SWHT Conversation with retired FBI Agent Eric Robinson

 This podcast of the interview with retired FBI agent Eric Robinson, focusing on his extensive experience in law enforcement, particularly in combating human trafficking, child exploitation, and cybercrime. Robinson's background includes 24 years in the FBI, with specialization in organized crime, financial crimes, national security, and human intelligence. Prior to law enforcement, he served as a Baptist pastor for 12 years, which informs his perspective on morality and community issues. 

The discussion highlights the complexities of human trafficking, emphasizing that it often involves manipulation and coercion rather than physical abduction. Robinson explains that trafficking can occur without movement, such as in cases where victims are living in their homes but are exploited through online platforms. The role of social media and the dark web in facilitating trafficking and grooming is underscored, illustrating how offenders use technology to prey on vulnerable children and teenagers. 

Robinson details law enforcement strategies, including undercover operations, sting operations, and collaboration with other agencies to rescue victims and apprehend traffickers. He notes the emotional toll on agents, who often deal with disturbing content and must employ dark humor as a coping mechanism. The importance of early parental involvement and monitoring is stressed, with advice on normalizing communication about online activity and social media use from a young age. 

The interview also covers the challenges law enforcement faces, such as limited resources, legal hurdles, and the sophistication of offenders using AI-generated images and encrypted platforms. Robinson emphasizes the need for public awareness and open discussions to combat the stigma and silence surrounding these issues. He also discusses his upcoming book, that aims to shed light on these dark topics and share his experiences in the FBI. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Welcome back to the secret world of human trafficking. I'm your host, David J. Story, and I'm also the author of the Omega book series. I want to welcome our guest for this episode, Eric Robinson, a retired FBI agent with over 24 years of experience. He's going to share insights into the tactics used by traffickers and the efforts that law enforcement use to combat this crime. Here we are with retired FBI agent Eric Robinson. And I want to go ahead and have you tell us a little bit about yourself before we get into the uh all nitty-gritty.

SPEAKER_03 0:58

So I am three months retired from 24 years in the FBI, where I got to work just about every violation the Bureau had, started with uh drugs, gangs, public corruption, organized crime, crimes against children, which I think we'll talk about here, uh financial crimes, and national security and human intelligence. I spent 15 years of that time as a SWOT operator, along with being an investigator. Got to do just about all the training as an instructor that the FBI offers. So wonderful career, a lot of exciting times I had, great people I worked with, and probably the biggest unique factor about me is that prior to joining the FBI in 2002, I was a Baptist pastor and spent about 12 years in Christian ministry before I left that and got into law enforcement.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

What got you to leave that and go into law enforcement?

SPEAKER_03 1:58

I needed to find a job that had less stress, and so I joined the FBI.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Okay. I had considered uh years ago going into the ministry myself. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:12

It's great if if you can if you can deal with the things going on. I just wasn't able to.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Yeah. Yeah, I know there were there's a lot of drama in the church. Especially Baptist Church.

SPEAKER_03 2:26

That's that's where I was. That's where I was too. The difficulty is like when working in law enforcement, when criminals do criminal things, you go, okay, that's what they do. And in the church, when Christians do unchristian things, it's disappointing and it's frustrating and it created a lot of stress for me. So I I struggled for a long time, and finally my body wouldn't take it anymore, and I I moved on. Applied to the FBI on a whim, which I think pisses off some of my friends who like crafted their whole career and education to get into their dream job, and I thought, oh, that sounds cool. Let me try that. And uh surprisingly, the FBI said, uh, yeah, we'll take you on.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Right. Yeah. Uh yeah, I was an ordained uh deacon uh during my time uh there. And I remember one story that uh we had a uh a couple that wanted to join our church, and uh they were living together, they weren't married. So, you know, we came up to a devotee to accept them into the church and all like that, and this one lady stood up and said, We don't want to allow them to come into the church because they're sinners. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

Gotta keep those sinners out. Yeah, you you don't want sinners in the church.

SPEAKER_03 3:45

You don't want sinners in church, man.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

No, no, only only yeah, only the godly ones. Yeah. And uh it's like that's what we're here for.

