Elijah Rising
Elijah Rising
Strategies to Dismantle Trafficking Operations - Ep. 77 w/ Youngbee Dale
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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Well, hey everyone, welcome to the Elijah Rising podcast. This episode is going to be a little bit different. We're not in the studio because my dear friend Young B is in Ohio, and welcome to the show, young B Dale. This is Young B's second time on our podcast and I will say it was very interesting how we got connected.
Speaker 1:We were actually doing a month of prayer and fasting to combat human trafficking, specifically the Asian trafficking piece, and out of the blue, young B just called 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 question. And so that kind of started our connection and you've just been a valuable resource for us. You've informed a lot of our awareness efforts on trafficking, specifically of Asian women, the illicit massage parlors and other areas.
Speaker 1:Especially, the topic we're going to get into this podcast, which is something that not many people focus on, is the criminals, which you would think in a criminal, you know a criminal enterprise, you think the main focus would be on the criminals, but oftentimes a lot of efforts are focused on victims, which is great, on the people that are buying. But you know we want to dig into who the traffickers are and you know kind of these larger networks, these larger players, and so Young B, welcome to the show. I didn't do too much of introducing you and all of your accolades, but maybe just tell our listeners who you are, what you do and how you got involved in the anti-trafficking space.
Speaker 2: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 the trafficking in 2005, and I really started focusing on domestic side of the US trafficking market since 2009. Then I realized there's a gap between what's been reported in Korean language as opposed to what's been reported in English language, so that became my first publication in 2016. Since then, I've just been really focusing on studying more about the trafficking organization criminality in general, and initially I started my work just focusing on East Asian trafficking activities and then, as I dig deeper into it, I just figure like why not explore all organizations that are exploiting all types of victims and how they're committing money laundering, how they're committing tax evasion, how they're committing visa fraud or document fraud and whatnot?
Speaker 1:So that really has been my focus of the studies that I've done so far been my focus of the studies that I've done so far and you know, one of the interesting stories you tell me is about how you interview the actual traffickers, like how did you even get to that?
Speaker 2:I can't, yeah, I can't say it's literally nothing, but the grace of God that somehow went through the you know, family or friends or connections that I have in South Korea. Somehow this guy popped up out of nowhere and somehow he's willing to talk to me. So I just interviewed him and I just like ask God, like just expose everything that I need to know, and supposedly, like he was a successful trafficker in the US and now he fled the country and he's somewhere in East 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 myself as human rights advocate. So whatever he was nice, you know, to me, you know at least.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that information is so important because that helps us understand how trafficking rings operate, and they all operate very differently. Currently in the city of Houston, you know everybody's talking about a local teacher that her and her son were involved with recruiting girls and young girls teenage girls and selling them for sex, and so it's brought a lot of attention to like child sex trafficking rings, and I feel like a lot of people think this isn't a thing. But are there these large trafficking organizations that are maybe global in reach that are operating here in the United States?
Speaker 2:Yes. So it all depends, you know, I think that like you don't hear, you know Italian mobs operating trafficking organization or getting involved in trafficking ventures, so to speak, in in the US anymore, and you don't hear this large criminal organization who are, you know, engaging in this commercial sex industry as a mob, exploiting you know multiple victims. But if you actually look in, look through the the US trafficking cases and if some of them are prosecuted as tax evasion or visa fraud or money laundering and or just organized crime in general, but if it does mention the women there are being exploited through their ventures, now what I'm surprised by is that we're not having a conversation in terms of like strip clubs being owned by Italian mobs and I say this, this is a legit case from New York and this guy owns at least $9 million property under his family's name and none of these property has been seized properly and were returned to 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 that we have with the human trafficking investigation in general, that investigators are not getting enough support to be able to investigate financial crime and they're just solely focused on sex trafficking or labor trafficking, exploitation. That the victim center approach approach is good as long as the victim's willing to testify and the trafficker go to jail. But a lot of times victims do not want to testify.
Speaker 2:At that point Do you just leave the traffickers out in the you know dark world to exploit more victims? No, you have to put them in jail or somewhere and then seize the asset and bring it back to the victim. But I think it's because we're not talking about trafficking organizations that are more serious than just average pimps. In general, the one person control one or two victims that are generally runaway or from foster care. These are very low. That's not to say we have. You know we're going to ignore these problems. But there's a very smaller timer, small timer trafficker comparing to the organizations that are profiting off of this exploitation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exploitation, yeah, and so you know I get, we get calls, we get emails and you know people will let us know. Hey, you know, law enforcement did this bust and they arrested 500 people in this human trafficking sting. And I think a lot of people read those headlines and they think, oh wow, they arrested 500 traffickers. But really when you read the story, you look at the details, a lot of times those arrests are the buyers and a very small percentage is the actual trafficker, the one who's kind of overseeing the operation. So could you kind of speak to that? You know, is that approach effective or should we really begin to shift to look at, you know, who's really behind running these trafficking operations, like in different cities?
