there was you want to talk about just say hi that was it are you are you going through something because you

got to see this a problem I understand they're growing me about 13 years between 2004 and 2008 Dateline NBC produced a program called to catch a predator which featured Chris Hansen as the host throughout the of the series, stings were set up using decoys to trap and lure suspects into sting houses, where they would then be arrested for various charges in connection to being predators and sex offenders. What Lamprose and Montgomery are doing is somewhat similar, in that dark web searches lead them to suspects who are seeking children to meet up with. Lamprose took part in his first encounter in South Florida in late 2022,

not knowing exactly what was going to happen. It was an emotional experience. Yeah, about two months ago, we had our first one in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. That was my first interaction. And yeah, it was definitely very interesting because it really made my stomach turn, you know, like going and approaching this guy who was there to meet a 12-year-old girl. And seeing how he responded and how he tried to justify himself and his excuses, it made my blood boil.

And, you know, that was my first. real interaction with it. Yeah, he also rented a hotel room for the night, specifically for this 12-year-old girl and ordered a pizza, which shows intent. You know, in this case, the guy was completely honest with us about what his intentions were. It doesn't make it any better, whether they're honest or not. I mean, we have the chat logs prior to meeting up, but this guy's full intention was

to be with a 12-year-old girl in his mid-40s. As a professional fighter, Lamproes has the skills to be able to physically, defend himself from an alleged suspect if the need arises. But as much as he would like to deliver his own justice, Lamprose can't. If he crosses that line, it'll jeopardize everything he and Montgomery have worked towards. If I don't control myself in that one moment, then there is no more moments after that. Because if I screw up and do something illegal myself, if I put my hands on the individual,

then there is no more help in future, you know, children in that case, you know, because once I do that, then it's over. We want to be able to continue this operation. Obviously, I would love to do nothing more than smash their teeth. And obviously, you know, they're coming out there to literally commit rape in a sense. So it's like, yeah, like I would love to do that, but it wouldn't help our case. It might punish that individual for that moment, and then there would be no more helping out in this type of situations.

Of course, once these suspects are caught, they know they're caught. When their backs are against the wall, Lampbrose and Montgomery say they will say or do anything to get out of it. He and Montgomery have heard every excuse at this point. I was just lonely. I just wanted to talk to them. I just wanted to have a smoke. I wasn't going to do anything. Or one of the most confusing excuses in Lampos's eyes.

I was here to warn him. You drove an hour and 45 minutes to warn. 13-year-old. Yeah, 9 o'clock on a Friday night at Walmart. I mean, it's obvious that they're lying. And we can read them their chat logs, and then they'll just keep going in circles and their lies get worse and worse and worse.

It's bull crap, because you don't know what they're going to do. You know, they can say all that, but their intentions could have see you later. That kid would have been gone, you know? And if we can prevent that happening by exposing one of these guys, turning them into the police, getting them arrested and making them think twice, just maybe, even if it's 100 of them,

And we save one, that's one life that we're saving compared to not. I mean, it's a form of vigilante justice for sure. You are completely stopped me. No, no, no, I am getting where I am screwed up. You understand? Where'd you screw up? Where did you square? The whole entire thing.

You explained us. The whole entire thing, me even being on the damn chat. Yeah. Me even talking to anybody. Right. I need to go. I'm old enough. We know more information than you think.

Yeah, we have everything. And I don't, I know. And we'll go to them and we're gonna go to cops. We're gonna do everything if you don't just talk to us. This is what you have to do, to get past it. You said she had breeding hips. You're right and I have an issue with my head. You told her a shower with her?

You think that's right to tell her? A 13 year old, it's illegal. I know you don't know that, but that is. No, I honestly did not know that. And now that you have told me that, I understand that 100%. How do you want to meet her? As I said in here, literally to see her face

I was, I know, but why do you want to meet her? That was nothing else was in time. I'm seeing, what is your point of conversing with that 13-0? Like, you're lonely? That was just, what do you? A house I thought. Just literally an house I thought. That was it.

But you followed through and showed up. In addition to trying to reduce the number of cases in South Florida and eventually beyond, Lampros has taken a different approach towards making suspects feel the weight of what they were attempting to do. In videos circulating on social media, Lampros has been seen having suspects do calisthenics, push-ups, air squats, or more while repeating aloud what they are accused of doing.

