[Laughter] [Music] hello I'm Chief Anthony thino of the San Antonio Police Department what you're about to see is an educational video produced by Sap's Media Services office we're producing this video to give you an Insider look into the world of human trafficking today you'll hear from a respected local expert on human trafficking detective George sigura is an sapd Vice detective assigned to the FBI's crimes against children task force he is a 22-year veteran of sapd and has worked assignments in covert operations for the past 13 years his mission is to rescue those brought here from abroad as well as domestic victims from The Real World of human trafficking we sat down with this detective to give you a list of signs Solutions and resources to use in helping us fight this most degrading of crimes my name is George seura I'm a detective with the San Antonio police Vice unit well there are many stories that stand out in my mind uh in particular the damage that it has done to the unwary victims um but one in particular uh I can talk about because it's been adjudicated is a case that involved a a runaway juvenile teenager who met an individual uh just by chance it was a it was a chance meeting but that chance meeting changed her life forever she became a trafficking victim at the tender age of 15 uh I know that there have been trafficking victims that have been younger than that but the reason why this one stands out is because even though she was trafficked and she was victimized still today she has no idea that that's what was happening to her um the problem with that is that she will always have a skewed idea of what relationships are supposed to be like she will never she'll never have a successful romantic relationship with anybody because she has no real clue no Foundation of what a trusting relationship could be um by chance this individual saw her walking along the street because she had run away from home for the fifth time and on this particular night was starting to get cold and she needed a place to stay and he that perpetrator seized that opportunity gave her a place to stay for the evening and from that point on she was indebted to him from that point on he had her essentially under his spell he smooth talked her into a relationship and during the course of that relationship let her know that there was a way that she could make money and support herself really what she was doing was supporting her pimp the truth it was at 15 years of age where she just turned 15 she's EV a 14-year-old girl who gotone on the street and turned 15 years old on the street um she was born to a crack addict mother um she didn't really have much of a leg up on life at that stage but then she was adopted by a by a very loving family and that family provided a very secure household for her but like every other teenager when she becomes a little bit more independent she becomes a little bit rebellious and as a rebellious teen she chose not to follow the rules of the household and instead start searching for the freedom that she she believed running away would give her in essence what she was doing was making herself vulnerable to Predators such as the one who found her um she was walking along Fredericksburg road which as you know is a very busy street it is a bus route it is heavily populated uh Frederickburg road just outside of luk 410 is is an area that is extremely busy there's she must have been seen by hundreds of people but the one that CAU whose ey she caught was the The Predator that approached her asked if she had someplace to stay and when she said no he knew right away that he had her now during the course of that relationship which turned sexual very shortly there after um he had sexually assaulted this juvenile female several times uh he was 30 plus years of age by the way so he was more than twice her age and once he realized that she was more attuned towards a sexual relationship he introduced the idea of Narcotics to her um now to a kid who's trying to forget her past who's trying to live in a free world who's trying to make her own rules uh the idea of alcohol and narcotics actually sounded pretty good to her so she began a life of Narcotics uh starting with lightweight stuff like marijuana and Xanax pills but then moving on to heavier stuff which included methamphetamine and crack cocaine the original and the reason why that was so dangerous was because her mother she was born to a mother who was addicted to crack so that little tendency was always within her that little bit was always within her and then once she tried crack for the first time it was a hook the pimp would continue to provide narcotics for her would continue to provide some level of security for her or at least the belief that it was security for her but as soon as the first crack rock ran out he said if you want another one you have to work for it and that was the Trap from that point on she was prostituted from the time that she first turned 15 all the way till 18 years of age she was prostituted hundreds if not thousands of times she was peniles she was still homeless and she was addicted to crack and now the only source that she had for that crack was taking advantage of all of these factors and uh making money off of her supporting his own wife his own kids his own family his own household and his other stable of girls um we could get a little further into the stable of girls but the truth of it is that one young girl who only had a slight chance for success in life uh lost that chance when she met this Predator from this point on she will be battling her addiction to crack from this point on she will be battling her idea of what a relationship should be like a give and take a true trusting relationship um so that case stands out in my mind because I realized during that case that we can't rescue these kids in fact we would be fooling oursel to believe that we're going to rescue any of them but we need to be here when they're ready to rescue themselves truly the definition of human trafficking it's really crimes that take away the human element in uh their victims they remove their humanity and reduce them down to Commodities to be traded to be used for monetary gain well the most apparent different between smuggling and and trafficking of persons is that smuggling involves immigration issues where someone is really just trying to get from one location to another location and they may use some sort of a goet or a coyote or a or some sort of a transporter in order to get from place to another but they are really doing this as of their choice when it comes to trafficking choice is not an issue trafficking victims they don't choose that lifestyle that's what is bestowed upon them that is what what happens to them and how they're victimized trafficking of persons actually does not include necessarily movement they can be trafficked out of their own home they can be trafficked out of their own City out of their own neighborhood um trafficking persons really is just trading people as Commodities to try to make money off of them rather than um smuggling which is in turn trying to move some from one place to another place to get to make a better life and in short um smuggling victims can be trafficked trafficking victims