SPEAKER_03 3:56

Well, and and that was how I had planted that church in Western New York. I I told our people, look, if we're gonna make uh if we're gonna make errors, we're gonna err on the side of grace. So if God wants to judge us, he's gonna judge us for being too accepting and forgiving. So if people come and you smell alcohol in their breath, or they've got weird piercings, or homosexual couples, or whatever it might be, like you got to be able to not flinch when they come in. And that was great. People were coming, they're their lives are being changed. But my my issue was those people were also coming with their own problems, and I couldn't separate myself from that. And so it just it built the stress over the years. So I just had to find something else. And the FBI ended up feeling like a much better fit for me, too, eventually.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

Yeah. Well good. Well, uh, tell us uh a little bit about the human trafficking aspect that you uh work in.

SPEAKER_03 4:59

Yeah, so in Toledo, Ohio, which is uh a satellite office for the Cleveland division, uh medium-sized office with about uh 15-20 agents. Uh I was working organized crime, and the head of the task force had moved on to headquarters for a couple of years, and I was asked to head that up. So we had another agent with me, a good friend named Laura. I just talked to her about this last night, and uh and then a number of task force officers on different sheriff's departments and uh police departments, a great detective named Pete, who had been working there for years. And at that time in the early 2000s, our mandate was to, I mean, we were we were looking for people who were trading in and producing child sexual abuse material, but the main mandate for that task force was to find trafficked, and for our case, it was girls uh who, you know, slightly older men, usually men in their mid-20s, were now taking these girls and trafficking them, pimping them out in the area. And the reason Toledo was doing such a tremendous job at this, was that in 2005 there was a sting at a truck stop in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. And in that sting, an inordinate number of pimps and underage prostitutes were picked up from the Toledo area. So because of that, now Toledo, even though it's a you know small city of maybe 250,000 people, set up this task force with a number of people working it to try to remedy this problem. So that's what uh we worked on to find these girls, get them away from the pimps, and bring charges against the pimps.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

So what tell us uh what it's like to work in a situation like that where you're you know trying to dealing with uh the pimps, the trafficking, and you know, the young children.

SPEAKER_03 7:09

What what's it what what's the emotional Well, I mean, honestly, the emotion was often frustration because these teenage girls were often runaways. They were ones who were coming from a bad home situation. So they had adults in their lives who were useless. Like they were either abusive, drug addicted, absent, and so these girls were runaways or fosters, and they were trying to escape their negative life. They were looking to just get out on their own, and in desperation, of course, they didn't have trade talents, they weren't getting a job at Taco Bell to support themselves, and so the one thing that they had was their bodies. So these girls were prostituting themselves, typically. Sometimes they were vulnerable and manipulated by the pimps, but typically they were out on their own ahead of time doing this poorly, and then 26-year-old man would see them and say, Hey, I can help you. Um, here's how you're going to advertise yourself. I'll give you transportation, I'll give you security, give you a place to live. The girls, you know, they're again, you're 15, 16. You can be street smart, but you're not that smart, and they would fall for this. The men, of course, were very practiced, knowing how to make their deliveries and and how to manipulate. So when we would arrest the pimps, they would very often fight the charges, either through trial or up to, because their mindset was I I didn't make them do this. Like they were already doing this, I I was just helping them. So they didn't understand that the difference between what you or I would do, if we encountered a teenage girl who was prostituting herself, we would help them rather than take advantage and uh make money off of them. So those were charges 15 years, 20 years, depending on the age of the girl. How widespread is uh is the problem with uh human trafficking, sex trafficking, you know, so I think it's well so I I yearly the FBI does um and and and there's gonna be task forces and they'll be of varying sizes. It could be one agent, it could be two, and then a large task force, but every division is going to be addressing this. And then every year there is Operation Cross Country where the FBI spends a week, each division on their own, depending on how they want to do it, of setting up stings or working with people to um kind of make the numbers. So it's it's a push to actually get things done, but also a push to get numbers to say, hey, here's girls that we've rescued. And that could be working through a guardian ad lightum who's going to be uh a rep a legal representative for underage people in court. It could be us working with um juvenile detention centers where they would be saying, hey, this girl when she left, when she came in, she had the newest iPhone and some jewelry, not something that you know girl in the street would have, or she was picked up by a man who seemed like he might be a pimp. And so we're working with them to identify these girls, and we're doing this throughout the week anyway, but now we're doing a big push that here's our our one time where we're gonna see what we can do to uh rescue some of these girls. And on the stings, you know, we set up hotel rooms, we might even get a semi that we can pretend that we're a truck driver who's making the calls in, and then we're trying to identify either girls that we believe to be underage that we're advertising or ones that look like they could be underage, try to bring them in so we can pull them away and then also arrest the pimps, too.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

What do you think the biggest misconception is about uh human trafficking?

