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Calling all conscious achievers who are seeking more community and connection, I ve got an invitation for you.
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Join me at this year s Summit of Greatness this September 7th through 9th in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio, to unleash your true greatness.
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This is the one time a year
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that I gather the greatness community together in person for a powerful, transformative weekend.
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People come from all over the world, and you can expect to hear from inspiring speakers like Inky Johnson, Jaspreet Singh, Vanessa Van Edwards, Jen Cinchero, and many more.
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You ll also be able to dance your heart out to live music, get your body moving with group workouts, and connect with others at our evening socials.
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So if you re ready to learn, heal, and grow alongside other incredible individuals in the greatness community, then you can learn more at lewishouse.com slash summit 2023.
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Make sure to grab your ticket, invite your friends, and I ll see you there.
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July 30th is UN s World Day Against Human Trafficking, an issue that is far more widespread than you may realize.
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I spoke with Tim Ballard of Operation Underground Railroad about his mission to end child sex slavery.
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Though it was an extremely challenging conversation, it s very important.
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and it hits especially close to home for me.
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Now I would never compare my experience to what these kids go through but I was sexually abused as a young kid and it took me several years to start to heal and I feel deeply for any kid who s ever been taken advantage of.
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Now some of you might find this information disturbing but hearing this can make such a difference.
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Welcome to the School of Greatness.
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My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur.
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And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness.
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Thanks for spending some time with me today.
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Now let the class begin.
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Welcome to today s special episode.
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Over the last 1300 plus episodes, there ve been so many impactful interviews that I ve been lucky enough to have.
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And I always like to reflect on some of the most powerful.
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And this episode was one that resonated with most of you guys in the past.
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And I m excited for the value it s going to bring you today as well.
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So I hope you enjoy today s episode.
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I first learned about you, I think, about a year ago.
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Someone was telling me about you, but then I really learned about you when Tony Robbins  60th birthday party, where I watched the videos, got to hear you speak, and got to see the work you do with Operation Underground Railroad.
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And it s amazing what you have done.
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It s amazing what your organization have done in really helping end childhood sex trafficking.
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And I m curious if you can help educate my audience who maybe has no clue about this.
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Like I didn t have a clue about this.
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What is sex trafficking in terms of the US?
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Is it actually happening?
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And what is it in terms of international?
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What is the problem at hand right now?
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Yeah, so this is not a peripheral issue.
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Most people want to believe it is.
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This is the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world.
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Really?
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More than drugs, more than?
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It s the fastest growing, really.
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It s rivaling drugs right now.
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Because you can sell it.
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Oh, it s the fastest growing.
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Fastest growing.
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But in terms of numbers, it s actually getting up to drug trafficking.
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And the reason is you can sell a bag of cocaine one time.
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But you can sell a child 10, 20 times in a 24-hour period.
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So it s very lucrative.
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And it s enormous.
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It s a huge business.
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So it s a renewable product.
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Exactly.
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You can recycle the product.
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That s right.
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I don t want to say it like that term.
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But that s how they see it.
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So you really start with the bigger issue there is modern day slavery.
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That s what this is, people not controlling their persons, right?
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Their own body, their own lives.
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And there s about 30 million estimated slaves in the world today and about 10 million of those are children.
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And then they re sold for different things.
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About 2 million children are forced into commercial sex trade.
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The rest are slave labor or even organ harvesting.
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And so we work it, that s, and so.
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So how many in the category of sex slavery?
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They estimate that there s two million, that s the State Department, UN, two million children.
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But my experience tells me, because we re in 26 countries, we re undercover, we ve been everywhere.
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And if you re in slave labor, it s just a matter of time before they use you for sex as well.
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It s interchangeable, I mean, slavery.
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It s how are we gonna make money from a person.
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Right, yeah, once you own someone, you think you own them like a product, an object, you ll do whatever you want with them, right?
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How is this even, I mean, are people, are there slaves in the U.S.
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right now, or is it mostly international?
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So, it s a great question.
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So, when people ask me about the U.S., because most people in the U.S.
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would rather just say, it s happening far, far away, and I m gonna just go like, I m not gonna listen to this.
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And the truth is, we are the number one demand.
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I ll start with that.
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In terms of, we buy the products the most.
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Yes, we are the number one consumers of child exploitation material.
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We re just not doing it in the U.S.
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Well, we are, we are.
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So, I ll get there, yeah.
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So we are the number one consumer, which means we are the market.
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So yeah, we are the sex tourists that my group and law enforcement are targeting and catching overseas, hurting kids.
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But recently- What would you say, 80% is U.S.
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consumption, or is it- It depends.
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In the markets south of the border in Latin America, yeah.
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But in Asia, it s maybe with like half and half us and then like locals.
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And a lot of locals, they generally make up the most of the market of the consuming side.
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But we just, the United States just became, last year, ranked in the top three for destination countries for trafficking, which means... For other people to come here.
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Right, the traffickers say, look, that s the market I want in.
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If I can get into the country, then we re really gonna make a lot of money.
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And so they re trying to get their slaves into our country.
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So then US people won t have to travel.
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This is crazy, man.
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It is crazy, it is crazy.
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So they ll just import people here, kids, teenagers, and then they re slaves to whatever they want.
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For either labor or sex.
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Where is this high?
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Is this in LA?
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Is this in... So yeah, that s a good question because I can go to like a developing country where the infrastructure isn t as great and law enforcement struggles and you can see children being sold on the street corners, this beach, you just gotta know where to go.
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You re not gonna see that here.
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Here, it s mostly online.
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It s in the dark net.
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So, like, our warriors out there fighting it and finding the kids are like the Internet Crimes Against Children task forces, local law enforcement, these guys who have the tools to go in and basically infiltrate criminal organizations that are using those platforms to find kids.
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But for 17 years I ve worked as an undercover operator in some capacity.
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And I have bought and sold a child on every single social media platform that s out there.
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Oh yeah, it starts there often.
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It will start there and then leads to private phone calls and then all of a sudden you re negotiating the deal for a child.
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No way.
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So you ve been doing this for 17 years now?
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How did you originally get into this?
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I ve heard this story, but I want my audience to hear how you even knew this was a thing and decided to go all in on this.
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So I started in the CIA, and I had prepared my entire life to fight terrorism, even before 9-11.
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That s what I was studying.
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In fact, I graduated from grad school with a degree, a very unique degree, in terrorism.
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Really?
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In 2001.
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So the floodgates open for us to go work wherever we want.
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I chose the CIA, and I was working at the terrorism desk there.
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And you were going into terrorism before 9-11.
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Yes, already.
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You didn t know it was going to be such a big thing.
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Right.
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It was like, oh my gosh, here we go.
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And then one of the terrorists, people will remember his name, Mohammed Al-Tha, who came across the border.
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He was staging in Mexico, and he crossed the border and went up and launched those attacks on the Twin Towers.
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And that just, I was at CIA during 9-11.
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And I was like, I want to be on that border.
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I speak Spanish.
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I wanna be on that border to fight terrorism and protect the country from there, from that position.
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So in the wake of 9-11, the creation of Homeland Security.
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So I was one of the first to jump ship and I jumped over into Homeland Security.
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I became a special agent, undercover operator, thinking I was gonna be doing terrorism.
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Where were you stationed then?
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I was at the Calexico, California port of entry.
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So near Tijuana or near?
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It s about 100 miles east of Tijuana.
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It s from San Diego, right on that border.
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A lot of people come in because it s probably less of a big city.
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Yes, exactly.
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There s three ports of entries there.
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It s very busy.
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Lots of criminal activity crossing that border.
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Drugs, people.
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Yeah, so we were finding tunnels, and it was, I mean, my office was right on the border at the Port of Ventura.
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I was loving life, but for six months I m doing this, and they call me in, and they said, hey,
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we feel it s time to start a child trafficking unit.
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I said, what is that?
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I mean, like the rest of the world.
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Child trafficking.
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You could Google child trafficking in 2001 and nothing would come up.
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No one was talking about it.
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So you and I was like, I don t even know what that is.
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I don t think I wanna do that.
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I went home and told my wife.
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She s like, no way.
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We were just starting a family, had a couple of kids.
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She s like, you can t bring that darkness into our, I don t wanna.
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know what people are doing to kids, you know?
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How old are you at this time?
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I was probably like 25, 26, yeah.
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And so I had to go tell my boss, no, I m not gonna do it.
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And I was really scared to do it, because this guy was intimidating to me.
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Big, he was six foot four, big white hook mustache, wore boots to work, you know, one of those guys.
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His whole life on the border.
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And I was not, I didn t wanna tell him no.
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But I m practicing my speech literally in the mirror, right?
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Like, okay, how am I gonna say this?
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And my wife walks in to the bathroom and she s crying and she does not get very emotional usually.
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And I said, what s wrong?
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She s like, I didn t sleep at all last night.
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She said, for the same reason I thought we had to say no to this, because we have children, that is the reason we need to say yes.
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Because we understand what a childhood is supposed to be, and if it s true, and we weren t even convinced yet, but if it s true that millions are being trafficked this way, how can we?
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allow it to happen.
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And do nothing, right?
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So then I said yes, and I entered it, and it was about- So you re already practicing your speech, and then you decided, okay, I m gonna commit to this.
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And the speech became one word.
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Yes.
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Yes.
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I m in, yes.
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I ll do it.
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He put me to work right away, and it was like a thousand times worse than I could have imagined.
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Like right away, it was just like, boom.