One suspect was allegedly meeting up with a 13-year-old girl, so Lamproes told him to do 13 sets of 13 push-ups outside of a store until the police arrived to arrest him. Lamproes admits he gets angry during these catches. And since he can't turn to a physical response unless he's provoked, he takes things in a different direction. These guys need to be made exposed. Like, they need to be embarrassed.

Like, they need to feel, because I started realizing, you know, we do this. And sometimes they don't really like, it's like they don't really care. They don't really have too much remorse. Like, there's kind of like, I'm sorry. That's not enough. And it's even going to the police and getting them arrested, like in that moment, they need to feel like ashamed of themselves, you know, and there's people walking by. There people are coming up to us going to you guys are awesome.

Like, that's terrible. Like, when I'm learning as I go and obviously there's no handbook to this. And I've had a lot of people reach out in support of how I'm handling it, saying, like, do great job. So, yeah, I mean, it's only just a snowball effect. It's just going to keep evolving. I mean, do you feel ashamed or embarrassed? Oh, I'm demotically right now. You don't really seem like it.

That's what's bothering me. Yeah, you seem like you have no remorse. He seemed like you're more scared of just getting arrested. You don't care about ruining 13-year-old life. If you truly don't want me to go to the cops right now, prove to me that you're sorry, Give me 13 years old, right? 13 years old. I would like you 13 push-ups for doing 13 push-ups.

And say, I will never meet a 13-year-old again. It's the easiest thing you could do. Imagine the 13-year-old, what you'd be doing to her for the rest of her life. All you've got to do is push-ups on the floor on Walmart. That's 13, that's 26. Or more 13. 13. I can't do another 13. Imagine how she feels.

This is how we, this is how we handle this. This is how we do this. This is how we go. 13 swath? Yeah, after it was going to go outside after. We'll do it right here so no one sees it so you don't get attention brought to you. Say, I'll never meet a 13-year-old again. I will never meet a 13-year-old again.

Say, I will never meet a 13-year-old again. I will never tell a 13-year-old that want to take a shower with him. I will never tell a 13-year-old to take a shower with him. Lamprose and Montgomery also understand that calisthenics and physical embarrassment can only work so much. Sometimes they need to take things a step further. the suspects in a position to confess what they were planning to do to those closest to them. We have 100% success rate with them calling a loved one, whether it be their mother, their father, their sister, their girlfriend, even their wife. And then Dustin and I will make

sure we look at their phone while they click the name and number to do so they don't take us out. So we always made sure they held themselves responsible by calling their loved one, telling them exactly what they're there to do on speakerphone with us recording, and then we chime in as well with more information about what they're there to do. And then, you know, at least somebody else knows if, let's say the video doesn't go anywhere at that time, you know, we're going to continue doing it regardless, you know, because that's going to be a long drive home for them, whether they're arrested or not. So I'm like, all right, well, you want to hold yourself accountable, right? You really are telling me you're sorry because they sit there and

tell us how sorry they are. They might even shed a tear. They might get emotional. I'm like, all right, well, then if you're so sorry, who are you close to? Oh, well, my cousin, my sister, like, oh, who you live with? Right now, my grandma. I'm like, all right, cool. Go on your phone, call them right now. You know, the one guy is like, oh, I'm not really close to anyone. I said, go to your most recent calls.

It shows dad in there, like, five times. When you call your dad and tell them what's going on right now, why you're here at a park? And he goes on the phone and here dad, I'm here to have sex with a 13-year-old in a park. Yeah, I mean, that's, it's disturbing. Yeah, would they be sorry if there was a 13-year-old girl there and not two guys with a camera?

And something that I bring up every time I'm behind the camera and you know, I'll chime in every once in a while. That's what I always tell them. You're going to ruin this child's life. Did you not like brainstorm that? I might sometimes I might make them say it 20 times in a row why they're here, what they're doing. Because if it was a real child here right now, you know, not just screwed, but the rest of her life. I think she would trust older people ever again? Do you think she'd ever forget this?

I mean, I know what your intentions were, whether you want. want to admit them or not, you don't have to admit them. I know what your intentions were and she would have never been the same. My intentions were not what you were thinking. Based upon your chat logs is all I can go off. Okay, no, I understand that. I understand that and there's a cop right there and there's two cops. And thank you very much, I'm going to jail.

Well, you should have came to me of the 13-0. Thank you very much, John, for me. Thank you very much. You did this. You're here. This is how cops should handle the situations. This is amazing. As far as Lamproes' fighting career goes, the grind hasn't stopped and his goals haven't changed.

