June 4, 2024 • 30 mins
What if understanding the financial underpinnings of human trafficking could revolutionize the fight against it? Youngbee Dale is a researcher and anti-trafficking expert. We take a deep dive into the operational dynamics of global trafficking networks.
In our discussion, we explore the persistent challenges law enforcement faces, especially within illicit massage parlors, where shutting down one location often breeds many more opening. We also cover these topics:
- How traffickers use coercion and tactics to evade detection
- A call for more sophisticated investigative methods
- The crucial role of public vigilance and the church
Learn more about Youngbee's research online: https://www.dale-consulting.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, hey everyone, welcome to the Elijah Rising
podcast.
This episode is going to be alittle bit different.
We're not in the studio becausemy dear friend Young B is in
Ohio, and welcome to the show,young B Dale.
This is Young B's second timeon our podcast and I will say it
was very interesting how we gotconnected.
(00:21):
We were actually doing a monthof prayer and fasting to combat
human trafficking, specificallythe Asian trafficking piece, and
out of the blue, young B justcalled us and was like I can't
remember the question you asked,but like what are you doing to
fight trafficking in Houston?
And I was like, oh my God,that's such like a pointed
(00:43):
question.
And so that kind of started ourconnection and you've just been
a valuable resource for us.
You've informed a lot of ourawareness efforts on trafficking
, specifically of Asian women,the illicit massage parlors and
other areas.
Especially, the topic we'regoing to get into this podcast,
(01:05):
which is something that not manypeople focus on, is the
criminals, which you would thinkin a criminal, you know a
criminal enterprise, you thinkthe main focus would be on the
criminals, but oftentimes a lotof efforts are focused on
victims, which is great, on thepeople that are buying.
(01:25):
But you know we want to diginto who the traffickers are and
you know kind of these largernetworks, these larger players,
and so Young B, welcome to theshow.
I didn't do too much ofintroducing you and all of your
accolades, but maybe just tellour listeners who you are, what
(01:47):
you do and how you got involvedin the anti-trafficking space.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I'm a CEO at Dale Consulting.
I have my consulting business,but not to say that I make a lot
of money.
I was called to fight thetrafficking in 2005, and I
really started focusing ondomestic side of the US
trafficking market since 2009.
Then I realized there's a gapbetween what's been reported in
(02:17):
Korean language as opposed towhat's been reported in English
language, so that became myfirst publication in 2016.
Since then, I've just beenreally focusing on studying more
about the traffickingorganization criminality in
general, and initially I startedmy work just focusing on East
(02:38):
Asian trafficking activities andthen, as I dig deeper into it,
I just figure like why notexplore all organizations that
are exploiting all types ofvictims and how they're
committing money laundering, howthey're committing tax evasion,
how they're committing visafraud or document fraud and
(02:58):
whatnot?
Speaker 1 (02:59):
So that really has been my focus of the studies
that I've done so far been myfocus of the studies that I've
done so far and you know, one ofthe interesting stories you
tell me is about how youinterview the actual traffickers
, like how did you even get tothat?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
I can't, yeah, I can't say it's literally nothing
, but the grace of God thatsomehow went through the you
know, family or friends orconnections that I have in South
Korea.
Somehow this guy popped up outof nowhere and somehow he's
willing to talk to me.
So I just interviewed him and Ijust like ask God, like just
(03:37):
expose everything that I need toknow, and supposedly, like he
was a successful trafficker inthe US and now he fled the
country and he's somewhere inEast Asia and he's not willing
to meet with me in person,obviously, but he was graciously
offered to talk to me.
I just kind of portrayed myselfas human rights advocate.
(04:02):
So whatever he was nice, youknow, to me, you know at least.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Yeah, and that information is so important
because that helps us understandhow trafficking rings operate,
and they all operate verydifferently.
Currently in the city ofHouston, you know everybody's
talking about a local teacherthat her and her son were
involved with recruiting girlsand young girls teenage girls
(04:31):
and selling them for sex, and soit's brought a lot of attention
to like child sex traffickingrings, and I feel like a lot of
people think this isn't a thing.
But are there these largetrafficking organizations that
are maybe global in reach thatare operating here in the United
(04:51):
States?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yes.
So it all depends, you know, Ithink that like you don't hear,
you know Italian mobs operatingtrafficking organization or
getting involved in traffickingventures, so to speak, in in the
US anymore, and you don't hearthis large criminal organization
who are, you know, engaging inthis commercial sex industry as
(05:13):
a mob, exploiting you knowmultiple victims.
But if you actually look in,look through the the US
trafficking cases and if some ofthem are prosecuted as tax
evasion or visa fraud or moneylaundering and or just organized
crime in general, but if itdoes mention the women there are
(05:36):
being exploited through theirventures, now what I'm surprised
by is that we're not having aconversation in terms of like
strip clubs being owned byItalian mobs and I say this,
this is a legit case from NewYork and this guy owns at least
$9 million property under hisfamily's name and none of these
property has been seizedproperly and were returned to
(05:59):
the victim's pocket.
So things like that.
And as you look deeper into it,I realized that and I also
think it's a it's a problem thatwe have with the human
trafficking investigation ingeneral, that investigators are
not getting enough support to beable to investigate financial
crime and they're just solelyfocused on sex trafficking or
(06:21):
labor trafficking, exploitation.
That the victim center approachapproach is good as long as the
victim's willing to testify andthe trafficker go to jail.
But a lot of times victims donot want to testify.
At that point Do you just leavethe traffickers out in the you
know dark world to exploit morevictims?
No, you have to put them injail or somewhere and then seize
(06:45):
the asset and bring it back tothe victim.
