Human-trafficking ring dismantled

[Disir]

Colombian law enforcement agents arrested eight suspects and dismantled a human-trafficking ring that smuggled Middle East migrants into the Andean nation by supplying them with counterfeit documents.

The suspects were charged with conspiracy to commit a crime, migrant trafficking, bribery and falsifying public documents.

The majority of the migrants were women who were brought into Ecuador before they were flown into the Colombian cities of Santa Marta and Barranquilla, which are on the country’s Atlantic Coast.

Human-trafficking ring dismantled-Colombia News | TodayColombia.com

Good job.

 

[waltky]

Lawmakers Take Action to Curb Human Trafficking within the US...

US Lawmakers Take Action to Curb Human Trafficking
May 20, 2014 — Many Americans think of human trafficking as a problem that exists far away from U.S. shores, such as the case of the almost 300 Nigerian girls who were kidnapped by Boko Haram and are still missing.

But the U.S. government says as many as 17,500 people, mostly girls, are trafficked into the United States annually, and that does not include those who are kidnapped and forced into sex slavery within U.S. borders. The U.S. House of Representatives has taken action to help the victims and to crack down on perpetrators. A survivor of human trafficking, Shandra Woworuntu, was on Capitol Hill Tuesday to advocate for restitution and other government services to help victims. Woworuntu is originally from Indonesia. She is college-educated and worked as a financial analyst in her country until she lost her job due to political instability.

Woworuntu came to the United States in 2001 under the false impression that she had been offered a job in the hospitality industry, but she was kidnapped at the airport in New York and forced into sex slavery, as she told VOA: “During my arrival someone picked me up, and took me into the van. They took my passport, they took my hidden ticket, and the same day I was trafficked into underground sex business,” said she. Woworuntu escaped and her trafficker is now in prison. She received help from a non-profit organization and now advocates to raise awareness about human trafficking.

Democratic and Republican lawmakers joined forces on five bills to help state and local governments develop victim-centered programs and to train law enforcement officers to rescue victims and not to treat them as prostitutes. House Majority leader Eric Cantor called for bipartisan efforts to address the problem. “And we must confront this issue head on, not just as Republicans, not just as Democrats, but as dads, as moms, as sisters and brothers. We must protect our children,” said Cantor.

Representative Carolyn Maloney has worked to combat human trafficking internationally for more than a decade. “There is no crime on earth more appalling, no offense as terrible, no act of depravity as harmful to the community of a nation and certainly to the individuals affected,” said Maloney. The five bills, which must be approved by the Senate, also seek to reduce the demand for human trafficking by encouraging police and judges to treat those who solicit sexual activities from minors as human traffickers, rather than petty criminals. The average age for girls forced into sex slavery is 13, and the average age for boys is 12.

US Lawmakers Take Action to Curb Human Trafficking

 

[bianco]

There is a movie;

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y-0P9V-R-k [/ame]

 

[waltky]

Tracking down online sex trafficking buyers...

Algorithms Could Tie Trafficking Ads to Their Buyers
August 17, 2017 — A U.S. researcher says she has developed automated ways to identify links between online sex trafficking ads and the digital currency Bitcoin, techniques that may help locate children being sold for sex.

Law enforcement and anti-trafficking groups could use the methods to investigate Backpage.com, an online classified advertising site where sex ads can be found, according to a statement by the University of California Berkeley, where the research was based. About 1.5 million people in the United States are victims of trafficking, mostly for sexual exploitation, according to anti-trafficking groups. Most sex trafficking victims are children, and most are advertised or sold online, according to a U.S. Senate subcommittee report released this year.

Algorithms do the digging

The new research uses an algorithm that analyzes writing styles to identify authors and could be applied to online trafficking ads, Rebecca Portnoff, its lead author, said Thursday. A second algorithm can use time stamps to trace ad payments to accounts, known as wallets, at Bitcoin, a web-based digital currency that allows money to move quickly and anonymously. Comparing time stamps of ad purchases on Bitcoin and time stamps and information on Backpage ads could help identify who is paying for them, said Portnoff, a UC Berkeley doctoral candidate in computer science who developed the techniques as part of her dissertation.

Ethnic Uighur Muslim boy stands inside a police van in Khlong Hoi Khong of southern Songkhla province, Thailand. He was in a group of 200 people rescued from a human trafficking camp.​

“Where previously you might have five different phone numbers that you had no idea were connected, when you can see that they all came from the same wallets, that the same person paid for them, that’s a concrete sign that these five phone numbers are all related to each other,” she said. “I knew this was an issue that law enforcement was especially interested in,” she added.

Boost for law enforcement

Having automated style and time stamp analyses to identify sex ads by authors and Bitcoin owners is significant, said Damon McCoy, a New York University Tandon School of Engineering assistant professor of computer science and engineering and a co-author of the research. “Any technique that can surface commonalities between ads and potentially shed light on the owners is a big boost for those working to curb exploitation,” McCoy said in a statement.

A Bitcoin paper wallet with QR codes.​

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has said more than 70 percent of the reports it gets of trafficked children involve Backpage, based in Dallas, Texas. Backpage did not respond to a request for comment. The findings will be published by the Association for Computing Machinery’s Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, UC Berkeley said.[ It said the work was funded by the Amazon Web Services Cloud Credits for Research Program, the technology and security firm Giant Oak, Google, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education.

Algorithms Could Tie Trafficking Ads to Their Buyers

 

[waltky]

Interpol busts 40 human traffickers, saves 236 children...

Interpol: 40 human traffickers arrested, 236 children saved
24 Nov.`17 — Interpol says 40 suspected human traffickers have been arrested and nearly 500 of their victims freed in a vast police operation in five African countries.

The France-based international police agency said in a statement late Thursday that 236 of those rescued were minors. The operation earlier this month was carried out in Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal.

In a statement, Interpol said the suspects are accused of forcing victims “to engage in activities ranging from begging to prostitution, with little to no regard for working conditions or human life.”

The operation was part of the German government-funded Sahel Project which targets human trafficking in the region.

Interpol said officials from across the region met after the operation to discuss next steps for the victims and cross-border efforts against trafficking.

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