After a tough run on the ultimate fighter, where he was finished in the first round by Vince Murdoch, Lamproos bounced back with three dominant wins for Shamrock FC, which included two finishes and a championship win at Shamrock FC 339 in July. Of course, making it to the UFC is the dream of most athletes who choose MMA as a career path. But with this new path, Lamproes is taken with Montgomery. Having a platform as big as the UFC's won't just help get them over as a professional athlete. It could also help spread their message on a global scale. I'm still training two, three times a day.

You know, I'm still putting in the work. As of now, you know, like our decoy knows that our catch times are at the end of the day. Obviously, like, once he's done from his work and I'm done from training, my last training session, nothing's been interfering at all. And I don't think it will be. You know, I'm grinding. I'm hoping I get that UFC call in the next couple months. I'm getting ready.

Hopefully we got some good news soon. You know, I think the tough show, I couldn't have asked for the show to go and you play different. Now, looking back, I think it's what I needed. I was a very cocky fighter, very confident, very just, no one can beat me. And I learned that, hey, you know, I needed more time. I need to respect the higher level fighters and know that anything can happen at any time, as you could see.

And no, everything's coming full circle. And I'm truly blessed. I mean, I couldn't be, I feel like, in a better position. I think God has me right where he wants me. And I'm excited to see where it goes from here. As a parent of a nine-year-old child myself, the world is a much scarier place today than it when I was a kid. Gone are the days where kids can just come home from school and run around with their friends while waiting for the dinner bell. Or in my case, my mom heading to the nearest

window to scream that I need to come home. It's a different world with different devices. And the ability to communicate with strangers is more accessible than ever before. Since he has so much experience stopping potential child predators before something inconceivable happens, Montgomery is sharing advice with parents based on his years of expertise. My advice to parents would be to not be worried about being a helicopter parent, check your child's device, make sure, you know, when they're on their Xbox, when they're, you know, talking to strangers on video games, that people that are in their game are people they know,

and not that they think they know, people that they know in real life. Maybe that, you know, you know the parents of those children. And on their apps, you know, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, you know, make sure they don't have dating apps on their phones. And even to take it a, you know, one step further, there's an app called Life 360 where you can actually monitor where your child is and, and add some limitations to their phone. It's one thing. It's, it's, the severity is so high and the amount of these people is so large that it's not a, it's not something that you just decide to do. You need to do this as a parent because it's that bad. I mean, you can't expect your child to know that they're not talking to another.

child when somebody's sending them photos of children saying that they're a child and then they want to meet up to hang out and they end up being a 50-something year old man or woman or whatever gender. So it's important to be proactive about this rather than reactive because reactive, it doesn't go away. This will never leave your child. You know, they'll remember this the rest of their life and it's not your fault. You can prevent it by being proactive. The suspect that you heard throughout this podcast that was eventually arrested was charged with three felonies. Lude Lysivious Act to promote sexual activity with a minor under 16 years of age, soliciting a child for unlawful sexual conduct using a computer and use of a computer service to seduce or solicit a child.

Additionally, the suspect was given a no-contact order for minors under the age of 18 and is due back in court on February 21st, according to court documents. I put together a few of these features since I came over to M.AFighting.com and each one hit me in a different way. But this story, especially being a father to a young child, it tapped into all sorts of different emotions for me. That's why I applaud what Dustin Lamprosse and Ryan Montgomery

are doing in South Florida to try and stop this from happening. It's my hope that this feature helps give Lamprose and Montgomery a bigger platform to spread their message. And as a fighter, Lamproes is knocking on the door of a UFC call. And if he gets it, it would give him the biggest possible reach to accomplish that. I want to thank Dustin and Ryan for sharing their story about their organization, 561 PC. That's 561 PC.

You can find Dustin Lamprose on Instagram at Scrappy 135 MMA, Ryan Montgomery at Zero Day. That's the number Zero Day. And you can follow and subscribe to their YouTube channel. which is at 561 Pred Ketchers, 561 P-R-E-D-C-A-T-C-H-E-R-S. I also want to thank M-M-A-F fighting Deputy Editor Shaheen Al-Shadi for all of his help in putting this all together. As Shaheen can attest to by now, when I start doing one of these, I end up asking 47,000 questions about trying to make this the best that it can be and try to tell the story to the best of my ability.

This has been MyCAC from MMAFighting.com. reading or listening to this feature. And if you're a parent of a child, hopefully you found this as educational as much as I did.