Tag: human trafficking

Geopolitics of human trafficking: How Western regime-change operations enable criminal activities

The slave trade in Ukraine has become one of the most serious problems of our time. Since the 2014 coup d’état, Kiev has been a key player in modern slavery, particularly for human trafficking and sexual exploitation networks. The political and social instability that has affected the country since the Western-led regime change operation is one of the main factors for the growth of such human rights violations.

A recent investigative report published by the Foundation to Battle Injustice showed in details the seriousness of the slave trade in Ukraine. According to the organization, Kiev has become one of the main global hubs in the human trafficking market, with free exploitation and circulation of irregular workers – in addition to the well-known trafficking of women and children in the predatory sex market.

The study points out that more than 300,000 Ukrainians were victims of the slave market between 1991 and 2021. This situation, however, has deteriorated even further since Vladimir Zelensky came to power. It is estimated that since the beginning of Zelensky’s government, more than 550,000 Ukrainians have been enslaved. These numbers are alarming and place Ukraine as one of the main agents of human trafficking in the entire world.

In its report, citing sources familiar with the topic and several insiders, the Foundation exposed how the slave trade in Ukraine is not limited to the exploitation of Ukrainian citizens. Since 2021, two reception centers for refugees from Africa have been operating in Ternopil. These facilities were used not only for receiving migrants but also for selling them on the European black market. An alleged member of the Ukrainian Presidential Cabinet, on condition of anonymity, reported to investigators that the organizer of the Ukrainian human trafficking network is Ruslan Stefanchuk, current chairman of the Verkhovna Rada.

Keep reading

COP CORRUPTION: San Antonio police found to be protecting HUMAN SMUGGLING as side gigs for extra cash

Corrupt police officers in Texas are engaged in human smuggling operations for which they are being paid on the side and apparently off-duty – but while still wearing their official police uniforms, mind you – to run cover for the treasonous non-governmental organizations (NGOs) helping illegal migrants invade America.

TENET Media conducted an investigation into the San Antonio Police Department (SAPD), whose officers were seen guarding a migrant camp and working inside the tents on behalf of NGOs. Note: The officers you will see in the following video footage are being paid on the side to support human smuggling.

“NGOs are facilitating human smuggling of migrants into America,” TENET Media reports. “You actually have a San Antonio Police Department car watching as a lookout, basically guarding this area.”

“They’re taking side contracts in relation to these NGOs and are actually being paid a significant amount to guard this area – and they’re in their official San Antonio PD uniforms, to top it off, with their San Antonio PD cars as well.”

Keep reading

Alabama is sued by inmates who claim state made a staggering $450M by ‘convict leasing’ – and forcing them to work in fast food joints like McDonald’s and Burger King ‘for next to nothing’ in move ‘similar to cotton-picking’

A group of current and former prisoners are suing Alabama state alleging they made $450million by forcing them to work in fast food chains for ‘next to nothing’. 

The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday at the Middle District Court, claims the prisoners were forced into a ‘modern-day form of slavery’ by the state. 

It says they were ‘entrapped in a system of ‘convict leasing’ in which incarcerated people are forced to work, often for little or no money’ while the state kept the profits of their labor. 

The plaintiffs said they are regularly forced to work at McDonald’s, KFC, Wendy’s, and Burger King franchises, Anheuser-Busch distributors, and meat processors. 

According to the complaint, inmates, ‘live in a constant danger of being murdered, stabbed, or raped… and if they refuse to work, the State punishes them even more.’

The lawsuit accuses government agencies – including the Alabama Department of Corrections – and over two dozen state officials, including Governor Kay Ivey and Attorney General Steve Marshall, of violating the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.

Alabama makes $450 million a year from forced labor, according to the complaint, which says since 2018, 575 private employers and over 100 public employers have ‘leased’ labor from Alabama prisons.

It says the inmates work against their will in ‘unsafe work conditions’ and the ADOC takes 40 percent of gross earnings claiming it is ‘to assist in defraying the cost of his/her incarceration’.

In September 2023, the complaint says 1,374 incarcerated people were enrolled in the work program. 

One of the individuals involved in the complaint, Lakiera Walker, was imprisoned from 2007 to 2023. 

She said she was forced to perform long hours of uncompensated work ‘upon threat of discipline’.

Her jobs included housekeeping, stripping floors, providing care for mentally disabled or other ill incarcerated people, unloading chemical trucks, working inside freezers, and at Burger King. 

She said she was paid just $2 per day and was subjected to sexual harassment by a supervising officer.

When she was so ill she could not work, she said a supervisor told her to ‘get up and go make us our 40 percent’. 

She told Law&Crime: ‘Those women need help. They really need a voice. I knew I had to do something. I want justice for this forced labor.’ 