aren't necessarily smuggled they could be in debt for that smuggling and then be trafficked in order to pay off that debt the massage establishments that use compelled labor they're not going to be your licensed therapeutic massages massage or locations they're going to be Little Fly by Night companies that show up here for a month and then shut themselves down a lot with Leon belly with with Castle Hills even down in Pleasanton there are several of these things popping up and closing down all over the place we're trying to get in there get some cases and and try to flip people pretty regularly one of the major problems with that is that this is where smuggling also comes into human trafficking is when we we go into an establishment and there are no English-speaking people in there we have to try try to find somebody who speaks that language first of all just to get through to them and these people have been told from the day they are hired to the day that they uh get questioned by police that if they speak to police they are just going to be shipped back to their country not it's not going to be a matter of victim protections it's going to be a matter of we find you you're not a citizen you're out of here well looking at a victim profile um especially when you're talking about domestic minor sex trafficking you're talking about the the rebellious kids The Runaway kids the throwaway kids kids that don't feel like they have a support system at home but also kids that do have a support system at home but choose to move away from that support system see I find it so ironic in American society how when our kids need us the most they are the most distanced from us if you ask any parent who has an adult child when was their toughest time with their kid what are they invariably going to say it's during their teen years in their teen years where they're searching for a sense of self they're searching for some sort of an idea of the type of person they're going to be that is the time in which they need us the most and uh they are the most distance from us and that is that is an epidemic in American society that we we really have a responsibility to start to cure um but there are kids out there that run away and they become homeless kids if they are such a problem and such trouble at home that they run away and parents have thought you know maybe we're better off that that kid has run away for one reason or another don't report them runaway don't report them missing um but instead they become homeless kids out there with no means of sustenance no means of of providing for themselves they're not employable by legal means I mean if they're if a 13-year-old started looking for a well-paying job they're not going to find anything nobody's going to hire a 13-year-old for a legal over-the-counter type of job but um they become victims of human trafficking as a result of things like that because the people that will employ them are the people that would take advantage of them um shy immature or naive or innocent kids who don't have a sense of of really what to look out for that they would be they would fall prey to somebody because of their smooth talking they would fall prey to somebody because they are they are unaware that evil still exists out there I mean they're sheltered to the point that they are naive about the way that the world Works those are those people can be victim uh kids that want or need money for one reason or another I recently uh took up a case where a uh 16-year-old girl went into escorting at the goating of this pimp because she needed money to provide for her own immigration status and to Pro try to provide for her mother's immigration status so she felt she felt compelled to earn a living somehow how so that she could help pay for her own uh residential card or or or alien residents here I believe that some of the the path to solving these issues begins with education um education not only with the general public but also uh law enforcement First Responders um Educators parents everybody that we can get educated and motivated on this particular subject can be a set of eyes and ears to to be out there looking for victims or suspected victims uh and suspected offenders um aside from that specific training that addresses investigative techniques and methods can be shared from Department to department so that we have the most updated and and most effective forms of training available out there um a Unity of services I believe is one of one of our greatest uh assets when the police department works very closely with child safe or CPS they work very closely with the prosecuting attorneys in these particular cases that works very closely with victim services such as Social Work services such as counseling therapy um financial aid all of the things that are necessary so that we can bring that victim into a lifestyle and reintegrate that victim into a lifestyle that that would behoove them that would be healthy for them um all in all the bottom line is we need to get the word out we need to we need to make sure that everybody's on the same page on this and realize that this is a crime that affects us all if you don't know somebody who's been in human trafficking you know somebody who does know somebody who's been in human trafficking so it's it's a a nationwide epidemic that we're we're trying trying to get a handle on and part of the way that we're going to do that is by counting on our brothers and sisters in uniform our our our friends and relatives in in other businesses that that have uh uh victim services for example and Social Work Services um all of us working together towards that ultimate goal and towards that same end I can't see how we could fail if we just do this there are there are many places that a victim can go to get assistance for human trafficking there's help out there um most of them don't believe that that there is any help for them so they don't know where to call and the easiest thing to do is take a look at a list of all of the law enforcement numbers that exist within the metropolitan area out here uh including the be County Sheriff's Department the Texas DPS uh the San Antonio Police Department the uh Leon Valley Police Department Castle Hills Terrell Hills all of those all of these police departments all have resources that are available in terms of Investigations now on top of that you can call the Rape Crisis Center they have a hotline the national Center for missing and exploited children has a hotline uh online um there are uh hospitals that train their nurses to look out for human trafficking and report it so just about anywhere you go there is a resource that is available that will contact somebody that knows how to investigate these knows how to provide services for our victims um and at the same time uh open up an investigation so that we can start try to get to the bottom of this and arrest offenders if we can [Music] thanks so much for watching this educational video as you can see human trafficking is so much more than what we see on TV it's real it's deadly and and it has the ability to touch any one of our citizens even our own families we hope you have learned something by watching and we hope that together we can all work to stop this horrible crime