But I think it's because we'renot talking about trafficking
organizations that are moreserious than just average pimps.
In general, the one personcontrol one or two victims that
are generally runaway or fromfoster care.
(07:07):
These are very low.
That's not to say we have.
You know we're going to ignorethese problems.
But there's a very smallertimer, small timer trafficker
comparing to the organizationsthat are profiting off of this
exploitation.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Yeah, exploitation, yeah, and so you know I get, we
get calls, we get emails and youknow people will let us know.
Hey, you know, law enforcementdid this bust and they arrested
500 people in this humantrafficking sting.
And I think a lot of peopleread those headlines and they
think, oh wow, they arrested 500traffickers.
But really when you read thestory, you look at the details,
(07:45):
a lot of times those arrests arethe buyers and a very small
percentage is the actualtrafficker, the one who's kind
of overseeing the operation.
So could you kind of speak tothat?
You know, is that approacheffective or should we really
begin to shift to look at, youknow, who's really behind
(08:07):
running these traffickingoperations, like in different
cities?
Speaker 2 (08:13):
So law enforcement is able to respond as much as the
public makes a point toencourage them to respond Now,
just as much as like Hold onhold on.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
So you're telling me that just the average everyday
person has some power in this,has some part to play, because I
feel like our listeners that'sgoing to be realaging, maybe
eye-opening to some people whofeel like you know, what can I
do?
Speaker 2 (08:42):
So the law enforcement is the kind of a
partner or the person that theyneed to listen to is the public.
The law enforcement caresdeeply about what the public
says or do or what's beenreported to media and whatnot.
That's why a lot of times theywant to release press release
whatever.
There is a big bust or bigstings and whatnot.
(09:04):
And you know, I don'tunderstand.
But maybe, like, reputation isreally important for a certain
law enforcement and just as muchas, like, there are good
nonprofit and I've alsoencountered bad nonprofits.
Same thing with the lawenforcement too.
There are good, passionate lawenforcement who's done a great
job and they, you know, theycare deeply about victims.
(09:26):
So there are other lawenforcement who are all about
making quota.
So to encourage both entitiesgood and bad law enforcement for
the victim's cause.
I think that when the publicmakes a report, when the public
makes outcry and say, hey, whatare you doing in my jurisdiction
?
I see this illicit business,you know, recruiting this woman
(09:49):
and I, you know this is myproperty, whatever, you know,
when you're making more noises,that's when law enforcement
responds.
This is and study.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
And so have you found that you know the approach of
shedding, because I heard thisone researcher and I'll have to
look it up and put it in theshow notes.
But you know, this oneresearcher was showing that with
these illicit massage parlors,whenever one got shut down,
there would be three more thatwould open kind of in the same
(10:21):
area.
Have you heard of that kind ofhappening, where it's like we're
shutting down the location butthere's still a growing presence
in the area of these massageparlors?
Speaker 2 (10:35):
So I think I talked about this.
Multiple people asked me thisquestion.
Right, like the shutting downis not working.
There's a phenomenon calledwhat's it called?
Not guacamole whack-a-mole?
Yeah whack-a-mole you hit onething and then something else
pop up.
I think it's been designed tooperate that way.
(10:57):
Um, actually, the traffickerthat I spoke to is, uh, he ran a
massage well around the 90s andhe wasn't surprised that my you
know, at the time that mysurvivor client was um course
into managing, um, multiplebrothels for her trafficker, she
said this that's as a commonphenomenon.
(11:18):
This is not anything new.
That's always been going on.
So, um, just because you seethat, so you're?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
you're telling me that there was a, so this there
was a survivor, she wastrafficked and then at a certain
point he put her in charge ofoverseeing a massage parlor.
Is that like a common?
Yeah, under that bondage.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Yeah, but it is also very common phenomenon.
So when you see somebody's namewhether it's a man or woman,
someone's name is on businessfiling at the register agent, it
does not mean that person isthe actual trafficker.
So I think that you know, whenwe're arresting these women and
(12:01):
men that are on business filing,we have to remember that
whether this person has beencoerced into operating brothels,
as opposed to this person isactual brothel owner, chances
are these were more, more morelikely than not.
These people are being used asa nominal owner.
That's something that you needto investigate based on your um
(12:23):
coercion technique that therewill be present as you um
interview these people man.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
So I mean you.
If you're thinking like acriminal, that's really a way to
hide yourself, because you'reutilizing a victim who's now
operating a massage parlor andnow you know she gets seen as
the trafficker, she gets seen asthe one that's kind of running
(12:53):
this thing, and that personwho's kind of orchestrating
everything is just still in theshadows.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
So yeah, so for, from the traffickers point of view,
this is what he told me.
This particular trafficker ranseven different brothels.
He told me that number onearrest or, you know, going into
jail, whatnot these are thebusiness risks.
He looks at this brotheloperation as a business risk.
(13:20):
So when you get arrested, hecalls an accident.
So just because you'rearresting one person, it doesn't
mean that he's going to stopoperating.
He just kind of take it as apart of a business risk, like
the rainy day, right.
So he thinks about these thingsand he gets mad at the victims
if victim get, you know,arrested.
(13:40):
That kind of like change thedynamics of his operation.
Second thing is that it costsmoney once the victim is being
arrested, and the money that's,you know, obviously at the end
of the day it's going to comeout of victim's pocket.
But he still had to front themoney to bail her out.
(14:00):
To, you know, buy a lawyer, tohire a lawyer.
To, you know, bring it back tothe business and whatnot.
So these are all the necessarythings that kind of take it into
account.