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When was the moment where you saw something that,
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just said, I m taking this on as a life mission, not just as a part of my job, but.
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It was the first time I saw a child that was from the videos when I was like, this is it.
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I had to make a decision at that point.
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So what had happened was we got Intel, an American man was kidnapping children in Mexico, smuggling them into the United States and in San Bernardino, you can look at this case up, his name s Earl Buchanan.
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You can look it up, you can Google, learn all about the case.
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He had a compound up in San Bernardino where he was taking the kids and he was filming his sex acts with these kids.
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He was having sex with them and filming it.
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And then what, selling it online or?
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Keeping it for himself, sharing it with people.
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And so this guy s coming across the border and we re on the scene and we get the kid out, this five-year-old boy.
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And it was the moment that he ran.
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Five-year-old boy.
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Five-year-old boy.
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And I recognized him from the video.
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No way.
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And I was like, oh my gosh, I ve never seen one of the kids from the video.
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And I had a physiological reaction.
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Like, I didn t know if I could handle this.
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And then the kid kind of inherently knew we were the good guys, right?
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So he runs to us and jumps in my arms.
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No way.
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And he s holding me and he s shaking.
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And I m just like, oh my gosh.
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Does he speak English?
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Does he speak Spanish?
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Maybe both, I don t know.
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And he spoke perfect English, which was haunting to me because the only reason he did was because he had been with this guy, as it turned out, since he was a, he was taken as an infant.
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And he said to me, like no five-year-old should ever have to say to anyone, he said, I don t belong here.
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And the pain was so severe for me because I could immediately multiply that statement by millions of kids.
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And that was it.
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And then that led to raiding the compound and we found 11 other kids.
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Yeah.
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How old range?
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About from six to 12.
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Wow.
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So that was my point of like, I had to make a decision.
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I went home after that operation.
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So the first operation.
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There s the first time I did a lot of cases where we did the receiving end.
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So we did like the search warrants and arrests of pedophiles who were receiving child rape videos.
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But they didn t have kids there.
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Right.
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This was the first time I saw one of the kids from the video.
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And it like changed my life.
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But the change was either gonna be I m quitting forever or I m all in.
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Because you can t, it s too much to go one or the other.
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You can t go middle ground on this, right?
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And I went home that night, after two or three days actually, I went home to my wife.
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She didn t really know what was going on.
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I walked in the house and then I see my kids, right?
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And they re playing and having fun.
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And this kid was literally 12 miles away.
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I lived 12 miles from the border.
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This kid, this was happening to this child and the whole dichotomy of the whole, how can we be in the same community?
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and hell here and, you know, almost paradise here for these children who have every, and I just, I lost my mind.
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Like I just, I couldn t handle it.
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I saw my children being hurt.
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I went to like a mental, and I literally fell down.
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Like my knees collapsed.
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I fell down and my wife thought I was having a heart attack or something.
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She runs over to me.
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She s like, what s wrong, what s wrong?
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I m like, I m out.
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I m out or I m in.
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Like I can t, this is so bad.
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And it was my wife again who said, you know, she got me calm and she said, look,
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It s hard, I know the pain, you re clearly suffering something, but how does that compare to what that child s suffering?
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And I was like, no, you re right, that s it.
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I was like, yeah, I felt guilty, how stupid.
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I m up on my knee, I jumped up, and I m like, I m in, I m in 100%.
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But the thing that happened, and call this luck, providence, whatever, to me it was special, is the little boy had a necklace, that little boy, the five-year-old.
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And his sister had given him the necklace when they were separated by Buchanan.
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And it was a little dog tag.
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And he gave it to me.
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He knew I had to go find his sister now.
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And we did, we got her.
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We got her out.
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But he gave me the necklace.
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And I tried to give it back.
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He s like, no, it s yours, it s yours.
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This is when he was hugging me.
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And I m like, okay.
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I put it in my pocket, didn t think much of it.
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But later, one of my children found it and said,
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Would you get this?
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I m like, how do I tell this story to my kid?
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And I tell my kid what I can.
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And he says, isn t it cool that little kid put your name in the necklace, dad?
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I said, what are you talking about?
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My name s not on the necklace.
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Like, yeah, yeah, your name s right here.
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And sure enough, I flip it around.
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And that little necklace had a scripture from the Bible on it from the book of First Timothy.
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So that was like, to me, I was already feeling like, what am I gonna do?
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Am I gonna quit?
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Am I gonna go full in?
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That necklace, it was like, it was like that little boy, whether he knew it or not, just gave me a commission.
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And that necklace, I wore that for every operation I did from that point on.
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And it was kind of like my symbol, like I m in now.
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So.
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Wow.
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And so you started here locally in the US.
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Yes.
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And then you started going to different countries.
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And you started going to South America originally, right?
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Because what happened in 2006, the U.S.
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passed a law called the Adam Walsh Child Protect Act.
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And what it did was it changed my life.
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People didn t realize, for us agents, how it did that, but it changed the statutory requirements for sex.
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We had these sex traveler statutes that said you can t travel to have sex with a child.
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you had to prove that the perpetrator had the intent in his heart and in his mind while standing on U.S.
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soil before he left, which meant before 2006, we had zero prosecutions.
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So the Adam Walsh Protect Act said no more, you don t have to prove he was thinking about it on U.S.
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soil.
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All you have to prove now is that he left and he committed the act.
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And now we will hold him accountable as if he committed it on our soil.
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So there s a revolutionary law.
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So now if you go to another country and pay to have sex with a child or don t pay and you have sex with a child, you can still go to jail here.
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And there s no double jeopardy, by the way.
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You can serve 10 years in Mexico and then 20 more years in the US.
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Wow.
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What is the law, I guess, around having sex with a minor or paying for sex?
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Are they different laws or how does that work?
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Every state, there s different state laws, and then there s federal laws, so it depends what jurisdiction, and it s all over the board, really.
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And then internationally, same thing, it s kind of all over, which is great to have the safety net in case the guy only gets two years in some foreign country, we re like, well, we got you when you get back, and we ll treat you differently.
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So how much is this happening now in the US?
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In your mind.
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It s constant.
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Really?
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It s constant, yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
We can t keep up with the demand.
1
SPEAKER_00
Half our operations are domestically.
1
SPEAKER_00
People don t realize that.
1
SPEAKER_00
They think we re only foreign, but we support operations here.
1
SPEAKER_00
We provide canine units that sniff out digital media.
1
SPEAKER_00
You saw some of that at Tony s party, maybe the video.
1
SPEAKER_01
How do they sniff out digital media?
1
SPEAKER_00
They re trained, just like a drug dog, but they re trained to sniff out like little thumb drives, because what happens is perpetrators, pedophiles, they hide it, and this is the evidence.
1
SPEAKER_00
I mean, we ll find a child in here that can lead us to where that child actually is.
1
SPEAKER_00
No way.
1
SPEAKER_00
but these guys are hiding it, because they know the cops could come any day, so they hide it in the carpets, they hide it in the floorboards, or whatever, and the human being will never find it.
1
SPEAKER_00
Well, we have dogs that run to it, because they re just trained to sniff out the metallic, whatever it is.
1
SPEAKER_00
And we nail these guys.
1
SPEAKER_00
So we ve deployed a couple dozen of these dogs, right?
1
SPEAKER_00
And I love it, because there s these beautiful animals, and we chart their rescues, like Cinnamon Bark is one of our dogs, and he, and doTERRA is an essential oil company, actually paid for it,
1
SPEAKER_00
And they say, you can name it, we re gonna name it Cinnamon Bark, that s one of their products, you know?
1
SPEAKER_00
So Cinnamon Bark s one, we have Spike, and they literally have like, Spike has saved 10 kids, Cinnamon Bark has saved, it s a cool, and you look at these dogs, you re like, I just love you, it s just amazing, you know?
1
SPEAKER_01
So.
1
SPEAKER_01
Wow, so when did you, how much longer were you with as a special agent before you left to go start your own?
1
SPEAKER_00
So what happened was after that law passed, they put together a group and they basically said, okay guys, let s enforce this.
1
SPEAKER_00
Go out and find Americans.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and they put me on the team and sent me to undercover school and said, now go pretend to be a pedophile or a trafficker.
2
SPEAKER_00
Wait, what s cover school?
2
SPEAKER_01
Undercover school.
2
SPEAKER_00
What is that like?
2
SPEAKER_01
Dude, it was insane because they sent me to undercover school to teach me how to be a pedophile.
2
SPEAKER_00
No way.
2
SPEAKER_01
How to think like one, how to, you know, that s right.
2
SPEAKER_00
How to talk like a, how to.
2
SPEAKER_01
Right, how to get in.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I get I get there and they they bring me into a room.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s like a studio kind of like this, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
There s a two-way mirror and they re gonna assess me because in the end it s interesting They said to us we can t train any of you guys to be undercover operators You re just here to so we can determine if you are one It s because a very unique.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s like an acting and you got to be able to you know, it s it s tough, you know so it s an assessment right and they have this undercover operator and
2
SPEAKER_01
who s like the instructor, but he s like one of the top guys in the US government.
2
SPEAKER_01
He s playing the role of a general smuggler.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so people are coming in, you know, candidates like me are coming in one by one to be tested, and they give everybody a different legend.
2
SPEAKER_01
Like, okay, you re a drug smuggler, you re a terrorist, and you ve gotta get this guy to commit to it.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so I get my turn.
2
SPEAKER_01
He doesn t know what s coming, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
And I sit down with him like this, and I start,
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I m just tripping all over myself.