Speaker 2:So law enforcement is able to respond as much as the public makes a point to encourage them to respond Now, just as much as like Hold on hold on.
Speaker 1: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's going to be realaging, maybe eye-opening to some people who feel like you know, what can I do?
Speaker 2:So the law enforcement is the kind of a partner or the person that they need to listen to is the public. The law enforcement cares deeply about what the public says or do or what's been reported to media and whatnot. That's why a lot of times they want to release press release whatever. There is a big bust or big stings and whatnot. And you know, I don't understand. But maybe, like, reputation is really important for a certain law enforcement and just as much as, like, there are good nonprofit and I've also encountered bad nonprofits.
Speaker 2:Same thing with the law enforcement too. There are good, passionate law enforcement who's done a great job and they, you know, they care deeply about victims. So there are other law enforcement who are all about making quota. So to encourage both entities good and bad law enforcement for the victim's cause. I think that when the public makes a report, when the public makes outcry and say, hey, what are you doing in my jurisdiction? I see this illicit business, you know, recruiting this woman and I, you know this is my property, whatever, you know, when you're making more noises, that's when law enforcement responds. This is and study.
Speaker 1:And so have you found that you know the approach of shedding, because I heard this one researcher and I'll have to look it up and put it in the show notes. But you know, this one researcher was showing that with these illicit massage parlors, whenever one got shut down, there would be three more that would open kind of in the same area. Have you heard of that kind of happening, where it's like we're shutting down the location but there's still a growing presence in the area of these massage parlors?
Speaker 2:So I think I talked about this. Multiple people asked me this question. Right, like the shutting down is not working. There's a phenomenon called what's it called? Not guacamole whack-a-mole?
Speaker 2:Yeah whack-a-mole you hit one thing and then something else pop up. I think it's been designed to operate that way. Um, actually, the trafficker that I spoke to is, uh, he ran a massage well around the 90s and he wasn't surprised that my you know, at the time that my survivor client was um course into managing, um, multiple brothels for her trafficker, she said this that's as a common phenomenon. This is not anything new. That's always been going on. So, um, just because you see that, so you're?
Speaker 1:you're telling me that there was a, so this there was a survivor, she was trafficked and then at a certain point he put her in charge of overseeing a massage parlor. Is that like a common? Yeah, under that bondage.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it is also very common phenomenon. So when you see somebody's name whether it's a man or woman, someone's name is on business filing at the register agent, it does not mean that person is the actual trafficker. So I think that you know, when we're arresting these women and men that are on business filing, we have to remember that whether this person has been coerced into operating brothels, as opposed to this person is actual brothel owner, chances are these were more, more more likely than not. These people are being used as a nominal owner. That's something that you need to investigate based on your um coercion technique that there will be present as you um interview these people man.
Speaker 1:So I mean you. If you're thinking like a criminal, that's really a way to hide yourself, because you're utilizing a victim who's now operating a massage parlor and now you know she gets seen as the trafficker, she gets seen as the one that's kind of running this thing, and that person who's kind of orchestrating everything is just still in the shadows.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so for, from the traffickers point of view, this is what he told me. This particular trafficker ran seven different brothels. He told me that number one arrest or, you know, going into jail, whatnot these are the business risks. He looks at this brothel operation as a business risk. So when you get arrested, he calls an accident. So just because you're arresting one person, it doesn't mean that he's going to stop operating. He just kind of take it as a part of a business risk, like the rainy day, right. So he thinks about these things and he gets mad at the victims if victim get, you know, arrested. That kind of like change the dynamics of his operation.
Speaker 2:Second thing is that it costs money once the victim is being arrested, and the money that's, you know, obviously at the end of the day it's going to come out of victim's pocket. But he still had to front the money to bail her out. To, you know, buy a lawyer, to hire a lawyer. To, you know, bring it back to the business and whatnot. So these are all the necessary things that kind of take it into account. So you're training your victims not to be arrested. Your training your victims not to be arrested. So arrest and the information about the law enforcement tactics are. There's two different, two things that are very important to the traffickers perspective. So one of the goal biggest goal that I have as a trafficker will be to stay under the law enforcement radar, and it's really important to know and have up to date where the law enforcement is moving and going and how they're applying or how they're targeting my business. So these are the things that I'll watch out for.