So you're training your victimsnot to be arrested.
Your training your victims notto be arrested.
So arrest and the informationabout the law enforcement
(14:21):
tactics are.
There's two different, twothings that are very important
to the traffickers perspective.
So one of the goal biggest goalthat I have as a trafficker
will be to stay under the lawenforcement radar, and it's
really important to know andhave up to date where the law
enforcement is moving and goingand how they're applying or how
(14:44):
they're targeting my business.
So these are the things thatI'll watch out for.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
And so do you.
How do you even you know ifyou're, if you're trying to
tackle this problem?
Where do you even you know ifyou're, if you're trying to
tackle this problem?
Where do you even start?
Speaker 2 (15:03):
I think I really, um, like I'm not, I'm not being
biased when I say this, right,so I've studied strip clubs.
I study massage parlors um eastas trafficking organization.
I study domestic minor sextrafficking organization and
(15:23):
their network structure right,the most complicated structure
are part of the East Asianorganization that are either
they're, you know, they'replaying, they're operating
massage parlors, indoor brothelsor brothels or rooms along and
whatnot.
And then I will say the secondhighest, I guess, or more
(15:52):
complex structure will be stripclubs.
I will say yeah.
Unless they're involved in othercriminal activities.
So I'm looking at the mostcomplex problem that there's.
Structure that I see.
I think is very important forthe law enforcement, especially
the human trafficking lawinvestigators, to be savvy about
(16:13):
financial crime.
Investigating financial crime,investigating tax evasion and
whatnot will be very helpful totheir investigators.
The only thing that connectthese people a lot of times,
especially in the East Asianorganizations, the victims do
not necessarily know who theirreal traffickers are, and it's
(16:34):
designed to be that way.
There's no reason why smarttrafficker needs to let the
victims know who they are right.
The only thing that'sconnecting the dot between the
real trafficker, or realprofiteer or the investor, if
you want to call it, as opposedto victim herself, is really the
money.
So you're following the money.
By following the money, you'retracking down the.
(16:55):
You know multiple entities thatare profiting sometimes way
more than the um operator itselfyeah, and so to do something
like that?
Speaker 1 (17:07):
you know I'm not, I'm not super up to date on like
law enforcement practices andall that, I'm not an expert by
any means but um, that justseems like it would require a
lot of collaboration betweendifferent agencies.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
It does require a lot of collaboration.
It does require theirsupervisor.
Whoever is in charge will beinterested in this cause.
For instance, a law enforcementcan be very passionate about
this cause and start, you know,investigating this long chain of
(17:43):
you know brothel models.
But once the supervisor changes, especially on the federal
level, once they get a differentboss and the boss is not
interested in trafficking, thatthe whole work of you know years
of work, month of investigationwork it's just torpedo.
So I think it's important forpublic to know that human
(18:04):
trafficking is a priority, notjust for just local law
enforcement but also the federallaw enforcement that really
change the dynamics of how theyrespond to the crime.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
And do you think these kind of large trafficking
rings that are being exposed iskind of helping, kind of maybe
make people pay more attentionand want to do something Like
I'm thinking about you know, theJeffrey Epstein thing, the
recent P Diddy stuff that'scoming out in the news.
Do you think that is helping?
(18:35):
Maybe people take this moreseriously?
Speaker 2 (18:41):
I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.
I don't know the answer to thatbecause when it comes to
trafficking, I don't know if Iconsider myself as an average
Joe.
I think maybe if you know whenit's in the spotlight, when you
know criminal activities by PDDor whoever is famous is on the
(19:02):
spotlight, I do think that thatkind of you know attract more of
an interest for the public.
But what I hear from the smallnonprofits around the, you know,
around the country, is thatsometimes they don't even know
their child.
You know their own, you knowchildren's friends can be at
risk of trafficking.
(19:22):
So I, in terms of education andawareness, like I guess churches
need to be a little more activeand I would love to see that.
I think that churches have beenvery silent and and I'm don't
get me wrong, I don't think allchurches are like that.
I think some churches are verypassionate about it, but for the
most part I think that we havebeen very silent when it comes
(19:44):
to political issues and this ishuman rights issues.
But I think that we're losing alot of traction of where the
church is supposed to be theforefront of the fight.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
So if you're a pastor listening you know, young B,
what would that look like forchurches to be more involved?
Speaker 2 (20:05):
I think that they need to.
I mean, I know that some of thechurches are very active in
terms of, you know, helping theshelters or volunteer the
shelters or, you know, try toprovide for resources for
shelter.
But I'm talking about, like,the large denomination in
general and I guess I may bebeing judgmental, I don't know,
(20:26):
but I see a lot of you know, Idon't know these, but I see a
lot of celebrities um celebritypastors or ministers on
Instagram.
They talk about that platform,they talk about the t-shirt sale
and nothing wrong with that.
Everybody has to raise money,right?
Everybody deserves workmen asworthy ones wages.
But I don't really see a wholelot of people talking about the,
(20:49):
you know, justice fortrafficking victims and I don't
know if they ever want topartner with nonprofits.
Were in the game in this, inthe fight, not the game.
I I just don't know where theyare and a lot of time.
I think they want to avoid anysticky conversation because they
want to.
They don't want to offendanyone um and in in this day and
(21:12):
age, and our anti-traffickingmovement can be very heated um
stage when it comes to politics,so maybe that's why they want
to stay away from everything.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
I have no idea, but I know, I know and that's another
podcast, because you know therehave been times where you know
a church invites us in.
It's like you can't say sextrafficking, you can't say
pornography, you can't say thisand at the end of the day, it's
like you, you're editing.