SPEAKER_03 11:41

So uh starting with this, I mean the simplest misconception is that uh trafficking means you're being taken. You could be a 15-year-old girl and living at your friend's house and this pimp comes and then you you have sex with men in that same house, that's trafficking. You don't have to be moved, you don't have to be held you know under duress. Uh for human trafficking, at least federally, if you're an adult, there it needs to be uh proof of force, fraud, or coercion, which is much more difficult uh because the defense will always say, why didn't you just leave? But there can be manipulation through general threats, um uh manipulation through drug use. But otherwise, one of the misconceptions that happens often, and and we would see this in Toledo, people would start telling stories about girls getting uh kidnapped from bathrooms or being plied with hero, like getting jabbed with a heroin needle and then taken away when most of the trafficking situations that I came in contact with were uh done somewhat willfully, uh, not like Liam Neeson's kid being pulled out from under the bed, but more uh a person whose frontal lobe hasn't developed and is under extreme duress and hard circumstances being driven or pushed or assisted in that uh sexual activity. And if you just think about it too, I mean it's a I wouldn't recommend doing this, but it's a horrible thing. Like if you asked a woman or or a young young woman, what would it take for you to go have sex with strange men? Like men you don't know, usually quite disgusting, too. Like that's a barrier that is so hard for your average woman to cross. They they couldn't imagine that. But here are girls who are doing that, and so you knew either they had been abused themselves, and so in a sense, that barrier had been crossed, or you know, that part of their spirit had been crushed, or they're so desperate that that's all that they have, and as bad as it is, they have to cross that barrier.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

I know a lot of people imagine the uh this sexual pervert driving up to a little girl in a white van, sliding the door open and grabbing them and taking off. I mean, that that's really not the normal case. It's a lot of it is through friends, or they're being groomed uh through the through the internet. Uh what part of social media has played in uh in enticing uh girls and boys into the human trafficking?

SPEAKER_03 15:00

Well well, David, you you and I are you know close to similar ages, and so you know we were taught you know to be careful at the playground or the van that pulls up, and that's not even the case anymore because why would you do that? Like I have open access to children's homes through social media. It is, I mean, it runs the gamut that we in the past few years there's a uh nihilistic group, an anarchist group led by teenagers to prey on teenagers called 764. And these are ones that are.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

I did a uh a show on that too. I was gonna ask you about 764.

SPEAKER_03 15:48

Brother, that's the worst thing I've seen. It is it's horrific. So it's it's CSAM, child sexual abuse material, uh, in a stew with mutilations, with um historical pictures of the Holocaust, like just as dark as they can make it, but it's it's teens preying on teens, and those are popping up in forums meant for kids who are dealing with depression or divorced parents, like trying to find help. And so these other teens know, and they go there and work them, manipulate them, blackmail them. And then the reason that works so well is what we saw is very often then those victims turn around and and do it to others, and now they start to victimize so they can gain clout and a position in that group. Like this is these are these are depression forums. These are groups where people are looking to connect and find help. These are you know just Discord um channels where kids are looking to talk about video games or something, and and so without making it sound like nothing is safe, nothing is safe. It could be anywhere on these social media.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

When we grew up, it was the playground and that's it, the white band, but but now that the internet that just gives them an easier access to to your children. I mean, they're they're in your your home. They're not outside, you know, cruising around, they're in the the child's bedroom.