2
SPEAKER_01
There s cameras everywhere.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m like, I suck at this.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s horrible.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I ve got to bring up kids now.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I eventually bring it up, and the guy s just like, and he says the words, out of role, which means cut.
2
SPEAKER_01
And he looks at the guys in the two-way, and he s like, what are you doing?
2
SPEAKER_01
Are you punking me?
2
SPEAKER_01
I have a daughter who s a year old.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m not gonna play, and he left.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m like, what s going on?
2
SPEAKER_01
So the inspector comes in, he s like, Tim, bottom line, look, we re in new waters right now, man.
2
SPEAKER_01
We gotta chart this course.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I felt very much alone.
2
SPEAKER_01
So actually what I did was, because there was no curriculum yet.
2
SPEAKER_00
You were creating it.
2
SPEAKER_01
We were creating it.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I actually started reading every book on the last time that I could read that we knew that slavery existed.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I m reading about, that s how Harriet Tubman became my hero.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I m reading her book, her story, Frederick Douglass, Harry Beecher, all the abolitionists.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it wasn t a casual decision to call our foundation eventually when I got there, Operation Underground Railroad, because we used the tactics that they used.
2
SPEAKER_01
They were undercover operators.
2
SPEAKER_01
They were, how they used the media, how they used politicians.
2
SPEAKER_01
It was like, these were masterminds.
2
SPEAKER_01
They figured it out and it s like, they re now our inspiration.
2
SPEAKER_01
So that s, you know, we built the curriculum off of, largely off of that, off those stories.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
So at first they were like, no, you re really bad.
2
SPEAKER_00
But then they re like, okay, you got to figure it out because we don t have a curriculum.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, eventually figured it out.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then they sent me overseas.
2
SPEAKER_00
Where did you go?
2
SPEAKER_01
I speak Spanish, so they sent me mostly into Latin America.
2
SPEAKER_01
I worked in Guatemala and Mexico and Costa Rica and the Caribbean, Colombia.
2
SPEAKER_01
And the problem, there was an unintended consequence to all this.
2
SPEAKER_01
Because if I couldn t find the American in the time allowed by the budget that was given,
2
SPEAKER_01
I had to come home.
2
SPEAKER_00
So there d be intel, they would say, we need you to go to Costa Rica.
2
SPEAKER_00
We ve got intel that there s these three guys that live there or that are coming there right now.
2
SPEAKER_00
They re selling girls, boys, they re buying them, whatever it may be.
2
SPEAKER_00
So you had the intel, you had to go there, find them, figure out where they lived.
2
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
2
SPEAKER_00
What city they re in.
2
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
2
SPEAKER_00
and then build rapport with them.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
2
SPEAKER_00
So it wasn t like we re gonna go break down the house and come in.
2
SPEAKER_00
We re gonna show them, become friends with them.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
No way.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s, it s, it s, it s stomach churning, man.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, stomach churning.
2
SPEAKER_00
Meeting this, this
2
SPEAKER_01
I m sitting toe-to-toe with these guys, right, and they ll pull out a cell phone, and they ll be like, here s who we got.
2
SPEAKER_01
We got four-year-olds, we got 10-year-olds, we got, and I m looking at the pictures, I m like, and I ve gotta pretend.
2
SPEAKER_01
You have to act like you want them.
2
SPEAKER_01
Like, dude, she is, it s horrible.
2
SPEAKER_01
Like, I m doing it, like up here, I m smiling, and my stomach is just like churning.
2
SPEAKER_01
I wanna reach across the desk and just destroy this guy, but if I do that, we ll never find the kids.
2
SPEAKER_00
So it s a mental game that will crush you if you re not constantly preparing and constantly... How do you manage energy and body language when you know that in your gut you re against this, but you have to, in your mind, trick this person?
2
SPEAKER_00
How do they not get fooled?
2
SPEAKER_00
How do you master persuading them when you re against it?
2
SPEAKER_01
It s just practice and practice.
2
SPEAKER_01
First, they send you as a secondary operator, so you kind of watch, and you re kind of just playing the role of someone who s kind of watching, and then eventually you get to primary, which I got to eventually, and then it s, you know, so it s just practice.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s interesting, I can t really answer that because even the instructors, like I said, they would say, we can t teach you how to do this, either you, we re just here to tell you if you have it or not.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so that s what happened.
2
SPEAKER_00
Do you ever feel like because you have to get in that mindset of a pedophile and of someone who s selling or buying kids that it might ever trick your mind into actually becoming that?
2
SPEAKER_00
Has that ever crossed your mind where like,
2
SPEAKER_00
Like how do you keep your mind powerful and strong against those thoughts?
2
SPEAKER_01
No, because once you see it, a decent mind, I wouldn t even burden you with what it is.
2
SPEAKER_01
Because you see what this is, the kind of exploitation and the videos that are made of children.
2
SPEAKER_01
You would never be able in your mind.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so it s a punch to your stomach and it gets worse every time.
2
SPEAKER_01
It gets worse every time.
2
SPEAKER_01
If anything, it makes you less,
2
SPEAKER_00
Interested in any kind of sex.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, like I mean, I m kind of opening up here but like In the middle of a case like I come home.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m like, I Need to be alone for yeah, I can t even like my poor wife, you know It s like don t you know, you don t love me or I m like, I m just I can t even you know, you re emotionally like broken Yes, you re just broken.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean it breaks you yet.
2
SPEAKER_01
Do you feel like detox?
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it s horrifying, you know So what was this like in Costa Rica with this first time then for you?
2
SPEAKER_00
I
2
SPEAKER_00
I think you said it was Costa Rica, or maybe I was making that up, but what was that first time for you?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, so one of the, probably the most interesting case that I worked, where it kind of, this was the unintended consequence the US government didn t expect, or I didn t expect is,
2
SPEAKER_01
So I make myself the bait, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
And I m in deep with these guys.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m their friend.
2
SPEAKER_01
They trust me.
2
SPEAKER_01
We could be weeks or maybe a month or so away from getting the kids and getting to that point.
2
SPEAKER_01
But if I don t find the nexus, the legal nexus, the connection back to the U.S.
2
SPEAKER_01
government, it s come home.
2
SPEAKER_01
But it s like, but if I come home, this whole thing goes belly up.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so that was the thing I would fight until it pushed me too far to the point I was like, then I quit.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it was a case in Columbia and a case in Haiti.
2
SPEAKER_01
Both, I was doing it at the same time.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I went too far.
2
SPEAKER_01
I went further than I was supposed to go anyway, but I got really deep.
2
SPEAKER_01
And they said, we re the Americans, Tim.
2
SPEAKER_01
Like, we can t sustain this.
2
SPEAKER_01
Washington s gonna shut this down anyway.
2
SPEAKER_00
It was no one s fault, it s just there s no jurisdiction.
2
SPEAKER_00
So unless there s Americans doing it, you can t go to someone in Columbia, if they re doing it, you can t do anything.
2
SPEAKER_01
Right, right.
2
SPEAKER_01
Because it s only U.S.
2
SPEAKER_01
The only jurisdiction I have is a U.S.
2
SPEAKER_01
court.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I ve got to find a U.S.
2
SPEAKER_01
person.
2
SPEAKER_01
Who is buying kids.
2
SPEAKER_01
A child or a perpetrator.
2
SPEAKER_00
Either one.
2
SPEAKER_01
Who s United States.
2
SPEAKER_01
Got it.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so on that Columbia case, we had hit like a goldmine of trap, like, I can t call it that, but it s, we had hit like the motherlode, okay, of bad guys.
2
SPEAKER_00
And how many kids did they have?
2
SPEAKER_01
It was over a hundred kids.
2
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
2
SPEAKER_01
It was gonna be over a hundred kids.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I don t blame my boss at all.
2
SPEAKER_01
He did what he had to do.
2
SPEAKER_01
He s like, you gotta come home.
2
SPEAKER_01
Cause there were no Americans involved.
2
SPEAKER_01
You can t, there s nothing I can do for you.
2
SPEAKER_01
He did everything he could to keep it and push it and make it happen.
2
SPEAKER_01
But there came a point where you just couldn t, you couldn t do it.
2
SPEAKER_01
And that s when I had to make a decision.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I called my wife and I said, what do I do?
2
SPEAKER_01
And my wife, she s just very stable and very inspired, I ll say.
2
SPEAKER_01
And she just said, well, it s obvious what you do.
2
SPEAKER_01
Do you think you can save kids?
2
SPEAKER_01
I said, I m very confident we ll save over 100 kids.
2
SPEAKER_01
She s like, then you quit your job.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s it, we ll worry about, you do the right thing first and you wait, you know, always do the right, how can you live with yourself?
2
SPEAKER_01
And then she said, how can I live with myself?
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, there came a point in my life where I was like struggling to stay and do this job.
2
SPEAKER_01
And she said, she ended the debate with these words.
2
SPEAKER_01
And these are verbatim because I ll never forget it because it likes it like penetrated my soul pierced me Yeah, she said I will not let you jeopardize my salvation By not doing this Wow.
2
SPEAKER_01
I said, okay And so if anyone needs to end a debate with your loved one that that line works.
2
SPEAKER_01
I
2
SPEAKER_01
It s a powerful line.
2
SPEAKER_01
So that was it.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, okay, if that s how you feel, then I m in.
2
SPEAKER_01
And we quit and started- Because you re not making millions of dollars.
2
SPEAKER_00
You re making a government salary job.
2
SPEAKER_01
I have no savings.
2
SPEAKER_01
I have six kids at the time.