(21:42):
Yeah, I can't say anything, butI really, you know, I feel a
passion because this a lot ofpeople don't realize is really
traffickers target young people.
You know, and and when youshared with me that a lot of the
women the Asian massage parlorswere trafficked, you know,
since they were children backhome and they've just been
(22:05):
trapped in that for years, thatwas like eye opening to me and
heartbreaking to know thatthat's someone's like entire
life journey and so, yeah,actually I believe we need to be
louder in the message and notedit the message.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
And I agree the message and I agree, maybe even
being more vocal about.
You know the local area thatsurrounds your church.
You know are there places inoperation that you know about
and have you gone to lawenforcement or have you tried to
mobilize the community toaddress that problem?
Speaker 2 (22:44):
I think as long as there's the you know I'm
generalizing, obviously I thinkas long as there is a fear of
man as opposed to fear of Godwill be instilled in our general
culture in terms of how wefight the trafficking.
And when I say general culture,I'm talking about the culture
of churches.
I don't know if anything isgoing to change, because grace
(23:09):
of God is grace of God.
I'm able to do this because ofthe grace of God and I think,
without the grace of God andyou're focusing on fear of man
what would God give you thegrace to fight the battle?
I don't know.
You know, that's what I think.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
So Young B, I'm just curious in the past, like in the
history of the US, have we everhad a huge win in a case
against a large trafficking ring, that's, you know, running
these massage parlors?
Because that's the mainquestion people ask us is like,
I have hundreds of these in mycity.
You know what can be done.
Has there anything?
Is there a historical case thathas taken place that has
(23:50):
targeted and been successful inkind of shutting down a large
ring?
Speaker 2 (23:56):
So in the past, in the 90s at least, I know that
before we started using humantrafficking law, they use
organized crime.
We go money laundering oranything that's related to
organized criminal activities.
That's what they use for theinvestigation and they were
(24:20):
pretty successful back in thedays and I think we somehow
moved away from utilizingorganized crime or financial
crime to investigate this largerorganization by massage parlors
, as opposed to right now.
I think that we have beenfocusing on traditional vice
unit approach, meaning relyingon victims' testimony, which
when victim doesn't testify,there is no case to go about it
(24:42):
right.
So they've been using thatapproach, just as they use it
for domestic minor sextrafficking, where you don't
need minors to testify, you can.
Just as long as there isevidence for prostitution, you
can track down the traffickersto put them in jail, to put them
in jail.
(25:07):
But that's not how it is inAsian organized criminal
structure behind the massageparlors in general.
And in the past, of course, itwas successful because we're
using RICO, we're using, youknow, investigation that catches
the organized criminal, becausethis is organized criminal,
this is organized crime.
But for some reason I thinkthat they move away from it and
(25:28):
I think that one reason that thelaw enforcement one time told
me is that they don't want touse RICO because it takes a lot
of time.
And it's about prosecutorsabout meeting the quota to be
able to get promotion, to beable to get whatever they need
to go.
I don't know.
So it's not about the qualityof the cases, it's more about
(25:48):
the quantity of the cases.
So that's why this oneprosecutor told me that they're
focusing on easier cases asopposed to if you want to
investigate criminalorganization like Italian mobs
running strip club or, you know,chinese mobs running massage
(26:09):
parlors, along with drugtrafficking, that's going to
take a lot more sophisticatedinvestigation approach.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Yeah and you bring up .
A good point is is there's alot of dependence on the victim
outcry and and especially withthe Asian trafficking piece, I
mean a lot of times they don'tspeak the language.
There's that cultural barrier.
Even when we're doing outreachjust trying to bring a gift, you
know there's a cultural barrierof like understanding why we're
(26:40):
there what we're doing, and soI can't imagine, um, imagine,
someone understanding thatthey've been trafficked and
being able to voice that to lawenforcement, especially when
there's that fear there, right,especially when there's you know
you're going to have to be in atrial court and be able to, you
(27:02):
know, go through that wholeprocess, which is very hard for
a lot of survivors to do.
It just seems like impossibleand not the best approach.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
I think I also think that, like there's a lack of
study and there's really like adeficiency of how much we
understand the traffickers orcriminal intent or organized
crime in the case of EasternEuropean, not Eastern Europeans
yes, Eastern Europeans, but alsoEast Asian.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
That's a whole nother topic.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Yeah, criminal population data when it comes to
understand the criminal tacticsbehind their operation.
As opposed to, we have beenfocusing on victim-centered
approach, which I'm not againsta victim-centered approach.
We need to have atrauma-informed training and
victim-centered approach.
However, by sayingvictim-centered approach, you're
(27:59):
depending on the victims toprosecute the case and victims'
testimony alone.
That I think that's more of acop out than anything else.
And in the East Asian community, for instance, like a lot of
victims, as I said, do not knowtheir traffickers.
Even if victims want to testify, they will know what to say to
(28:20):
you because they don't know whoyour real boss is right.
So in such case, what's goingto help?
What's going to help is toinvestigate organized crime and
financial crime.
That that'll help you trackdown the real profiteer well,
young b.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
This interview has been really interesting.
I feel like I have a hundredquestions, but we're not going
to have the time to answer thosein this episode.
So if people are interested inlearning more about your work or
maybe you're listening to thisand you want to get in touch
with YoungBee how do people dothat?
Speaker 2 (29:00):
You can always find me on LinkedIn.
My works are all public onGoogle Scholar.
You can Google my name.
My company is on Google.
Message me anytime on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yeah, and you can just search Dale Consulting,
young B, dell on LinkedIn andyou have a great.
You've great content on yourLinkedIn.