SPEAKER_03 17:32

Well, and David, I'll tell you so it makes sense that as parents, as grown-ups, we're going to be more concerned with that type of harm, but also there's a tremendous rise on social media and on these channels, not just for that, but also for the grooming towards uh radical ideology, too. So the uh white supremacists, what we saw as we were investigating them, are looking to like they they talk about violence, but the ones who try to stay away from violence, every group would emphasize hearts and minds. We're trying to win hearts and minds, and they know that that has to be in a younger generation, and I can't tell you how many times we would see, and it wouldn't be a subject, it would be somebody maybe we're looking at to see what they're up to. But I'd see this, you know, 20-year-old kid or 18-year-old kid, and I think, how how can you be so hateful when you haven't even been exposed to much? Like I get it, you know, it you know, you're a construction worker who's 60 years old and you've seen a lot in life, but they've been influenced even in this ideology at a young age, and now they adopt the same um the same terminologies and the same hate speech.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

Yeah, and uh read whereas some of the six uh six six four uh group members have uh been in tied to some shoot uh school shootings.

SPEAKER_03 19:16

Yeah, so they also so they will SWAT people. Um they do that, they do that also to um extort, so they'll threaten to SWAT someone or someone's family, and then they'll show how they've been successful in the past, and so they do that to extort a teen, to provide their own uh illicit photos or videos. They do that to get kids to carve you know their initials of the extorter into their skin, and the and the images are are horrible. So they'll use that, they get into bomb threats to schools, they try to entice the kids to harm uh family pets or elderly members of the family, you know, those who are vulnerable, push grandma down the steps type thing. And and the purpose is just to game clout or to bring nihilism to the world.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

Yeah, I mean, and as you said, I mean it it was started by a bunch of teenagers.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

They just I guess just g got bored during COVID and say, hey, let's you know let's explore that.

SPEAKER_03 20:42

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's the same as like, you know, in in our day, you'd go to a abandoned warehouse and throw rocks at windows and destroy property that way. Okay, that's not good, but it wasn't this. We we had a case on a uh I think he was was he 15, maybe 13. I mean, the the kid was like six foot three and three hundred pounds, but uh he was one of the leaders in 764, and this kid, we took his computers, we took his phones, you know. We woke him up at six in the morning with three guys with guns, you know, rifles pointed at his face, didn't stop him. He just gets another phone and he was right back in it. We had to go back and seize that phone. There was just there's just a problem with him, and mom and dad were broken up, so mom had him for a while, she says, I can't take him. Dad takes him for a while, that's when we arrested him, and then dad's like, I I can't have him. So mom had taken him back. What can you do in a situation like that? I had one father call me once because we had been looking at his daughter as someone trying to determine if she was a victim or offender, and he called me. Outside of that, after we had an interview, and he goes, Hey, can you give me some advice, man? I don't know what to do. You know, she's out of control. And so a lot of times there's this internet issue, but it's also there's problems like actual physical issues at home. And he's like, I I I I don't want to call the police on her, but I feel like I have to because she's gonna be a physical threat to my wife, and it's a lot for a parent to have to go through.

SPEAKER_02 22:33

What's the the youngest child that you've uh encountered that's been been in the situation?

SPEAKER_03 22:41

Well, so at this point, uh a buddy of mine named Alex had taken over the um violent crimes against children task force, and there's not that focus anymore on uh going out and finding teen prostitutes, uh more of the trading of CSAM, but also now the working of undercovers. So like the trope of being, you know, a 12-year-old girl online is actually a a bearded FBI agent who's like six foot six. Um but but what one thing they do is work on these groups where parents offer their children to other men to come and assault them. And so I've been on a number of those arrests where you know we're trying to set it up in a place, hotel, or somewhere out of the way of the public where they don't have to be downrange with guns, but these are men showing up believing that they are going to be engaging with a two-year-old. Wow. I mean and and and you see, and so you see that you see you see the vehicle come in the parking lot, and like and and you know what's going on in his head. He's like, I don't know, I don't know, is this real? Is these cops? And then they kind of circle, and you know, we'll have one guy follow loosely, you know, does he come back? And then the guy come back, and like their adrenaline is so high because this is either the end of their life or they get to do something that for them is you know a dark dream. Um so those guys show up and they've got all the tools ready for what they're going to do. So it's uh yeah, I mean, those weren't actual victims, but those were what the men were showing up thinking they're getting.

SPEAKER_02 24:54

I can't imagine.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

You know, I have children my my own and grandkids. I I could not imagine putting them up for sale or for uh whatever where I can get drugs or whatever. I mean, it it's something you're you're supposed to love your children and protect them and put them purposely in harm's way is I I can't comprehend that.