2
SPEAKER_01
How old are you?
2
SPEAKER_01
I m probably now late thirties.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I have no savings.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, I m like, Catherine, I m just gonna tell you, like, this was like fall, like June, I said, or December, I said, by June, we re out of food.
2
SPEAKER_01
Like, I don t know how we re gonna feed the kids.
2
SPEAKER_01
She s like, that doesn t matter.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s like, how can you live with yourself?
2
SPEAKER_01
I said, okay, no, you re right, you re right.
2
SPEAKER_01
You re just way braver than me, okay?
2
SPEAKER_00
You re like, I gotta protect you, I gotta protect the family, I gotta be safe, I gotta provide.
2
SPEAKER_01
It was a hard several, it was a hard month.
2
SPEAKER_01
It was December of 2013.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh man.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I was just a mess, I was a mess.
3
SPEAKER_01
So this is seven years ago.
3
SPEAKER_01
So what happens next?
3
SPEAKER_01
Do you go, was that the first thing, you quit the job and then you go back to Columbia and you assemble like the Marvel cast of Crusaders to come with you and like.
3
SPEAKER_00
I have just enough money to do those two.
3
SPEAKER_00
So you re funding it yourself.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yes, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I m like calling a lawyer.
3
SPEAKER_01
You gotta buy guns, you gotta buy whatever materials, you gotta.
3
SPEAKER_00
We gotta buy everything we need to get, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I m calling a lawyer, I m like, how do I make a nonprofit?
3
SPEAKER_00
Like, I guess that s the best way to do this.
3
SPEAKER_00
I had no idea what I was doing, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
Like, well, we ll set you up.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I got some people to donate.
3
SPEAKER_00
And we just went in.
3
SPEAKER_00
And we had the two cases, the one in Haiti, which is the other powerful story, and Columbia.
3
SPEAKER_00
They re both kind of...
3
SPEAKER_00
the reasons I left.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so I didn t have enough money to go home, so I would bounce back between Haiti and Colombia until we had success, and we did in both.
3
SPEAKER_00
Both of them were crazy cases, and we ended up wrestling over 120.
3
SPEAKER_00
No way.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
So what happens after you guys go in, you get the bad guys, you know,
3
SPEAKER_01
You break up the operation and then there s 100 kids.
3
SPEAKER_01
What happens to those 100 kids next for the next 10 years?
3
SPEAKER_00
Right.
3
SPEAKER_00
So that s the most important part.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s the most important question.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then that s the question we ve asked first before we ll engage with law enforcement partners.
3
SPEAKER_00
First of all, we always work with law enforcement.
3
SPEAKER_01
We re not real local.
3
SPEAKER_00
The local government law enforcement would say, here s our services.
3
SPEAKER_00
In this case, it was easy because as an agent, I was already working with them.
3
SPEAKER_00
I had to leave.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then I said, I m back.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
I lost my badge and my life maybe, but I m back.
3
SPEAKER_00
But I brought the resources and a coalition of the willing, former law enforcement folks who were willing to just jump on in this operation.
3
SPEAKER_00
But we said, we can t do anything until we know what happens to the kids.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so what we do is we have an aftercare department, which is our most important department, which partners with the local non-government organizations that are aftercare centers.
3
SPEAKER_00
And they exist in every country.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so we partner with them and we say, look, we could rescue up to this many kids.
3
SPEAKER_00
How many could you take?
3
SPEAKER_00
And take means raise.
3
SPEAKER_00
Because you don t know.
3
SPEAKER_01
Fund, house, fee, educate.
3
SPEAKER_00
Until they go to university.
3
SPEAKER_00
Because so many times, more than half the time, I d say, there s not a family waiting for them with open arms.
3
SPEAKER_00
There is no family, which is how they got taken in the first place.
3
SPEAKER_00
Or the family s part of the problem.
3
SPEAKER_01
They re selling.
3
SPEAKER_00
They re getting paid.
3
SPEAKER_00
They re getting the money, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so we set up with those partnerships so that when the kids are rescued, we know exactly, in fact, the aftercare partners are with us when the raid happens and they write to the kids, you re safe, you re not bad guys, because the kids think, am I getting arrested or what s going on?
3
SPEAKER_00
So we set it up to where the aftercare team is immediately on the ground and the healing process begins.
3
SPEAKER_01
and they ll either get potentially adopted by another family or they ll be in a facility, a home or some type of facility.
3
SPEAKER_01
Now what about, you mentioned that, sounds like half the time the parents are involved in selling their kids, especially, I ve heard about this in Asia, like a lot of their, it s like a form of love to like say, how much money can you bring back to me type of thing.
3
SPEAKER_01
I don t know if I m off there, but how do parents, what s the psychology behind that for parents where they feel like it s not a bad thing?
3
SPEAKER_01
I ve heard of this sometimes, some cases.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s like part of the culture, I guess.
3
SPEAKER_01
Now how do you, as a parent, how could you do that?
3
SPEAKER_01
How do you get to that point?
3
SPEAKER_00
So you re exactly right how you re describing it.
3
SPEAKER_00
That is how it is.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it s something I cannot comprehend.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s almost like they re so desperate for means, for money.
3
SPEAKER_00
They re so poor.
3
SPEAKER_00
And they re just like, well, I think they just have to compartmentalize and just kind of normalize sexual activity, even though it s your 12-year-old daughter.
3
SPEAKER_00
You just gotta, this is what we have to do.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oftentimes it s cyclical, it s generational.
3
SPEAKER_00
So it s like, that s what I had to do, so that s what you have to do.
3
SPEAKER_00
And we ve got to break it.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that s been part of the problem, because when it s culturally accepted, sometimes the laws reflect that as well.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so there s a lot of countries we ve gone and helped them establish their laws where they didn t exist before.
3
SPEAKER_00
And oftentimes, I d say the majority of the first cases we do, the first investigations we do in a given country is their first investigation into this as well.
3
SPEAKER_00
So we provide the tools, we build digital forensic laboratories, for example, we built one in Southeast Asia that services four or five countries there, and give them the tools they ve never had before to go into the dark net, to go and find where, you know, track IPs, where child,
3
SPEAKER_00
Pornography is being distributed.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s a nutty thing.
3
SPEAKER_01
So is U.S.
3
SPEAKER_01
the biggest consumers of sex trafficking then?
3
SPEAKER_00
We re the biggest consumers of child exploitation material.
3
SPEAKER_00
So pornography.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, child sex pornography.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, we re the biggest consumers.
3
SPEAKER_01
We re the biggest consumers in the world.
3
SPEAKER_00
And one of the biggest producers as well of it.
3
SPEAKER_01
Really?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so we are the demand.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh my gosh.
3
SPEAKER_00
This is why we have success overseas.
3
SPEAKER_01
Why are you so messed up?
3
SPEAKER_00
I think it has to do with, first of all, it s the internet.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s access to the internet.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s the technology that s readily accessible here that we can use, the peer-to-peer networks, darknet kind of stuff, where we can learn how to use that quick.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s software, and then all of a sudden you re in.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so it takes a degree of technology.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then we have a large population with lots of technology.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t think per capita it s a whole lot worse here.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s just that we have the numbers and the technology, and that together creates
3
SPEAKER_01
It s easier access.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s easier access, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
So people become sex addicts easier in this country en masse than in other countries.
3
SPEAKER_01
There s sex addicts all over the world.
3
SPEAKER_01
We just have easier access to exploiting that thing.
3
SPEAKER_00
And we have 300 million people that all have that access.
3
SPEAKER_00
So that creates a lot of demand.
3
SPEAKER_01
in this country.
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How easy is it to watch?
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SPEAKER_01
I ve never seen child pornography.
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SPEAKER_01
I don t even know how easy that would be.
3
SPEAKER_01
How easy, if I wanted to go on the internet right now.
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SPEAKER_01
Way too easy.
3
SPEAKER_01
How long would it take for me?
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Is it 30 minutes?
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Is it five minutes?
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If you have some skill.
3
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Can you just type in child pornography?
3
SPEAKER_00
No, you re not gonna Google it, no.
3
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And no one tried that, by the way.
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SPEAKER_00
They ll track you.
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SPEAKER_00
No, it s not that easy, it s just like a Google search, but there s ways if you understand the dark net and how different networks work.
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SPEAKER_01
I don t even know what the dark net is, but I mean, that s crazy.
3
SPEAKER_01
So if you can get into that, then you could find it quickly.
3
SPEAKER_01
Oh, it s, if you have... Are they updating new stuff all the time?
3
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Oh, yeah.
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In the last three or four years, there s been a 5,000% increase in new child... Content.
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Content.
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It s growing like mad.
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I mean, are they doing it because they re making money?
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Are people having to pay for it?
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SPEAKER_01
Is it free?
3
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Like, how do they?
3
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Oh, no, they make money.
3
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By selling it.
3
SPEAKER_00
They sell it, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
You purchase access to certain places and networks.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like a membership.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and then you end up traveling.
3
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Then you get into that world, you get into the networks, and now you re traveling to engage and become a contact offender, as we call it, contact offender, where you re now... Having sex.
3
SPEAKER_01
Having sex, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
A contact offender.
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SPEAKER_00
Contact offender.
3
SPEAKER_01
Contact offender.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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So, man, this is a whole nother world.
3
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I m sorry, I know I m bringing darkness to this beautiful show.
3
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No, I think it s important to educate people on how to live a better life and how to constantly be educating ourselves on all these different challenges.