Speaker 1:And so do you. How do you even you know if you're, if you're trying to tackle this problem? Where do you even you know if you're, if you're trying to tackle this problem? Where do you even start?
Speaker 2: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 east as trafficking organization. I study domestic minor sex trafficking organization and their network structure right, the most complicated structure are part of the East Asian organization that are either they're, you know, they're playing, they're operating massage parlors, indoor brothels or brothels or rooms along and whatnot. And then I will say the second highest, I guess, or more complex structure will be strip clubs. I will say yeah.
Speaker 2:Unless they're involved in other criminal activities. So I'm looking at the most complex problem that there's. Structure that I see. I think is very important for the law enforcement, especially the human trafficking law investigators, to be savvy about financial crime. Investigating financial crime, investigating tax evasion and whatnot will be very helpful to their investigators. The only thing that connect these people a lot of times, especially in the East Asian organizations, the victims do not necessarily know who their real traffickers are, and it's designed to be that way. There's no reason why smart trafficker needs to let the victims know who they are right. The only thing that's connecting the dot between the real trafficker, or real profiteer or the investor, if you want to call it, as opposed to victim herself, is really the money. So you're following the money. By following the money, you're tracking down the. You know multiple entities that are profiting sometimes way more than the um operator itself yeah, and so to do something like that?
Speaker 1:you know I'm not, I'm not super up to date on like law enforcement practices and all that, I'm not an expert by any means but um, that just seems like it would require a lot of collaboration between different agencies.
Speaker 2:It does require a lot of collaboration. It does require their supervisor. Whoever is in charge will be interested in this cause. For instance, a law enforcement can be very passionate about this cause and start, you know, investigating this long chain of you know brothel models. But once the supervisor changes, especially on the federal level, once they get a different boss and the boss is not interested in trafficking, that the whole work of you know years of work, month of investigation work it's just torpedo. So I think it's important for public to know that human trafficking is a priority, not just for just local law enforcement but also the federal law enforcement that really change the dynamics of how they respond to the crime.
Speaker 1:And do you think these kind of large trafficking rings that are being exposed is kind of helping, kind of maybe make people pay more attention and want to do something Like I'm thinking about you know, the Jeffrey Epstein thing, the recent P Diddy stuff that's coming out in the news. Do you think that is helping? Maybe people take this more seriously?
Speaker 2:I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know the answer to that because when it comes to trafficking, I don't know if I consider myself as an average Joe. I think maybe if you know when it's in the spotlight, when you know criminal activities by PDD or whoever is famous is on the spotlight, I do think that that kind of you know attract more of an interest for the public. But what I hear from the small nonprofits around the, you know, around the country, is that sometimes they don't even know their child. You know their own, you know children's friends can be at risk of trafficking.
Speaker 2:So I, in terms of education and awareness, like I guess churches need to be a little more active and I would love to see that. I think that churches have been very silent and and I'm don't get me wrong, I don't think all churches are like that. I think some churches are very passionate about it, but for the most part I think that we have been very silent when it comes to political issues and this is human rights issues. But I think that we're losing a lot of traction of where the church is supposed to be the forefront of the fight.
Speaker 1:So if you're a pastor listening you know, young B, what would that look like for churches to be more involved?
Speaker 2:I think that they need to. I mean, I know that some of the churches are very active in terms of, you know, helping the shelters or volunteer the shelters or, you know, try to provide for resources for shelter. But I'm talking about, like, the large denomination in general and I guess I may be being judgmental, I don't know, but I see a lot of you know, I don't know these, but I see a lot of celebrities um celebrity pastors 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 as worthy ones wages.
Speaker 2:But I don't really see a whole lot of people talking about the, you know, justice for trafficking victims and I don't know if they ever want to partner with nonprofits. Were in the game in this, in the fight, not the game. I I just don't know where they are and a lot of time. I think they want to avoid any sticky conversation because they want to. They don't want to offend anyone um and in in this day and age, and our anti-trafficking movement 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:I have no idea, but I know, I know and that's another podcast, because you know there have been times where you know a church invites us in. It's like you can't say sex trafficking, you can't say pornography, you can't say this and at the end of the day, it's like you, you're editing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can't say anything, but I really, you know, I feel a passion because this a lot of people don't realize is really traffickers target young people. You know, and and when you shared with me that a lot of the women the Asian massage parlors were trafficked, you know, since they were children back home and they've just been trapped in that for years, that was like eye opening to me and heartbreaking to know that that's someone's like entire life journey and so, yeah, actually I believe we need to be louder in the message and not edit the message.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I agree the message and I agree, maybe even being more vocal about. You know the local area that surrounds your church. You know are there places in operation that you know about and have you gone to law enforcement or have you tried to mobilize the community to address that problem?