SPEAKER_03 25:22

It's yeah, there's always gonna be something somewhere on the internet where these things are you know, specialty groups where you know you have to be invited in or you have to trade CSAM to be accepted as bona fides. And you know, these are the ones that we infiltrate, and you know, it's to me it's always like everybody everybody in their vehicles or around corners ready, you know, they're holding their breath, wondering, is this guy gonna show? Hoping we can take somebody who's this bad off of the street. Yeah. But uh it it's always remarkable to me when they show up, and I just think uh this is unbelievable that that's real.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

I imagine it uh takes an emotional toll on you and the others.

SPEAKER_03 26:17

It it does to a degree. Uh so part of it is if you grab someone off the street and put them in the middle of this, that's gonna be shocking. We've been waiting in that water for a bit, and so you get a little more it so it's not as shocking. Um we've been getting accustomed to what this guy is doing and and what other some things are. But also we we follow up with each other of talking about it. I mean, there's going to be dark humor, which again, if the public heard some of the things that agents joke about who are doing these things, they'd be appalled. But you say, hey, that's that's a way to deal with it. Like the some of the stuff you look at, it's it's so bad that you have to have some outlet. And some of that too is just telling stories about, yeah, this is what went on, and now we're speaking things out loud. And speaking them out loud, I think, helps just to identify in reality as opposed to like only only perseverating and and dealing with it within. And now you've got somebody who can identify with it too. Like, yeah, we went through this together.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

Yeah. Yeah, I sort of uh joked around a little bit in my books, you know, within the group and all like that that I was writing about. And I had a lady who uh gave me sort of a negative review on that because you know, it's a serious subject and all like that, and you shouldn't be joking around. But yeah, I realized, you know, being in the profession I'm in, that you gotta talk about it, and if you don't, you can't you can't keep it in. And you you do it's dark humor. And it's a way of dealing with it, or you go crazy.

SPEAKER_03 28:05

I mean, yeah you'll get burned out and and there's a there's a balance between I I can't let it affect me the way it would affect normal humans because yeah, then I just you know you start crying every day you go to work, and you can't do that, but you also can't harden yourself so much that nothing affects you, and now you're useless to your family because you know I'm a stone. So somewhere in there where there has to be some self-reflection of this is actually what I'm seeing and going through. I'm talking about it with others, and I realize that there are people like this out there, and we're doing our part. It's not everyone, it's this guy, and let's move on to another guy, too.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

Yeah. I was I was at a book signing a couple weeks ago, and this lady came up and asked me what my books were about. And I told her human trafficking, and she just threw up her hand, she said, I don't want to talk about it, I don't want to hear hear anything about it. And it's like, well, that's the problem. No one wants to talk about it, and as long as it's kept in the dark, it's going to continue to grow. And that's one thing I did try to do with my books and this podcast is is bring it to light.

SPEAKER_03 29:19

Well, I tell you that that response signals to me that that's probably touched close to her, whether for her or someone she knows that is something that she hasn't dealt with probably.

SPEAKER_00 29:31

Probably so. I I don't know, but it's it sort of shocked me. And I just let her, you know, she just turned around and walked off, and it's like I said, you know, well, that's one of the problems that uh that's out there that no one wants to talk about it. And it is a you know a real sensitive subject. And it I I spent uh, you know, when I was doing my research on my books and and even uh for information on this podcast, I had sleepless nights and I cried several times and couldn't you know about just the stuff that I discovered and the research and all like that. I just I could not believe what was going on out there. And uh being in Atlanta, I found out that Atlanta is a major hub for trafficking. Yeah. And that the United States is growing to be the number one capital uh in the world for for trafficking, uh, which is something you don't want to be the best at or the top at. What about the uh the dark web? How does that play into the trafficking?

SPEAKER_03 30:42

So I don't have much experience with the dark web other than interacting with some of my colleagues who have worked those cases. And and those are places where and the dark web is one thing, you get on the onion router, and then there's also um specialty groups that we have had some cases, and those are often um more in trading CSAM, where guys will have to be vetted by offering it first before they can get in. Um I had a uh colleague who moved on to headquarters and was one of the major um investigators into Operation Playpen, which was a vast network of trading in CSAM. So that's much of where that takes place. But then again, there's also the specialty groups where these are um men seeking other men or sometimes women willing to offer their children. And it's it's it's just like the trading of CSAM. If I offer my kid, then maybe I'll get an opportunity to be with someone else's child.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

Explain to those who really don't know what uh CSAM is.