3
SPEAKER_00
We have to because the problem is, considering the fact that we are the number one demand and we are number three for destination countries, that means that the pedophiles are here.
3
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And our kids are here.
3
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They re mixed and mingled amongst this group, so parents need to wake up and understand the apps that their kids are using.
3
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We had a guy just 30 minutes from my home just a few weeks ago who was gaming
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with two six-year-old girls from Indiana.
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Six years old, this guy s 42 years old.
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SPEAKER_00
Like on Twitch or something, or like on some platform?
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, it started on Facebook, these kids were on Facebook, and then it went, most games today have the ability to, you know, you can play with other people.
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SPEAKER_01
On other social media platforms.
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From across the earth, and it s fun, it s cool.
3
SPEAKER_00
But parents who didn t grow up with,
3
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this mentality and this technology, they think their kids are playing the computer.
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Because when I was a kid, it was Atari.
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And you re playing the computer.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you re not playing other people.
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SPEAKER_00
Right.
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So parents don t even think, like, oh, she s playing that cute little game.
3
SPEAKER_00
She s fine.
3
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She s been playing for six months with a pedophile from Salt Lake City.
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And the guy got the kids, the six-year-old girls, two of them, to undress and take naked pictures.
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I m not kidding.
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SPEAKER_00
He just said,
3
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just desensitize them.
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They can read or you can talk to them and just like, take your clothes off, put the camera down.
3
SPEAKER_00
No way.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_00
And the AG s office picked the guy up and arrested him.
3
SPEAKER_00
But this is happening in mass, especially right now.
3
SPEAKER_00
We ve never seen it like we have right now because the kids are out of school.
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SPEAKER_01
Kids are out of school and people are in their homes all day.
3
SPEAKER_00
And pedophiles are out of work.
3
SPEAKER_00
And we can track their chatter on the dark net and the communicating, and they keep saying, it s harvest time, these kids are sitting dust.
3
SPEAKER_00
No, they re not.
3
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They re not saying this.
3
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They are.
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How many?
3
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Six million, up to six million additional reports from the National Center for Mission Exploited Children than the same time last year.
3
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And we won t even know the ramifications.
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It ll take years before some of these victims
3
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because these guys are, the lines are out in the water right now.
3
SPEAKER_00
We take for granted the infrastructure of schools and afterschool programs and sports programs.
3
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We take for granted how safe that makes our kids from these online predators, because that s where they are.
3
SPEAKER_00
They re online.
3
SPEAKER_01
So it s easier to fish now is what you re saying.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh yeah, because the mom and dad are worried about their jobs.
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SPEAKER_00
They re scavenging for food.
3
SPEAKER_00
The kids, hey, they re told, take the smartphone, take the laptop, stay here, play games, do your schoolwork.
3
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We gotta go figure out.
3
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It s almost less safe to be on a tablet than it is to be at an afterschool program. 100%.
4
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Less safe to be home.
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You hear stories about, is it Larry Nassar, I think, the doctor?
4
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Yeah, the gymnastics, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s like, okay, you felt like your kids were safe at a US sanctions training program, but this happened to hundreds of girls, but it s less safe.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right, it s a great point.
4
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Some people say, well, I get worried about after-school programs.
4
SPEAKER_00
And this is a credible doctor who s like creating educational videos.
4
SPEAKER_01
And that happens as well.
4
SPEAKER_01
But this, in terms of the sheer numbers, is way more threatening.
4
SPEAKER_01
Because there s millions of pedophiles.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s easier to do it.
4
SPEAKER_01
There s millions of kids.
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SPEAKER_01
They know the parents aren t paying attention because they re worried about their livelihood.
4
SPEAKER_01
And they just access the kids.
4
SPEAKER_01
And they start gaming with them.
4
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They friend them on Facebook or whatever.
4
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And all of a sudden, it s on, and it s horrible.
4
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What are two or three things that parents can do now that they have this information to protect their kids against any type of sex offenders?
4
SPEAKER_01
So the most important thing is understand the apps your kids are on.
4
SPEAKER_01
Understand the social media platforms your kids are on.
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Know if people can access them pretty readily, pretty quickly.
4
SPEAKER_01
And that s the problem is parents just, if you re my age or older, we missed it.
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We missed the internet.
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So we didn t grow up understanding with raging hormones and undeveloped brains.
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We didn t have to deal with internet too.
4
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Our kids do.
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And so parents just don t know there s education.
4
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One of the most challenging apps they should be aware of, or is it all social media?
4
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It s all social media, anywhere where you can connect with bad guys.
4
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Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, it doesn t matter.
4
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The parents of those six-year-old girls I told you about, they said, we had no idea.
4
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We thought the kids were just playing the computer.
4
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No, no, they were playing a pedophile.
4
SPEAKER_01
And the little kid game, whatever it was.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so parents, that s the number one thing.
4
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Know what your kids are doing, understand the applications.
4
SPEAKER_01
If you need help, you can go to your internet service provider and say, hey, can you send me a record of every, you own that phone that you give your kid, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
They can give you a record of every site that s hit, every game that s played.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right, every conversation.
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SPEAKER_00
What s the conversation that a parent should have with their kids, whether they re five or 15,
4
SPEAKER_00
to at least educate them a little bit without scaring them.
4
SPEAKER_00
But what can a parent say, whether they know something s happening or not, to prepare them for this?
4
SPEAKER_01
So it s a great question.
4
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And for me, having nine kids, you have to really meditate and pray and focus on each individual kid and customize that answer.
4
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Because if you come in too early, you could hurt them.
4
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It s a tough subject.
4
SPEAKER_01
But if you miss, if you come in too late, you could also hurt them.
4
SPEAKER_01
So when they start asking questions and when you kind of feel your intuition, luckily I have my wife who I can say, when is it time for this one?
4
SPEAKER_01
It s now, okay, let s have the talk.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then what you say also is customized to what you think they re ready for.
4
SPEAKER_01
But you have to be in front of it.
4
SPEAKER_01
Whatever that answer is, that s the key.
4
SPEAKER_01
Have a close relationship with your kid.
4
SPEAKER_01
Be their friend and their parent and connect with their soul so that you can get that inspiration.
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SPEAKER_01
Okay, now s the time and here s what I m gonna tell you.
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Too often we say nothing because we don t want to talk about sex and, you know, it opens that whole door, birds and the bees, and parents just ignore it.
4
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That s the worst thing you can do.
4
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Because then someone else is going to teach them and they re going to get hurt.
4
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So it s just, it s just tuning into that kid.
4
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
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That s the responsibility you have as a parent, to be a leader and to have hard conversations.
4
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I m not a parent yet, so I...
4
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I don t look forward to it, but I also know that I m gonna rise to the occasion and be able to have the courage to be able to have those hard conversations.
4
SPEAKER_00
How do you categorize a pedophile and how many of them are there in the USA?
4
SPEAKER_00
Like, what s the definition?
4
SPEAKER_01
Someone who actively seeks sexual interaction with a child.
4
SPEAKER_01
In-person contact, not... No, there s still a pedophile.
4
SPEAKER_01
You could not have become a conduct offender quite yet.
4
SPEAKER_01
But they all want to become, it s like someone who looks at porn, right?
4
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An adult who s looking at porn.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t think anyone looks at porn with that being the end, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
They wanna take action eventually.
4
SPEAKER_01
And that s how child pornographers are as well.
4
SPEAKER_01
They re eventually looking to take action and become a contact offender.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s crazy.
4
SPEAKER_01
How many are there?
4
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I couldn t give you the exact number, but we do know this.
4
SPEAKER_01
The fact that there s two million children in sex slavery, consider what kind of number
4
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Justifies that demand.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s 550X, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s like any other market.
4
SPEAKER_00
The percentage is gonna take action.
4
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If they need 2 million kids, that means you re gonna have a market of 550X.
4
SPEAKER_00
2 million US or 2 million worldwide?
4
SPEAKER_01
That s worldwide.
4
SPEAKER_01
Global, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, but the US number keeps rising.
4
SPEAKER_01
There s a couple hundred thousand a week that has to make children.
4
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
4
SPEAKER_01
But that number, there s about 18,000 women and children a year who are snuggled in to the United States for the purposes of being exploited as slaves.
4
SPEAKER_00
And is this,
4
SPEAKER_00
a financial transaction, 300,000 kids, or is this sexual abuse?
4
SPEAKER_00
Again, it s like from adults to a kid.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, there s a mix.
4
SPEAKER_01
There s a mix of both of those.
4
SPEAKER_00
I mean, for me, I was sexually abused when I was five by a man that I didn t know.
4
SPEAKER_00
You re kidding me.
4
SPEAKER_00
No, I m not.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and the babysitter s son, he was probably 16 or 17 when I was five.
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SPEAKER_00
It s one of my probably first three or four memories I ve ever had.
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SPEAKER_00
Oh my gosh.
4
SPEAKER_00
For 25 years, I didn t tell anyone, and it deeply shaped my life.
4
SPEAKER_00
It only happened once.
4
SPEAKER_00
I can t even imagine something happening over and over again and not feeling comfortable or safe.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it deeply impacted the way I think, the way I took action, how I was defensive.
4
SPEAKER_00
I felt like everyone s out to get me.
4
SPEAKER_00
It was like everyone s trying to abuse me.
4
SPEAKER_00
Everyone s trying to take advantage of me.
4
SPEAKER_00
It showed up in every area of my life, from sports, to teachers, to relationships, to business partners, until six and a half, seven years ago, I finally opened up and started to heal and started talking about it for the first time.