I know you've been working hardon getting that going and
you're just consistent withposting and it's really fresh
stuff.
You know, I love the insightsthat you bring and so thank you
(29:35):
for doing this podcast with us.
We're going to do a part two,so if you enjoyed this episode,
stay tuned for the next one.
We'll do.
Take care everyone.
Well, hey everyone, welcome to the Elijah Rising
podcast.
This episode is going to be alittle bit different.
We're not in the studio becausemy dear friend Young B is in
Ohio, and welcome to the show,young B Dale.
This is Young B's second timeon our podcast and I will say it
was very interesting how we gotconnected.
(00:21):
We were actually doing a monthof prayer and fasting to combat
human trafficking, specificallythe Asian trafficking piece, and
out of the blue, young B justcalled us and was like I can't
remember the question you asked,but like what are you doing to
fight trafficking in Houston?
And I was like, oh my God,that's such like a pointed
(00:43):
question.
And so that kind of started ourconnection and you've just been
a valuable resource for us.
You've informed a lot of ourawareness efforts on trafficking
, specifically of Asian women,the illicit massage parlors and
other areas.
Especially, the topic we'regoing to get into this podcast,
(01:05):
which is something that not manypeople focus on, is the
criminals, which you would thinkin a criminal, you know a
criminal enterprise, you thinkthe main focus would be on the
criminals, but oftentimes a lotof efforts are focused on
victims, which is great, on thepeople that are buying.
(01:25):
But you know we want to diginto who the traffickers are and
you know kind of these largernetworks, these larger players,
and so Young B, welcome to theshow.
I didn't do too much ofintroducing you and all of your
accolades, but maybe just tellour listeners who you are, what
(01:47):
you do and how you got involvedin the anti-trafficking space.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I'm a CEO at Dale Consulting.
I have my consulting business,but not to say that I make a lot
of money.
I was called to fight thetrafficking in 2005, and I
really started focusing ondomestic side of the US
trafficking market since 2009.
Then I realized there's a gapbetween what's been reported in
(02:17):
Korean language as opposed towhat's been reported in English
language, so that became myfirst publication in 2016.
Since then, I've just beenreally focusing on studying more
about the traffickingorganization criminality in
general, and initially I startedmy work just focusing on East
(02:38):
Asian trafficking activities andthen, as I dig deeper into it,
I just figure like why notexplore all organizations that
are exploiting all types ofvictims and how they're
committing money laundering, howthey're committing tax evasion,
how they're committing visafraud or document fraud and
(02:58):
whatnot?
Speaker 1 (02:59):
So that really has been my focus of the studies
that I've done so far been myfocus of the studies that I've
done so far and you know, one ofthe interesting stories you
tell me is about how youinterview the actual traffickers
, like how did you even get tothat?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
I can't, yeah, I can't say it's literally nothing
, but the grace of God thatsomehow went through the you
know, family or friends orconnections that I have in South
Korea.
Somehow this guy popped up outof nowhere and somehow he's
willing to talk to me.
So I just interviewed him and Ijust like ask God, like just
(03:37):
expose everything that I need toknow, and supposedly, like he
was a successful trafficker inthe US and now he fled the
country and he's somewhere inEast Asia and he's not willing
to meet with me in person,obviously, but he was graciously
offered to talk to me.
I just kind of portrayed myselfas human rights advocate.
(04:02):
So whatever he was nice, youknow, to me, you know at least.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Yeah, and that information is so important
because that helps us understandhow trafficking rings operate,
and they all operate verydifferently.
Currently in the city ofHouston, you know everybody's
talking about a local teacherthat her and her son were
involved with recruiting girlsand young girls teenage girls
(04:31):
and selling them for sex, and soit's brought a lot of attention
to like child sex traffickingrings, and I feel like a lot of
people think this isn't a thing.
But are there these largetrafficking organizations that
are maybe global in reach thatare operating here in the United
(04:51):
States?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yes.
So it all depends, you know, Ithink that like you don't hear,
you know Italian mobs operatingtrafficking organization or
getting involved in traffickingventures, so to speak, in in the
US anymore, and you don't hearthis large criminal organization
who are, you know, engaging inthis commercial sex industry as
(05:13):
a mob, exploiting you knowmultiple victims.
But if you actually look in,look through the the US
trafficking cases and if some ofthem are prosecuted as tax
evasion or visa fraud or moneylaundering and or just organized
crime in general, but if itdoes mention the women there are
(05:36):
being exploited through theirventures, now what I'm surprised
by is that we're not having aconversation in terms of like
strip clubs being owned byItalian mobs and I say this,
this is a legit case from NewYork and this guy owns at least
$9 million property under hisfamily's name and none of these
property has been seizedproperly and were returned to
(05:59):
the victim's pocket.
So things like that.
And as you look deeper into it,I realized that and I also
think it's a it's a problem thatwe have with the human
trafficking investigation ingeneral, that investigators are
not getting enough support to beable to investigate financial
crime and they're just solelyfocused on sex trafficking or
(06:21):
labor trafficking, exploitation.
That the victim center approachapproach is good as long as the
victim's willing to testify andthe trafficker go to jail.
But a lot of times victims donot want to testify.
At that point Do you just leavethe traffickers out in the you
know dark world to exploit morevictims?
No, you have to put them injail or somewhere and then seize
(06:45):
the asset and bring it back tothe victim.
But I think it's because we'renot talking about trafficking
organizations that are moreserious than just average pimps.
In general, the one personcontrol one or two victims that
are generally runaway or fromfoster care.
(07:07):
These are very low.
That's not to say we have.
You know we're going to ignorethese problems.