SPEAKER_03 32:04

So that could be it that's child sexual abuse material, and it has very I I hate to give grades, but I'm just gonna speak honestly that it could be it could be anything from um preteen or teen nudity down to very graphic images of infants, and there's there's different um definitions as their kids get older of what's going to be decided on to be CSAM. So I've had cases where you know we've got photos and the prosecutors looking at it and saying, uh, you know, it doesn't, we don't have this, we don't have that. There are cases where you can look at and you go, that's a child. There's no question. And if there's a place where someone is questioning or if there's going to be a defense that we can't prove that that's a child, and then we'll we'll send those photos to NICMIC, which is the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and they have a large database where they can run photos against others and see is this a known and identified victim that has been shared. And so if this is a known victim and here's a same picture or a similar picture, now we can say that is definitely a child and can use that uh in prosecution too.

SPEAKER_00 33:37

Yeah, I've been looking into the you know AI generators and all of that. And you can just take a picture of some random person out there and take their their head shot and place it on somebody else's body. And you know, it could be a nude body of somebody else or a computer generated nude body, and take a picture of some child that's at a playground or at six lags or whatever, and then put place that head on that body. You know, that's you know, beyond six, but it you know what can a parent do to protect against that? Is there anything you can do to protect it?

SPEAKER_03 34:24

Probably not fully. I mean, I would say locking down uh a child's social media to only and this should be the case anyway, aside from AI generated movies, but locking it down to friends only and occasionally talking to your kids about, hey, can we go through your friends list and can you identify everybody for me here? No, you've got 104 friends. Can you go through and say, I know this is this person? I mean, that's going to definitely minimize and mitigate those issues if there are fewer images of children. Because at that point, um someone who's going to do that and manipulate video is going to more likely just try to find someone else who's uh available out there. But then we'll also find that many on occasions we've had uh offenders are looking to offend against people they know. We had a case against a uh ended up being a an adjunct uh professor in a local university who was sexually extorting women, but they were women from his hometown, and you know taking over computers, stealing images, extorting them to provide more, moving on to another woman, doing the same under this account. So he was not just out seeking gratification in anyone, he was seeking gratification from girls who had grown up in his high school and now had spread out, and that is something that can be seen too. Where, well, I want to have an image of my neighbor kid, or and and that's a matter of being aware of like who's around you and are they showing too much of an interest in your child.

SPEAKER_00 36:23

Yeah. Or, you know, they could even take a picture that you posted on Facebook or whatever about your vacation at Disney World, and they can take that picture of your child. The headshot of your child or whatever, and and use that so they don't even have to be in physical presence with your child. It could be a photo off of social media that you've posted. So it's you know the bad guys are getting uh smarter and they're getting more and more tools just more tools in their lap that they they can they can use. Yeah, absolutely. And and this AI stuff is it's it's sort of blown me away, you know, the just the simple stuff I've looked at doing and and looked into, it's like, man, you know, if you get really got into this AI stuff, you could really do a lot. A lot of damage.

SPEAKER_03 37:26

Yeah, where you and I grew up, I mean didn't even grow up, but like later in our lives, had DOS-based computers with dot matrix uh printers with perforated edges on the on the printer. So it it has changed a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 37:40

It it has changed, and I can't cannot imagine what it's gonna be like in another 10 or 15 years. Or even two two years. I mean, it's it's growing so fast now. And it's it's it's hard to believe what what just the growth in computer technology in in our lifetime. And I remember before there was even computers and cell phones and and things like that. Now, you know, kids four or five years old have a cell phone.

SPEAKER_03 38:14

Well, so we had a case years back where it was on uh a sex offender who had been in prison for having um child pornography, but he had it back when you had to know of a of a address to request coming from the mail. Like he got busted in the old school, like VHS video type days, magazines. So he's in prison, he gets out, he gets out, and a younger guy goes, Oh, look, you just have to type things on this box and it'll come up immediately. He's like, Oh my gosh, you can have access to it anytime. He got busted pretty quickly after that. But you know, it was back in the day, illicit material was through word of mouth and sending $50 to some P.O. box and then getting a brown package in the past, and that's how this guy got it. And and beyond even you talk about the computer's abilities, we used to find you like it used to be that you know, we you could find thumb drives and such. There are now nanobytes of of movies and pictures that people are like I remember when we got into gigabytes and then terabytes, and and so there's so much that can be stored on top of that, too.