4
SPEAKER_00
For 25 years, no one knew about this.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it was one of the hardest things I ever did was talking about it.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then I knew that this had power over me because I was so afraid of what would happen if people knew this about me.
4
SPEAKER_00
The more I talked about it with family, then friends, then I finally opened up publicly about it on my show.
4
SPEAKER_00
The moment when it was no longer scary to talk about it was when I realized, okay, now my healing is starting.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it s been an amazing six and a half year journey of healing the past, letting go, forgiving, obviously not forgetting, it s always gonna be with me, the memory.
4
SPEAKER_00
but the ability to have peace of my heart and move on and see what can I do moving forward to make sure that other people aren t sexually abused.
4
SPEAKER_01
No, yeah, what you re doing is so important because this is the problem is people, to heal, they ve gotta come, they ve gotta start talking about it.
4
SPEAKER_00
You have to talk about it.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s the only way you can really heal is to start sharing with someone, whether it s a spiritual pastor, a therapist, a parent that you trust, a friend you trust, but when you hold on to this secret and you don t tell anyone, you re gonna suffer.
4
SPEAKER_01
Now imagine, Lewis, that s happened once, right to you.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, one time.
4
SPEAKER_00
Imagine it happening every day, every week.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, imagine.
4
SPEAKER_01
So I was with a neurologist once because I had to understand what s going on with these kids.
4
SPEAKER_01
And he says, Tim, let me show you something.
4
SPEAKER_01
He showed me two brains, scans of brains, two children s brains.
4
SPEAKER_01
And he says, do you see the scarring in the, yeah, what s going on?
4
SPEAKER_01
He said, one of these brains was a traumatic car accident.
4
SPEAKER_01
This other one was a child who for five years was sexually abused.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, wait, what?
4
SPEAKER_01
Very similar.
4
SPEAKER_01
So that s what, I mean, it creates extra physiological scarring in your brain.
4
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely.
4
SPEAKER_01
And this is the problem.
4
SPEAKER_01
So the rehab part.
4
SPEAKER_00
The chronic stress, the chronic fear, all these different things.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yes, it actually creates physical brain damage that requires physical healing of that brain.
4
SPEAKER_00
Emotional healing, physical, spiritual healing.
4
SPEAKER_01
And when I saw that, I can t tell you how motivated I was to get back out and just start nailing these guys.
4
SPEAKER_01
Because this is, I mean, there s nothing worse in my mind and earth or hell than this.
4
SPEAKER_01
Most of these kids would rather that they were killed than go through this.
4
SPEAKER_01
Our sentencing so far, I don t think really reflects the real damage that s being done.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it s because people don t want to talk about it.
4
SPEAKER_01
The more we talk about it, the better our justice system will be, the better our aftercare services will be.
4
SPEAKER_01
But this is a very real,
4
SPEAKER_01
Very, very real threat to all our kids.
4
SPEAKER_00
And how s the process work for you, if you can break it down for me?
4
SPEAKER_00
How do you decide who you re going to go after?
4
SPEAKER_00
Is it, okay, we re assessing the dark web information first, we have researchers on your team that are finding this person s got 50 kids, this has got 20.
4
SPEAKER_00
You know, how do you guys assess, like, where are you going to make the hit?
4
SPEAKER_01
So, when I first left the government,
4
SPEAKER_01
I had basically pending cases, right, that I couldn t work, because they were outside my jurisdiction.
4
SPEAKER_01
So those first ones, like the one in Columbia and Haiti, those were easy.
4
SPEAKER_00
But then after that.
4
SPEAKER_01
So it s funny, it s funny, great question, because I m like knocking on doors, like, can I work, can I help you guys?
4
SPEAKER_01
Because those two hits were successful, so we got more donation dollars.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I had to actually convince people, like, you have a problem, we can help, we were turned down.
4
SPEAKER_01
Seven years later.
4
SPEAKER_00
Turned down by what?
4
SPEAKER_00
Governments, countries?
4
SPEAKER_01
By governments, by law enforcement.
4
SPEAKER_01
We don t need your help.
4
SPEAKER_01
We re fine here.
4
SPEAKER_01
We don t think there s a problem.
4
SPEAKER_01
Today, seven years later, we are saying no.
4
SPEAKER_01
We can t keep up.
4
SPEAKER_01
Everybody s asking us, hey, so-and-so told us you did X, Y, and Z in their country.
4
SPEAKER_01
Can you help us with this piece?
4
SPEAKER_01
Can you help us with that?
4
SPEAKER_01
And so now what we have to do is we have to find the law enforcement units around the world.
4
SPEAKER_01
We re in 26 countries.
4
SPEAKER_01
The ones that can sustain our tools.
4
SPEAKER_01
So if we give them something and give them training, it s a skill.
5
SPEAKER_00
solution they have, you know, so it s not just us doing the work and then leaving.
5
SPEAKER_00
So that s how we kind of judge it right now.
5
SPEAKER_00
We wish we could be everywhere, but we have to go to where they re most prepared to make the biggest difference, the biggest impact.
5
SPEAKER_01
Of course.
5
SPEAKER_01
And what are the top three countries right now that have the most cases and the biggest problem?
5
SPEAKER_00
I think Southeast Asia, that whole region, is just so sad and so terrible.
5
SPEAKER_00
But the law enforcement is doing amazing work, and we re working closely with them.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s where we put our first digital forensic lab.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so now they re going in and routing out the bad guys in there.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it s 50% locals, and it s 50% kind of US-based who s coming in and committing the crime.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, lots of sex tourists.
5
SPEAKER_01
How big of an industry is the sex tourist industry?
5
SPEAKER_01
How much money?
5
SPEAKER_00
Okay, so human trafficking altogether is $150 billion a year.
5
SPEAKER_00
$150 billion, and so to put that into perspective.
5
SPEAKER_01
And how much is the sex tourism in human trafficking?
5
SPEAKER_00
That s about $35 billion, I believe.
5
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, just the sex alone is $35 billion.
5
SPEAKER_01
The contact, the physical sex, not the digital consumption of media, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, $35 billion in the selling of people for sex.
5
SPEAKER_00
35 billion, if you can imagine that number.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then you bring in the slave labor, and that s what gets it up to 150 billion.
5
SPEAKER_00
Human trafficking in general, yes.
5
SPEAKER_00
Human trafficking in general.
5
SPEAKER_00
And to give some perspective, because that number is so big, with the amount of money made buying and selling people every year, you could buy every Starbucks franchise in the world, you could buy every NBA team, and still have enough money left over to send every U.S.
5
SPEAKER_00
child to college for four years.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s how much money is spent in modern day slavery every year.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s why I say this isn t a peripheral thing, even though we act like it is, because we don t want to address it, we don t want to engage it, it hurts.
5
SPEAKER_01
Why do we not want to address it?
5
SPEAKER_00
It hurts.
5
SPEAKER_00
I know why, because I didn t want to address it.
5
SPEAKER_00
I tried to quit many times, and my wife always turned me around and said, you can t, sweetie.
5
SPEAKER_01
Oh my gosh.
5
SPEAKER_00
Because here s what happens, and this is what happened to me.
5
SPEAKER_00
is you see children being hurt, and you can t help it.
5
SPEAKER_00
You superimpose your own children s faces on those children.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then you just can t bear it, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
You just can t handle it.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I had to go to psychotherapy to not do that.
5
SPEAKER_00
Mandatory, they sent us every year to get checked out.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I kept, I d go every year and think, okay, this is my year that I m gonna, they re gonna boot me out, because I know I m crazy.
5
SPEAKER_00
And like, oh, you passed Mr. Ballek, and we had to, what?
5
SPEAKER_00
Because I thought I was crazy.
5
SPEAKER_00
No, you re fine, okay.
5
SPEAKER_00
But one of the things, that was the hardest thing for me to kick is learn how to not see my own child s face so I could deal with it.
5
SPEAKER_00
Later on, about 15 years later into this, I changed my tune and I allowed myself to see my kids  faces and that made all the difference because all of a sudden now I m pushing the envelope.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s more, you re more connected to it.
5
SPEAKER_00
What happened was I came across a situation a few years back where we were going into a child trafficking center and there was 28 little children that were being sold.
5
SPEAKER_01
Little meaning under 12.
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh, from 1 to 12.
5
SPEAKER_00
Gosh.
5
SPEAKER_00
For sex.
5
SPEAKER_00
For sex.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so I m walking in there, they think I m a customer, and I m walking in and I see all these kids.
5
SPEAKER_00
Like a storefront?
5
SPEAKER_00
It was an orphanage front.
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They were claiming to be an orphanage.
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No way.
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Yeah, this was in Haiti.
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They were claiming to be an orphanage, but all the kids were mostly kids they collected after the hurricanes or earthquakes, the parents die and they say, oh, come to our orphanage.
5
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Oh, it s not an orphanage.
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh my gosh.
5
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So we were actually tracking a missing child that we knew had been there.
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And so that s what got us in there.
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And when I saw the kids outside the gate, I was about to go in,
5
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It was almost like a PTSD reaction where I m like, oh, I m seeing my kids.
5
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Okay, do the training they taught you.
5
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But instead I said, you know what?
5
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What if I don t do that this time?
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What if I let it happen?
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What if I just allow these kids to be my kids?
5
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So I went in there and I was like, oh my gosh, I never should have done that technique.
5
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I should have always done this.
5
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And this is what I encourage everyone to do.
5
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Because before you were wearing like a mask.
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Right.