But there's a very smallertimer, small timer trafficker
comparing to the organizationsthat are profiting off of this
exploitation.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Yeah, exploitation, yeah, and so you know I get, we
get calls, we get emails and youknow people will let us know.
Hey, you know, law enforcementdid this bust and they arrested
500 people in this humantrafficking sting.
And I think a lot of peopleread those headlines and they
think, oh wow, they arrested 500traffickers.
But really when you read thestory, you look at the details,
(07:45):
a lot of times those arrests arethe buyers and a very small
percentage is the actualtrafficker, the one who's kind
of overseeing the operation.
So could you kind of speak tothat?
You know, is that approacheffective or should we really
begin to shift to look at, youknow, who's really behind
(08:07):
running these traffickingoperations, like in different
cities?
Speaker 2 (08:13):
So law enforcement is able to respond as much as the
public makes a point toencourage them to respond Now,
just as much as like Hold onhold on.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
So you're telling me that just the average everyday
person has some power in this,has some part to play, because I
feel like our listeners that'sgoing to be realaging, maybe
eye-opening to some people whofeel like you know, what can I
do?
Speaker 2 (08:42):
So the law enforcement is the kind of a
partner or the person that theyneed to listen to is the public.
The law enforcement caresdeeply about what the public
says or do or what's beenreported to media and whatnot.
That's why a lot of times theywant to release press release
whatever.
There is a big bust or bigstings and whatnot.
(09:04):
And you know, I don'tunderstand.
But maybe, like, reputation isreally important for a certain
law enforcement and just as muchas, like, there are good
nonprofit and I've alsoencountered bad nonprofits.
Same thing with the lawenforcement too.
There are good, passionate lawenforcement who's done a great
job and they, you know, theycare deeply about victims.
(09:26):
So there are other lawenforcement who are all about
making quota.
So to encourage both entitiesgood and bad law enforcement for
the victim's cause.
I think that when the publicmakes a report, when the public
makes outcry and say, hey, whatare you doing in my jurisdiction
?
I see this illicit business,you know, recruiting this woman
(09:49):
and I, you know this is myproperty, whatever, you know,
when you're making more noises,that's when law enforcement
responds.
This is and study.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
And so have you found that you know the approach of
shedding, because I heard thisone researcher and I'll have to
look it up and put it in theshow notes.
But you know, this oneresearcher was showing that with
these illicit massage parlors,whenever one got shut down,
there would be three more thatwould open kind of in the same
(10:21):
area.
Have you heard of that kind ofhappening, where it's like we're
shutting down the location butthere's still a growing presence
in the area of these massageparlors?
Speaker 2 (10:35):
So I think I talked about this.
Multiple people asked me thisquestion.
Right, like the shutting downis not working.
There's a phenomenon calledwhat's it called?
Not guacamole whack-a-mole?
Yeah whack-a-mole you hit onething and then something else
pop up.
I think it's been designed tooperate that way.
(10:57):
Um, actually, the traffickerthat I spoke to is, uh, he ran a
massage well around the 90s andhe wasn't surprised that my you
know, at the time that mysurvivor client was um course
into managing, um, multiplebrothels for her trafficker, she
said this that's as a commonphenomenon.
(11:18):
This is not anything new.
That's always been going on.
So, um, just because you seethat, so you're?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
you're telling me that there was a, so this there
was a survivor, she wastrafficked and then at a certain
point he put her in charge ofoverseeing a massage parlor.
Is that like a common?
Yeah, under that bondage.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Yeah, but it is also very common phenomenon.
So when you see somebody's namewhether it's a man or woman,
someone's name is on businessfiling at the register agent, it
does not mean that person isthe actual trafficker.
So I think that you know, whenwe're arresting these women and
(12:01):
men that are on business filing,we have to remember that
whether this person has beencoerced into operating brothels,
as opposed to this person isactual brothel owner, chances
are these were more, more morelikely than not.
These people are being used asa nominal owner.
That's something that you needto investigate based on your um
(12:23):
coercion technique that therewill be present as you um
interview these people man.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
So I mean you.
If you're thinking like acriminal, that's really a way to
hide yourself, because you'reutilizing a victim who's now
operating a massage parlor andnow you know she gets seen as
the trafficker, she gets seen asthe one that's kind of running
(12:53):
this thing, and that personwho's kind of orchestrating
everything is just still in theshadows.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
So yeah, so for, from the traffickers point of view,
this is what he told me.
This particular trafficker ranseven different brothels.
He told me that number onearrest or, you know, going into
jail, whatnot these are thebusiness risks.
He looks at this brotheloperation as a business risk.
(13:20):
So when you get arrested, hecalls an accident.
So just because you'rearresting one person, it doesn't
mean that he's going to stopoperating.
He just kind of take it as apart of a business risk, like
the rainy day, right.
So he thinks about these thingsand he gets mad at the victims
if victim get, you know,arrested.
(13:40):
That kind of like change thedynamics of his operation.
Second thing is that it costsmoney once the victim is being
arrested, and the money that's,you know, obviously at the end
of the day it's going to comeout of victim's pocket.
But he still had to front themoney to bail her out.
(14:00):
To, you know, buy a lawyer, tohire a lawyer.
To, you know, bring it back tothe business and whatnot.
So these are all the necessarythings that kind of take it into
account.
So you're training your victimsnot to be arrested.
Your training your victims notto be arrested.
So arrest and the informationabout the law enforcement
(14:21):
tactics are.
There's two different, twothings that are very important
to the traffickers perspective.