SPEAKER_00 39:37

Well, yeah, I think my first computer had 256k of memory. And uh I figured out a way to to bump it up to a a gig or no one uh one meg. And I told my wife at the time, I said I'll never need another computer again. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:56

And and you had a three and a half by five actual floppy disk.

SPEAKER_00 40:01

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:02

Yeah. Monochrome. Monitor and dial up, AOL dial up.

SPEAKER_03 40:12

Well, what are some of the uh grooming tactics that uh some of these uh people use to entice so I had a case years ago where a 13-year-old boy was assaulted by a man in a town about an hour and a half away, and the parents had found out about this by seeing messages on the child's um iPad through a separate app called KIC. So messaging app. And this was often one that pedophiles that sex offenders would try to direct people to. So the the again, continuing with the internet, it's it's people starting with just a simple interaction, finding out you know, uh about the child, about the victim, and then trying to direct them to a different manner of contact or platform. So, I mean, that's one thing. If anyone ever says, hey, jump to here, message me on this, go to Snapchat, that's that's gonna be a signal. They're trying to get them to somewhere else. And then, and then it's it's just like the scammers kind of fishing online, like they're throwing things out to see how kids are going to respond. And the case with this 13-year-old boy, he he, when it was first reported to me, and the parents came in, he was, I remember thinking, remarkably unfazed by it. He you just told it matter-of-fact, and he was fine, and he was laughing and joking. And this wasn't a kid to me who had been sexually assaulted. Like that that was odd. And it wasn't until later when we started building the case, and then the kid was more and more separated from the man, I think he was 27, that then the anger and resentment came in. So the kid got caught in this mesmerizing situation where this was a man who treated him well, took him to amusement parks, you know, they went, they did fun stuff. Like it wasn't just he was trying to build a relationship, they did things that the kid enjoyed, and also he was assaulted. And and so it didn't like for the boy, I don't think it registered to him what actually this was about. And then as we were getting ready for uh charging, now the boy had anger, and now the boy was starting to process the trauma. So whatever that grooming is, it is it it's making the child, the victim, not see this as harmful, but as a normal thing, somehow creating an atmosphere where I am not assaulting you, I am showing you affection, attention, and and we're sharing this together.

SPEAKER_02 43:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:26

Yeah, whatever I guess weakness they can discover that child has, they'll prey on it and and build on that. Yeah, whether it's loneliness or not having this particular game or whatever, they'll they'll fill that void and to to build a relationship.

SPEAKER_03 43:47

Well, in this case, the the young boy was gay, and parents knew that and they were fine, but I have to imagine that part of that was acceptance of if you're a 13 year old boy and and he honestly Look like he was 10, um, and you know, you're effeminate and you're gay, you're no matter what group you're with, you're not accepted by everyone. And so here's a man who is showing him acceptance, and it overall it is making it's finding that weakness, like you said, but also no no child is on the internet. Well, I don't say no child, but the victims typically are not on the internet saying, I'm looking for a sexual encounter with an adult man. There and so you and so the criminals are not, they know this and they can't present it to the child from Go as would you like to have a sexual encounter with a man? They they have to make it easing into that water so it's not so much of a shock, and so that process is gonna be slow, and if they can be patient with it, they know they believe there's gonna be a payoff.

SPEAKER_02 45:04

What uh getting back to you know the parents and monitoring you know what the child does.

SPEAKER_00 45:18

I know a lot of parents say, you know, they don't you know the kids have the rights and everything like that. They don't want to infringe on their personal space and all like that. You know, that can be good, but it can also be harmful too. I mean, where where does a parent draw the line as far as you know the child's rights?