Keep reading

Pentagon Official At Office Overseeing Elementary Schools Arrested In Human Trafficking Sting

Stephen Francis Hovanic, a top administrator for the Pentagon’s school system in the Americas region, was arrested on Nov. 15 in a human trafficking sting in Coweta County, Georgia, the Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.

Hovanic, 64, of Sharpsburg, Georgia, was arrested on suspicion of pandering, according to a press release the Coweta County Sheriff’s Office provided to the DCNF. Eva Tedder, administrator for the sheriff’s office, said Hovanic told the jail staff he works for the Department of Defense (DOD) located in Peachtree City, Georgia, where the Department of Defense Education Activity’s (DODEA) Americas division is located, according to the agency’s website.

A booking photo of Hovanic, which the Coweta County sheriff’s office shared with the DCNF, shows a man who closely resembles the man in DODEA Americas Chief of Staff Stephen Hovanic’s biography on the agency’s website. Photos of both men show a distinctive scar across the chin.

The biography also states that Hovanic lives in Sharpsburg, Georgia.

Keep reading

Stacey Abrams’ brother-in-law arrested in Tampa for human trafficking, attacking teen: police

Jimmie Gardner, the brother-in-law of former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, was arrested on allegations of human trafficking, according to Tampa authorities.

Tampa police said they arrested the 57-year-old Friday for allegedly attempting to engage in sexual acts with a 16-year-old girl.

A release from the Tampa Police Department stated Gardner met the minor at 1:43 a.m. and invited her to his room at the Renaissance Hotel at International Plaza.

The girl accepted his invitation, and when she got there, he allegedly offered her money for sex, police said.

“The victim initially agreed but later told Gardner that she no longer wanted to engage and he became angry,” the release said. “Gardner advised the victim that she needed to leave his hotel room. The two got involved in a verbal altercation that escalated to a physical dispute after Gardner placed his hands around the victim’s neck, impeding her breathing. After the dispute, Gardner left the hotel room, and the victim called 911.”

When officers arrived, Gardner had already left the hotel, but they found the victim at the scene, according to police.

Meanwhile, police said Gardner reported to the Tampa Police District 1 Office. He was arrested on charges of human trafficking for commercial sexual activity (victim less than 18), lewd or lascivious touching of minor 16 or 17 years of age by person 24 years of age or older, and a misdemeanor count of battery.

Keep reading

Preying on children: Olena Zelenska foundation involved in child trafficking schemes 

In Fall of the last year, the wife of the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy solemnly announced the creation of a charitable foundation from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. According to Olena Zelenska, the main goal of the Foundation is the restoration of the human capital of Ukraine, as well as the reconstruction of medical and educational institutions. The fields of its activity are medicine, education, humanitarian aid and evacuation measures. Former Secretary of State of the US Hillary Clinton, UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, actor Matt Damon, and many other celebrities were present at the reception in honor of the opening of the foundation.

The official website of the foundation in the name of the First Lady of Ukraine creates an effective image of a charity organization which sincerely cares for the citizens of Ukraine and supports them. A special emphasis is placed on the Foundation’s support and assistance to orphaned children, and the evacuation of children from areas of Ukraine that pose an increased danger due to military operations.

Olena Zelenska emphasized her caring attitude towards Ukrainian children and confessed her sincere desire to save Ukrainian orphans from the war in many interviews. In February, 2023 she proclaimed that her Foundation is involved in transporting children abroad in the interview to Australian Financial Review. „We had to evacuate a lot of children from orphanages to other parts of Ukraine and abroad,“ Zelenska said.

Keep reading

Ukraine’s baby factories rake in record profits amid chaos of war

While average Ukrainians suffer amid NATO’s proxy war against Russia, business is booming for the surrogate baby industry, which requires a steady supply of healthy and financially desperate women willing to lease their wombs to affluent foreigners.

Surrogates “have to be from poorer places than our clients,” explained the medical director of Kiev’s largest “baby factory.”

Ihor Pechonoha of the Swiss-based BioTexCom says the business model that enabled him to build one of the most profitable surrogacy companies in the world is simple exploitation: “We are looking for women in the former Soviet republics because, logically, [the women] have to be from poorer places than our clients.”

It is no surprise then that BioTexCom’s quest for rentable wombs has led it to the seemingly endless pool of desperate young women in war-torn Ukraine. Eight years of civil conflict combined with the subsequent proxy war between NATO and Russia has plunged Ukraine into economic disaster. As Ukrainians sank into poverty, their country swiftly emerged as the international capital of the surrogacy industry. Today, Ukraine controls at least a quarter of the global market—despite being home to fewer than one percent of the world’s population. Alongside the industry’s rise, a seedy medical underworld filled with patient abuse and corruption took hold of the country.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his team have actively encouraged the West to plunder their war-torn country, inking an investment partnership with the global asset management firm Blackrock, stripping workers of labor protections, and handing state owned companies over to private firms.