So one of the goal biggest goalthat I have as a trafficker
will be to stay under the lawenforcement radar, and it's
really important to know andhave up to date where the law
enforcement is moving and goingand how they're applying or how
(14:44):
they're targeting my business.
So these are the things thatI'll watch out for.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
And so do you.
How do you even you know ifyou're, if you're trying to
tackle this problem?
Where do you even you know ifyou're, if you're trying to
tackle this problem?
Where do you even start?
Speaker 2 (15:03):
I think I really, um, like I'm not, I'm not being
biased when I say this, right,so I've studied strip clubs.
I study massage parlors um eastas trafficking organization.
I study domestic minor sextrafficking organization and
(15:23):
their network structure right,the most complicated structure
are part of the East Asianorganization that are either
they're, you know, they'replaying, they're operating
massage parlors, indoor brothelsor brothels or rooms along and
whatnot.
And then I will say the secondhighest, I guess, or more
(15:52):
complex structure will be stripclubs.
I will say yeah.
Unless they're involved in othercriminal activities.
So I'm looking at the mostcomplex problem that there's.
Structure that I see.
I think is very important forthe law enforcement, especially
the human trafficking lawinvestigators, to be savvy about
(16:13):
financial crime.
Investigating financial crime,investigating tax evasion and
whatnot will be very helpful totheir investigators.
The only thing that connectthese people a lot of times,
especially in the East Asianorganizations, the victims do
not necessarily know who theirreal traffickers are, and it's
(16:34):
designed to be that way.
There's no reason why smarttrafficker needs to let the
victims know who they are right.
The only thing that'sconnecting the dot between the
real trafficker, or realprofiteer or the investor, if
you want to call it, as opposedto victim herself, is really the
money.
So you're following the money.
By following the money, you'retracking down the.
(16:55):
You know multiple entities thatare profiting sometimes way
more than the um operator itselfyeah, and so to do something
like that?
Speaker 1 (17:07):
you know I'm not, I'm not super up to date on like
law enforcement practices andall that, I'm not an expert by
any means but um, that justseems like it would require a
lot of collaboration betweendifferent agencies.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
It does require a lot of collaboration.
It does require theirsupervisor.
Whoever is in charge will beinterested in this cause.
For instance, a law enforcementcan be very passionate about
this cause and start, you know,investigating this long chain of
(17:43):
you know brothel models.
But once the supervisor changes, especially on the federal
level, once they get a differentboss and the boss is not
interested in trafficking, thatthe whole work of you know years
of work, month of investigationwork it's just torpedo.
So I think it's important forpublic to know that human
(18:04):
trafficking is a priority, notjust for just local law
enforcement but also the federallaw enforcement that really
change the dynamics of how theyrespond to the crime.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
And do you think these kind of large trafficking
rings that are being exposed iskind of helping, kind of maybe
make people pay more attentionand want to do something Like
I'm thinking about you know, theJeffrey Epstein thing, the
recent P Diddy stuff that'scoming out in the news.
Do you think that is helping?
(18:35):
Maybe people take this moreseriously?
Speaker 2 (18:41):
I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.
I don't know the answer to thatbecause when it comes to
trafficking, I don't know if Iconsider myself as an average
Joe.
I think maybe if you know whenit's in the spotlight, when you
know criminal activities by PDDor whoever is famous is on the
(19:02):
spotlight, I do think that thatkind of you know attract more of
an interest for the public.
But what I hear from the smallnonprofits around the, you know,
around the country, is thatsometimes they don't even know
their child.
You know their own, you knowchildren's friends can be at
risk of trafficking.
(19:22):
So I, in terms of education andawareness, like I guess churches
need to be a little more activeand I would love to see that.
I think that churches have beenvery silent and and I'm don't
get me wrong, I don't think allchurches are like that.
I think some churches are verypassionate about it, but for the
most part I think that we havebeen very silent when it comes
(19:44):
to political issues and this ishuman rights issues.
But I think that we're losing alot of traction of where the
church is supposed to be theforefront of the fight.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
So if you're a pastor listening you know, young B,
what would that look like forchurches to be more involved?
Speaker 2 (20:05):
I think that they need to.
I mean, I know that some of thechurches are very active in
terms of, you know, helping theshelters or volunteer the
shelters or, you know, try toprovide for resources for
shelter.
But I'm talking about, like,the large denomination in
general and I guess I may bebeing judgmental, I don't know,
(20:26):
but I see a lot of you know, Idon't know these, but I see a
lot of celebrities um celebritypastors or ministers on
Instagram.
They talk about that platform,they talk about the t-shirt sale
and nothing wrong with that.
Everybody has to raise money,right?
Everybody deserves workmen asworthy ones wages.
But I don't really see a wholelot of people talking about the,
(20:49):
you know, justice fortrafficking victims and I don't
know if they ever want topartner with nonprofits.
Were in the game in this, inthe fight, not the game.
I I just don't know where theyare and a lot of time.
I think they want to avoid anysticky conversation because they
want to.
They don't want to offendanyone um and in in this day and
(21:12):
age, and our anti-traffickingmovement can be very heated um
stage when it comes to politics,so maybe that's why they want
to stay away from everything.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
I have no idea, but I know, I know and that's another
podcast, because you know therehave been times where you know
a church invites us in.
It's like you can't say sextrafficking, you can't say
pornography, you can't say thisand at the end of the day, it's
like you, you're editing.
(21:42):
Yeah, I can't say anything, butI really, you know, I feel a
passion because this a lot ofpeople don't realize is really
traffickers target young people.