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So you wouldn t feel it as deeply.
5
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But now you re feeling it so deeply.
5
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So deeply.
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And what wouldn t you do for your own child?
5
SPEAKER_00
So now I m willing to go the distance, right?
5
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And that case got nuts.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it s funny.
5
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I know this experiment led to this.
5
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After we rescued, we rescued 28 kids.
5
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We did the whole sting by.
5
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And I ended up adopting two of the kids that we rescued who are now my kids.
5
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In Haiti.
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Yeah.
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It was a preventative strike.
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Turns out none of it have actually been sold yet.
5
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They re all being sold.
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And so, yeah, so two of my kids are now, they came from that operation.
5
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So they literally, like literally made it.
5
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They became my kids, yeah.
5
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Wow, how many kids do you have now?
5
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I have nine now.
5
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Wow, seven from birth of your own.
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Seven, yeah, biological.
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Yeah, and then two adopted from Haiti.
5
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How many more, I mean, how many do you wanna have?
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh, man, we were, the prenup said six, okay, when we got married.
5
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Yeah, we were done at six, and we were both done.
5
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We were like, we can t, we got to six.
5
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I came from six, my wife came from six, and then this case happened after that, and we saw these kids, and it was just like, here s my wife again.
5
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I called her, I said, you won t believe this.
5
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What I just saw, these two little kids.
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It was the two kids I actually bought in the sting operation.
5
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I just grew attached to them, and it was my wife who just had this experience, and she just said, I wanna be their mom.
5
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I said, no, you don t.
5
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You can t do this.
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We can t do this.
5
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I wanna be their mom.
5
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So that s how it started and we ended up bringing them home.
5
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And then the seventh one came, defying all science somehow.
5
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How much does it cost to buy a kid?
5
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Is it to buy them to own them?
5
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Is it to buy them to have sex?
5
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What s the difference between?
5
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They do both.
5
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Generally, if you re gonna take a kid, if you re gonna use a kid for the weekend or something, you can probably double or triple the price of what the adult sex market would be.
5
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So whatever a prostitute, sex worker, whatever you wanna call it.
5
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Double or triple for a child.
5
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For a night or for a weekend.
5
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For purchasing, it depends what the country, but those kids they sold me that became mine were 15,000 each.
5
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15,000 for a person s life.
5
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Yeah, unbelievable.
5
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Just say here, it s yours.
5
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In the Middle East, we re dealing with ISIS, and this is where we re getting organ harvesting.
5
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And a pediatric heart is up to a quarter million dollars.
5
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A kid s heart?
5
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A kid s heart.
5
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That s how much it sells in the black market.
5
SPEAKER_01
How often is this happening with organ harvesting?
5
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in the Middle East quite a bit.
5
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So ISIS rolls in in 2015, and they make sex slaves out of the Yazidi people, these beautiful people that are just peaceful, they re living in Northern Iraq and a little bit in Syria as well.
5
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And ISIS came in and just said, you are less than human, and they just took them and made sex slave markets out of them.
5
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Also, a lot of the Christian communities were devastated in a similar way.
5
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Eventually, ISIS gets pushed off its sovereign territory and was making its money by taking over cities and taxing people.
5
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So they lost their oil revenues when they got pushed off the land, but they kept the kids.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so like, well, I gotta make money.
5
SPEAKER_00
So they start selling these kids to sex slavery or to organ harvesting.
5
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We ve taken down two organ harvesting rings already so far.
5
SPEAKER_01
So we, this is- Do they keep the kids alive after they take out some of their organs or is it you re dead?
5
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Obviously it depends.
5
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Yeah.
5
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And not if it s a kidney or something.
5
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They just take it out and then, okay, see you later.
5
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Yeah, people are finally reporting on it.
5
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I think CBS or ABC News recently did a story on it, but we re in the middle of it.
5
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This is the Nazarene Fund.
5
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I m the CEO of also the Nazarene Fund, which is a sister organization with OUR.
5
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Mercury One, Glenn Beck started that, and then I took it over three years ago.
5
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Glenn Beck s still the founder.
5
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He was the godfather of OUR as well.
5
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He gave us all our first money.
5
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The money I needed to rescue those kids in Columbia, in Haiti, that was Glenn.
5
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Really?
5
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He was the only one that took the chance.
5
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He s like, I ll front it, go for it.
5
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I m like, are you serious?
5
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He s like, yeah.
5
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He got me the money.
5
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It was pretty intense.
5
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Oh, that s nice.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, risked his whole media company, really.
5
SPEAKER_00
His lawyer said, don t do it.
5
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if they fail or somebody gets hurt, you re screwed.
5
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He s like, I don t care.
5
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It s like, I m not gonna go to my maker and tell him I said no.
5
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It was an amazing story.
5
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So yeah, so he asked me to run the Nazarene Fund three years ago.
5
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So that s our work in the Middle East, which is just the stuff with, and we re expecting these kids.
5
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I mean, we re going in and taking the kids out.
5
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So have you found kids who ve had, I guess, organs taken out or?
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh yeah, no, the ones that are surviving.
5
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Really?
5
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So you find them and they re sewn up or whatever?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and there s been, like I said, some mainstream media have gotten into it, thank goodness, in the last several months.
5
SPEAKER_00
And you can see, people can go on Google and you can see it.
5
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They re stitched up.
5
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But if you re a small child, they re gonna make their most money off a pediatric heart.
5
SPEAKER_01
Really?
5
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A quarter million dollars off a heart.
5
SPEAKER_00
They re very high in demand, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
Man, this is crazy, man.
5
SPEAKER_00
Surfacing markets, generally outside the United States, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
Like these are markets in countries that there s no regulations and there s just black market stuff.
5
SPEAKER_01
The work you re doing is really amazing.
5
SPEAKER_01
And you ve got a movie coming out, which I got to see a trailer of it a couple months ago.
5
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And when s the date it s coming out?
5
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Do we know?
5
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We don t know.
5
SPEAKER_00
COVID shifted everything, so we don t really know.
5
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But the film is locked.
5
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It s done.
5
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Stars Jim Caviezel, Mary Servino, Bill Camp.
6
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It s it s these guys were these guys are artists.
6
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They re geniuses.
6
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It s they did a very good job.
6
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And what s the movie called?
6
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What s it?
6
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What s it telling the story of it s called the sound of freedom and it basically tells the story I just a lot of that has told you yeah, like for example with the little boy in the van They actually filmed that scene exactly where it happened with the necklace and all that And it gets into Columbia the Columbia raid where he rescued the hundred and twenty our first big operation
6
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that rescued 121, yeah.
6
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And what s your mission moving forward with the movie, with just everything you re up to?
6
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Is it to end sex slavery?
6
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Is it to rescue a certain amount of kids a year?
6
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It is to end it.
6
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So we did an experiment, and it was very telling.
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In 2014, we put almost all of our resources into the northern region of Columbia.
6
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One region.
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One region.
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And we just said, we just pounded, pounded, pounded, pounded.
6
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Like every month, two or three operations and empowered law enforcement.
6
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And then to the point where they stopped and the would-be traffickers said, yeah, I had to give it up.
6
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I m into drugs and I m doing something that s just crazy.
6
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And so we did it.
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We knew it would happen.
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It s logical.
6
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Like now there s a consequence.
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There wasn t before.
6
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But we did it to show like, if everybody would focus, focus, focus on child crimes,
6
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If we all did it together, we could end it, but it s not gonna be governments alone, it s gonna be people getting loud, which is, we have an opportunity right now, because people are getting loud about it for the first time in a long time, or maybe ever, on July 30th, which is anti-human trafficking world, anti-awareness day.
6
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So how can my listeners get involved, whether a small way, or they wanna get involved in a bigger way, what can they do?
6
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Go to your website.
6
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Can I email you?
6
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Can I spread the message?
6
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OYOrescue.org
6
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OURrescue.org is the website.
6
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Look at our videos and there s something on there that says join the fight.
6
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We have all sorts of ideas people can do to get involved.
6
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So if people want to go out and get that commission and a little symbol that reminds them of the fight, you can go to freedom.tag.com.
6
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It s an opportunity for people not only to kind of get their symbolic commission, but for every 30 necklaces sold, we literally, with that money, we can rescue a child.
6
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People can also text
6
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Help them to 51555 and we re giving specific instructions on how you can get involved in your city on July 30th.
6
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60 cities have already committed to get loud in some way.
6
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They ll go to a park, you know, obey the laws and the social distancing, but it s generally go to a park and local leaders will show up and commit that we re going to do more for kids and make sure the kids in your community are protected.
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Wow, man.
6
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It s exciting.
6
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And if you want to be a part of helping spread the message, make sure to share this video out or share this audio out.
6
SPEAKER_01
And make sure to follow Tim.
6
SPEAKER_01
What are you on social media?
6
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Tim Ballard 89.
6
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Tim Ballard 89.
6
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Make sure to follow Tim.
6
SPEAKER_01
Make sure to tag him when you re sharing this out so he can follow up with you as well and stay connected.
6
SPEAKER_01
I know you do a lot of other stuff behind the scenes that I want to get into hopefully soon in Utah and be a part of learning about how you guys actually do this.
6
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We re bringing you up, man.
6
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We re going to put you into one of our training programs.
6
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Lock me in.
6
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So the movie be aware So if you go to the website if you sign up you follow you you ll be able to watch the movie when it comes out We ll keep you up to date on everything else.