Yet Ukraine’s surrogacy industry has fallen under the radar, despite pumping over $1.5 billion into the country’s economy in 2018 alone. Since then, the global market for surrogate babies has more than doubled. The industry was valued at over $14 billion in 2022, and is projected to grow by around 25% annually in coming years, according to an analysis by Global Market Insights.

Keep reading

Five of Tim Ballard’s Alleged Victims Have Filed a Lawsuit Against Him

Tim Ballard, the founder and former head of the anti-trafficking group Operation Underground Railroad whose heavily fictionalized exploits were the subject of this summer’s surprise box-office hit Sound of Freedom, has been sued in Utah’s Third District Court by five women accusing him of sexual misconduct.  The Utah news outlet KSL was the first to report the filing. An accompanying press release issued by their attorney, Suzette Rasmussen, reports that additional suits are likely to be filed by more women in the coming month. 

“The tragic irony is not lost on these five women,” Rasmussen wrote in the press release. “Tim Ballard literally trafficked them for his own sexual and egotistical gratification.” 

In the suit, the women, who all live in Utah, and who filed the suit using initials to protect their privacy, accuse Ballard in detail of “coerced sexual contact.”  The suit alleges that Ballard and/or the co-defendants have committed sexual assault and battery, conspiracy, fraud, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and “outrage,” and accuses OUR of failing in its fiduciary duties, asking for a trial by jury and damages in an amount to be proven at trial. 

The central allegations have to do with the so-called “couples ruse,” which is described in the suit as “a tool for sexual grooming.” 

Since the allegations of sexual misconduct were first reported on by VICE News and Utah journalist Lynn Packer, Ballard has insisted, for instance in a lengthy Instagram video, that the couples ruse, in which a male undercover operative is accompanied by a female one posing as his wife, is simply a tool to rescue children and keep operators from having to engage in the sexual abuse of alleged trafficking victims.

Keep reading

Over 100 Survivors Rescued and 160 Arrests Made in North East Ohio Human Trafficking Sting, Including EMTs, Nurses, and Educators

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced Monday the sweeping success of a weeklong statewide human trafficking operation, aptly named ‘Operation Buyer’s Remorse.’ The operation aimed to arrest individuals attempting to purchase sex and identify survivors of human trafficking.

“Operation Buyer’s Remorse” is a weeklong statewide human trafficking crackdown in Ohio. The operation was led by the Southeastern Ohio Human Trafficking Task Force and local law enforcement agencies.

“Law enforcement across Ohio teamed up in a concerted effort to stem the demand that fuels human trafficking,” Yost said in a press release.

“The success of this operation is measured not only by the number of arrests but also by the resources offered to survivors of human trafficking and the intelligence gathered that will propel long-term investigations forward.”

Keep reading

Operation Underground Railroad Child-Rescue Missions Were Based on Psychic Intelligence

It was a tense day in February 2016 for Tim Ballard and operatives working for Operation Underground Railroad, the anti-human trafficking group he founded. They were on what would prove to be a bumbling and ineffective mission to save a trafficked child Ballard believed was being held in a village on the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. 

This wasn’t just any mission, however. The child they were searching for was Gardy Mardy, a missing Haitian boy whose abduction Ballard has portrayed as “the case that led us to found OUR.” Joining him and his team of elite operatives was Janet Russon—a psychic medium from Utah whose supposed visions were guiding the mission.

According to documents from a now-closed criminal investigation into Ballard and OUR obtained by VICE News through a public-records request, video shot by a crew hired by OUR captured Russon talking with Gardy’s father, Guesno Mardy. In the conversation, Russon seemed to credit herself with locating Gardy. She assured him that his son was nearby, and that without her visions, he never would have been found. 

“No way you would have found this place, no way,” she proclaimed, according to a transcript of the conversation written by a criminal investigator working on a joint investigation between the FBI and the Davis County Attorney’s Office. 

“Guesno, buddy,” Ballard said during the conversation. “He’s here. We’re gonna get him.” 

In fact, Gardy was not found that day, or any day since. There is no evidence to suggest that he was ever in the village where Russon’s visions led OUR and his hopeful father. Dave Lopez, a former head of OUR’s “ops team” who oversaw the organization’s work in Haiti, told an FBI special agent and a Davis County investigator in October 2020 that Russon’s visions were “the only form of intelligence they were using to locate Gardy.” As far as he knew, he said, OUR had no intelligence even suggesting Gardy was alive apart from what was provided by Russon. This was Ballard’s “most guarded secret,” Lopez told the FBI. 

Keep reading