You know, and and when youshared with me that a lot of the
women the Asian massage parlorswere trafficked, you know,
since they were children backhome and they've just been
(22:05):
trapped in that for years, thatwas like eye opening to me and
heartbreaking to know thatthat's someone's like entire
life journey and so, yeah,actually I believe we need to be
louder in the message and notedit the message.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
And I agree the message and I agree, maybe even
being more vocal about.
You know the local area thatsurrounds your church.
You know are there places inoperation that you know about
and have you gone to lawenforcement or have you tried to
mobilize the community toaddress that problem?
Speaker 2 (22:44):
I think as long as there's the you know I'm
generalizing, obviously I thinkas long as there is a fear of
man as opposed to fear of Godwill be instilled in our general
culture in terms of how wefight the trafficking.
And when I say general culture,I'm talking about the culture
of churches.
I don't know if anything isgoing to change, because grace
(23:09):
of God is grace of God.
I'm able to do this because ofthe grace of God and I think,
without the grace of God andyou're focusing on fear of man
what would God give you thegrace to fight the battle?
I don't know.
You know, that's what I think.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
So Young B, I'm just curious in the past, like in the
history of the US, have we everhad a huge win in a case
against a large trafficking ring, that's, you know, running
these massage parlors?
Because that's the mainquestion people ask us is like,
I have hundreds of these in mycity.
You know what can be done.
Has there anything?
Is there a historical case thathas taken place that has
(23:50):
targeted and been successful inkind of shutting down a large
ring?
Speaker 2 (23:56):
So in the past, in the 90s at least, I know that
before we started using humantrafficking law, they use
organized crime.
We go money laundering oranything that's related to
organized criminal activities.
That's what they use for theinvestigation and they were
(24:20):
pretty successful back in thedays and I think we somehow
moved away from utilizingorganized crime or financial
crime to investigate this largerorganization by massage parlors
, as opposed to right now.
I think that we have beenfocusing on traditional vice
unit approach, meaning relyingon victims' testimony, which
when victim doesn't testify,there is no case to go about it
(24:42):
right.
So they've been using thatapproach, just as they use it
for domestic minor sextrafficking, where you don't
need minors to testify, you can.
Just as long as there isevidence for prostitution, you
can track down the traffickersto put them in jail, to put them
in jail.
(25:07):
But that's not how it is inAsian organized criminal
structure behind the massageparlors in general.
And in the past, of course, itwas successful because we're
using RICO, we're using, youknow, investigation that catches
the organized criminal, becausethis is organized criminal,
this is organized crime.
But for some reason I thinkthat they move away from it and
(25:28):
I think that one reason that thelaw enforcement one time told
me is that they don't want touse RICO because it takes a lot
of time.
And it's about prosecutorsabout meeting the quota to be
able to get promotion, to beable to get whatever they need
to go.
I don't know.
So it's not about the qualityof the cases, it's more about
(25:48):
the quantity of the cases.
So that's why this oneprosecutor told me that they're
focusing on easier cases asopposed to if you want to
investigate criminalorganization like Italian mobs
running strip club or, you know,chinese mobs running massage
(26:09):
parlors, along with drugtrafficking, that's going to
take a lot more sophisticatedinvestigation approach.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Yeah and you bring up .
A good point is is there's alot of dependence on the victim
outcry and and especially withthe Asian trafficking piece, I
mean a lot of times they don'tspeak the language.
There's that cultural barrier.
Even when we're doing outreachjust trying to bring a gift, you
know there's a cultural barrierof like understanding why we're
(26:40):
there what we're doing, and soI can't imagine, um, imagine,
someone understanding thatthey've been trafficked and
being able to voice that to lawenforcement, especially when
there's that fear there, right,especially when there's you know
you're going to have to be in atrial court and be able to, you
(27:02):
know, go through that wholeprocess, which is very hard for
a lot of survivors to do.
It just seems like impossibleand not the best approach.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
I think I also think that, like there's a lack of
study and there's really like adeficiency of how much we
understand the traffickers orcriminal intent or organized
crime in the case of EasternEuropean, not Eastern Europeans
yes, Eastern Europeans, but alsoEast Asian.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
That's a whole nother topic.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Yeah, criminal population data when it comes to
understand the criminal tacticsbehind their operation.
As opposed to, we have beenfocusing on victim-centered
approach, which I'm not againsta victim-centered approach.
We need to have atrauma-informed training and
victim-centered approach.
However, by sayingvictim-centered approach, you're
(27:59):
depending on the victims toprosecute the case and victims'
testimony alone.
That I think that's more of acop out than anything else.
And in the East Asian community, for instance, like a lot of
victims, as I said, do not knowtheir traffickers.
Even if victims want to testify, they will know what to say to
(28:20):
you because they don't know whoyour real boss is right.
So in such case, what's goingto help?
What's going to help is toinvestigate organized crime and
financial crime.
That that'll help you trackdown the real profiteer well,
young b.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
This interview has been really interesting.
I feel like I have a hundredquestions, but we're not going
to have the time to answer thosein this episode.
So if people are interested inlearning more about your work or
maybe you're listening to thisand you want to get in touch
with YoungBee how do people dothat?
Speaker 2 (29:00):
You can always find me on LinkedIn.
My works are all public onGoogle Scholar.
You can Google my name.
My company is on Google.
Message me anytime on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yeah, and you can just search Dale Consulting,
young B, dell on LinkedIn andyou have a great.
You've great content on yourLinkedIn.
I know you've been working hardon getting that going and
you're just consistent withposting and it's really fresh
stuff.
You know, I love the insightsthat you bring and so thank you
(29:35):
for doing this podcast with us.
We're going to do a part two,so if you enjoyed this episode,
stay tuned for the next one.
We'll do.
Take care everyone.
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