Speaker 2:I think as long as there's the you know I'm generalizing, obviously I think as long as there is a fear of man as opposed to fear of God will be instilled in our general culture in terms of how we fight the trafficking. And when I say general culture, I'm talking about the culture of churches. I don't know if anything is going to change, because grace of God is grace of God. I'm able to do this because of the grace of God and I think, without the grace of God and you're focusing on fear of man what would God give you the grace to fight the battle? I don't know. You know, that's what I think.
Speaker 1:So Young B, I'm just curious in the past, like in the history of the US, have we ever had a huge win in a case against a large trafficking ring, that's, you know, running these massage parlors? Because that's the main question people ask us is like, I have hundreds of these in my city. You know what can be done. Has there anything? Is there a historical case that has taken place that has targeted and been successful in kind of shutting down a large ring?
Speaker 2:So in the past, in the 90s at least, I know that before we started using human trafficking law, they use organized crime. We go money laundering or anything that's related to organized criminal activities. That's what they use for the investigation and they were pretty successful back in the days and I think we somehow moved away from utilizing organized crime or financial crime to investigate this larger organization by massage parlors, as opposed to right now. I think that we have been focusing on traditional vice unit approach, meaning relying on victims' testimony, which when victim doesn't testify, there is no case to go about it right. So they've been using that approach, just as they use it for domestic minor sex trafficking, where you don't need minors to testify, you can. Just as long as there is evidence for prostitution, you can track down the traffickers to put them in jail, to put them in jail.
Speaker 2:But that's not how it is in Asian organized criminal structure behind the massage parlors in general. And in the past, of course, it was successful because we're using RICO, we're using, you know, investigation that catches the organized criminal, because this is organized criminal, this is organized crime. But for some reason I think that they move away from it and I think that one reason that the law enforcement one time told me is that they don't want to use RICO because it takes a lot of time. And it's about prosecutors about meeting the quota to be able to get promotion, to be able to get whatever they need to go. I don't know. So it's not about the quality of the cases, it's more about the quantity of the cases. So that's why this one prosecutor told me that they're focusing on easier cases as opposed to if you want to investigate criminal organization like Italian mobs running strip club or, you know, chinese mobs running massage parlors, along with drug trafficking, that's going to take a lot more sophisticated investigation approach.
Speaker 1:Yeah and you bring up. A good point is is there's a lot of dependence on the victim outcry and and especially with the Asian trafficking piece, I mean a lot of times they don't speak the language. There's that cultural barrier. Even when we're doing outreach just trying to bring a gift, you know there's a cultural barrier of like understanding why we're there what we're doing, and so I can't imagine, um, imagine, someone understanding that they've been trafficked and being able to voice that to law enforcement, especially when there's that fear there, right, especially when there's you know you're going to have to be in a trial court and be able to, you know, go through that whole process, which is very hard for a lot of survivors to do. It just seems like impossible and not the best approach.
Speaker 2:I think I also think that, like there's a lack of study and there's really like a deficiency of how much we understand the traffickers or criminal intent or organized crime in the case of Eastern European, not Eastern Europeans yes, Eastern Europeans, but also East Asian.
Speaker 1:That's a whole nother topic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, criminal population data when it comes to understand the criminal tactics behind their operation. As opposed to, we have been focusing on victim-centered approach, which I'm not against a victim-centered approach. We need to have a trauma-informed training and victim-centered approach. However, by saying victim-centered approach, you're depending on the victims to prosecute the case and victims' testimony alone. That I think that's more of a cop out than anything else. And in the East Asian community, for instance, like a lot of victims, as I said, do not know their traffickers. Even if victims want to testify, they will know what to say to you because they don't know who your real boss is right. So in such case, what's going to help? What's going to help is to investigate organized crime and financial crime. That that'll help you track down the real profiteer well, young b.
Speaker 1:This interview has been really interesting. I feel like I have a hundred questions, but we're not going to have the time to answer those in this episode. So if people are interested in learning more about your work or maybe you're listening to this and you want to get in touch with YoungBee how do people do that?
Speaker 2:You can always find me on LinkedIn. My works are all public on Google Scholar. You can Google my name. My company is on Google. Message me anytime on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you can just search Dale Consulting, young B, dell on LinkedIn and you have a great. You've great content on your LinkedIn. I know you've been working hard on getting that going and you're just consistent with posting and it's really fresh stuff. You know, I love the insights that you bring and so thank you 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.