6
SPEAKER_01
You ve got a bunch of books to talk about this as well If you want to dive in down the rabbit hole, you can read yeah I got lots of content for you if you want to learn more exactly but this is an amazing mission that you re on for me who s been you know, I wasn t sold but I dealt with sexual abuse and I know the trauma that it has in the years of unwiring that it takes to
6
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feel normal, to feel like the world isn t out to get you, to feel like your stress levels go down, to feel like I couldn t go to sleep at night.
6
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It d take me hours to go to sleep every night until I was about 30.
6
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And then when I started to heal, I could finally sleep.
6
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So I know what it does to the wiring of a human being with sexual abuse.
6
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I can t even imagine
6
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what it would do to someone who s being sold by their parent, not by their parent, over and over and over again for years.
6
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I couldn t even imagine how you would start to heal.
6
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So what you re doing is an amazing gift and a service to humanity, and I really acknowledge you for that, Tim, for
6
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for being an incredible leader in this space, being a hero in this space.
6
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And using your wisdom, your skills, your tools, your resources, your relationships to make the biggest impact in this space.
6
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And I want to be a support for her as long as I can on this.
6
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This is a big part of me that I want to help out as well.
6
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I want to ask you a final few questions.
6
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This is called the three truths.
6
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So imagine it s your last day on earth.
6
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You go somewhere else after your body dies, right?
6
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But you ve accomplished every dream you could think of in your whole life.
6
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For your personal life, for your family, your kids, for your businesses, for your foundation.
6
SPEAKER_01
Anything you can imagine, it s come true.
6
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But for whatever reason, all of your work has to go with you.
6
SPEAKER_01
Your videos, movies, content, it s gotta go with you to the next place.
6
SPEAKER_01
But you get to leave behind three lessons you know to be true.
6
SPEAKER_01
You get to write it down on a piece of paper, and this is all we would have to remember you by, are these three lessons, or what I like to call three truths.
6
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What would you share with the world that are your three truths?
6
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I think the first truth, the most important truth, and this comes from years of trying to find light in my darkness.
6
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Because to work in this world is so dark, and it will destroy you.
6
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It ll destroy you.
6
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I needed to find light.
6
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And so my advice to people would be, or what I would share is, because we all have darkness, I don t care who you are, you don t need to be fighting trafficking.
6
SPEAKER_00
Darkness is everywhere.
6
SPEAKER_00
So my mind would be based on how to get light in your darkness.
6
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And the number one thing is serving other people.
6
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Service turns the lights on, Tony Robbins taught me this.
6
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I knew it just functionally, but until he put words to it in the research.
6
SPEAKER_00
I mean, when you serve people, something happens to your brain.
6
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Like there s a physiological, in my mind, it s God.
6
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I m a faith guy.
6
SPEAKER_00
And when you serve people,
6
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your brain literally releases serotonin and endorphins and oxytocin, and what it does is people that have an excess of those beautiful... You feel better.
6
SPEAKER_00
You feel better.
6
SPEAKER_00
You re healthier, you re happier.
6
SPEAKER_00
You have more courage, you have more optimism.
6
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This is science, right?
6
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Now, in my mind, what that is,
6
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is it s also, I believe it s God preparing your body to commune and with the God, your creator, whatever it is, I don t care, but a higher source that will then give you.
6
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that you need to be a better version of yourself.
6
SPEAKER_00
And so service has all these benefits apart from just doing the good of helping somebody.
6
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It s this amazing thing that turns the lights on in so many ways.
6
SPEAKER_01
So service, number one, to other people.
6
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Number two is kind of related to it, but it s that communion part.
6
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It s prayer, meditation, whatever you want to call it.
6
SPEAKER_00
But connecting to that greater being, whatever that is.
6
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and getting that positive energy.
6
SPEAKER_00
Because it just makes, if you re a better version of yourself, you are a blessing to other people, right?
6
SPEAKER_00
So it s not a selfish thing, it s actually a selfless thing.
6
SPEAKER_00
Get yourself good, because then you re good for others, you know?
6
SPEAKER_00
And so number two, I d say that, is that meditation, that communion.
6
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The number three is find at least one person that you really love and that really loves you back.
6
SPEAKER_00
There s a lot of relationships where you don t have time or the ability to connect that way, but for me it s my wife.
6
SPEAKER_00
Find that person.
6
SPEAKER_00
I ve told you many stories.
6
SPEAKER_00
The coolest story I told you was actually me running away and my wife turning me back around.
6
SPEAKER_00
None of this would happen.
6
SPEAKER_00
I wouldn t be sitting here with you if she hadn t turned me around when I ran for cover throughout my life, throughout my career.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I credit that relationship with all of that stuff.
6
SPEAKER_01
What s the thing you love about Catherine the most, your wife?
6
SPEAKER_00
She does the right thing no matter what.
6
SPEAKER_00
and it doesn t matter the consequences.
6
SPEAKER_00
I mean, she literally said to me, if we end up on a beach in a tent, and that s where we re living because we did this, I don t care.
6
SPEAKER_00
We have to do the right thing by these children and by God, and the right thing is to quit and leave everything.
6
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I calculated, it was millions of dollars in pension, and I had a whole charted out, my life was charted out.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m like, Captain, we re watching, doesn t matter.
6
SPEAKER_00
These are real children, and there s consequences for,
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and if you say one, it s worth it.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s in her mind.
6
SPEAKER_00
Right, how is it not worth it?
6
SPEAKER_00
And just how quick she gets to that.
6
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Like, this is wrong, this is right, we re gonna do the right thing.
6
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
6
SPEAKER_00
She has that kind of, it s intuition, it s inspiration, a conscience, I don t know what you call it, but she has it, and I know I can go to her and say, I don t know what to do, what do I do?
6
SPEAKER_00
And she s gonna be right.
6
SPEAKER_00
And if she doesn t know, she ll tell me, I don t know, let s figure this out.
6
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So I think that s the thing I love most about her.
6
SPEAKER_01
Wow, that s beautiful.
6
SPEAKER_01
Okay, we can find you online Tim Bauer 89.
6
SPEAKER_01
We ll connect you and link up everything in the show notes I ve got is there anything that you want to share that you haven t shared before my final question anything you wish people asked you about this or Do you feel like people need to know about you know?
7
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One thing I ll say is I m worried about the world right now.
7
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I m worried about kids right now.
7
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a lot, because I feel like we pursue good things and they make sense, but too often we don t consider the children who are being hurt.
7
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And it s unintended, it s no one s intent to do this.
7
SPEAKER_00
But we talked about, for example, we re in the middle of a debate right now, and I m not, this is not partisan for me, it s not political, even though everything seems to go that way these days, right?
7
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But the idea of opening schools and what that does,
7
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All I m saying, I m not going to give the answer to the question, I m not smart enough to give an answer to that question, but I will say this, that we re not even, I don t see the kids as part of the debate.
7
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For example, the spike, six million additional reports of children being abused originating online, this is from the National Center for Missing and Displaced Children.
7
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And that s a lot of pain.
7
SPEAKER_00
And it happened because we, as a society, we decided to shut everything down because of COVID.
7
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Okay, do we know the trade-offs?
7
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That s all I m asking.
7
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Are we considering the trade-offs?
7
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And the concern I have is, you know, the CDC and others have come out.
7
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I m not a scientist, but I can read data.
7
SPEAKER_00
And if you re 60 years or younger, you have a 99.9% chance of surviving.
7
SPEAKER_00
If you re older, it s very, very, very dangerous.
7
SPEAKER_00
And you should definitely take mass precautions.
7
SPEAKER_00
And we should do everything we can to support that.
7
SPEAKER_00
But teachers who create the infrastructure that keep kids from being sexually assaulted, they, like 89% are under 60 years old.
7
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And so the real question we should be asking is what s scarier to you?
7
SPEAKER_00
A virus, once we ve taken care of the most vulnerable, what s scarier, a virus with a 99.9% survivability or the trade-off, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of children being sexually assaulted?
7
SPEAKER_00
We re not even having the discussion, that s my concern.
7
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I m not smart enough to come up with the actual solution.
7
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But at least have the discussion.
7
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And it boils down to this, kids can t get loud.
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They can t organize, they can t protest, they can t march.
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And so we don t hear from them.
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It s on us adults to stand up and be their voices.
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And say, we will sit at the table for you, we will make sure you are represented.
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So that s my, yeah, something to think about.
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We need to figure out a solution.
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It s hard.
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These are complex things.
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I don t have the answers, but I know kids are being hurt, and I know more can be done to make sure they re not.
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For sure.
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Absolutely.
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Well, there s always more we can do, that s for sure.
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You re doing amazing things, man.
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I appreciate you.
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I got one final question.
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That s what s your definition of greatness?
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I think, for me, greatness is how much positive impact you can be on others.
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In fact, I try to make this a rule.
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I m not great at this.
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I m a believer in it, okay?
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I m not a master of it.
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But when given a fork in the road, a crossroads, you gotta make a decision, and we do it every day.
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Do I do this or do that?
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I don t know what to do.
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Which one will help more people?
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And if you always take that road, I think that s the definition of greatness.
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Yeah, that s the thought of my man.
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Thanks, bro.
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Thanks, bro.
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Appreciate you, man.
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Thank you, man.
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I hope today s episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness.
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Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today s show with all the important links.
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And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me as well as ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcast.
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If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend.
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Leave us a review over on Apple podcast and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels at Lewis Howes.
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I really love hearing the feedback from you and it helps us continue to make the show better.
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And if you want more inspiration from our world-class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness Newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.
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And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.
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And now it s time to go out there and do something great.