SPEAKER_03 45:40

So this is where I would just give my my personal advice more from what I've seen, a little bit from the FBI experience, but and that is at an early age, the intrusiveness of the parent needs to be um normalized so that it's not intrusive, that it's a normal function that you share with me as a child who you're out with. You know, hey, you you stayed late after school, who are you hanging out with? And and it's not and so it's it's it's not violating their privacy, it's just a normal sharing. And so when your child then gets a phone or a tablet at age 10, 11, 12, 13, 40, whatever it is, it's normalized to say, look, here you know, here's a tablet. Uh because you're getting introduced to this, I I want to restrict some of the sites you're going to get on. And there's a and talking about it. So I say all that because for me, when my kids got phones and they started watching TikTok, it wasn't the kind of stuff we're discussing. For uh for my wife and I was more of the volume of time spent, and we had allowed that for too long. And so now when you have somebody who's used to just doing this, and you say, hey, maybe you can put that away and only get it out this time, now that is a significant withdrawal. So if there's an easing into it and a normalization of this is what we do, parent to child, you're sharing with me who you talk to, where you're going, what sites you're on, and that's not intrusive. It's just part of our interaction as parent to child. If you try to get that going at at 16, that's gonna be harder.

SPEAKER_00 47:37

Yeah, you gotta start at an early age, or they're just gonna be rebel about it, rebellious about it. Going back to the 764 group. I mean, you that's something that the parents have to be aware of because it that group is out there preying on your children right now. And on top of all the other, you know, perverts out there and predators out there, you got kids out there preying on on your kids. And uh it's it's hard now uh even distinguishing what a 15-year-old is or 18-year-old is. I mean uh the girls and boys are are more mature than they mature looking than they were when I was in high school. And you know, I I'm sure that probably plays a big role in it. I mean, I'm sure you when you bust somebody on one of these things, uh they're gonna say they always say, Well, I thought they were 16 or 18 or or whatever. And but you know, in truth, they were hoping they were, you know, 14 or 13 on all.

SPEAKER_02 48:57

Because you know, so you know, 14 year olds look like they're 18 or 19.

SPEAKER_03 49:05

Yeah, when we we get them charged by the time we we lock them up, it's been very clear with from our undercover saying, Oh, is it okay that I'm only 12? Is it okay I'm only thirteen? Definitely making sure that there's an intent very clear there for them.

SPEAKER_00 49:21

Yeah, that's that's good that y'all do that. So there's no question that uh the person is meeting knowing that they are meeting a underage child.

SPEAKER_03 49:34

And part of that too is nobody wants to bust a guy who you know is just you know kind of pervy by trying to date someone ten years younger than him who's 18, 19. Like, okay, I don't like that myself, but we're we're looking for those who are trying to to harm people, not just those who are a little bit kinky. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:01

There's enough of those out there to that you don't have to worry about the 30 years ago five-year-old.

SPEAKER_03 50:08

Well, uh look, I I'll tell you, like my my buddy Alex had, I remember one guy we arrested. He was you know trying to work on some guys and see who would feed, and he goes, Like, this guy is driving me crazy. He was a former sex offender, and Alex was putting him off, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the guy was so persistent of wanting to get with this 12-year-old girl, he's like, he's asking me to arrest him. Like, we have to now go get him. And you could go, like the FBI could do an arrest every single day on a sexual offender, except for the time that it takes, the preparation of evidence, going to trial, operations, like you could do it every day. So they're going after the ones that are are as bad as they can be, as opposed to just looking for some, you know, college kid who is looking for a high school girl or something.

SPEAKER_01 51:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:06

I mean, uh law enforcement is way understaffed to deal with this.

SPEAKER_00 51:13

And and there's all kinds of crime out there, and you know trafficking is just one aspect out there that uh law enforcement like you and your colleagues are having to deal with. And you can only do so much. Like you said, you know it's not all of them are just you know going and arresting somebody and boom, it's over with. You you have the the prep and the follow-up and the the trial. So it's yeah. If it was just a matter of seeing somebody commit the crime, go and arrest them, and boom, go to the next one. But there's a lot more more to it.

SPEAKER_03 51:53

Yeah, it's not just Chris Hansen of like getting online, bring them in, and then bust them. I mean, there the evidence review, the downloading of computers, the phones, identifying interviews, and now you're following up because we need to see if there are uh like so there's CSAM on his phone, he already traded it, but has he offended in real time? Um, we're interviewing nieces and and daughters, you know, sons to see was he alone? And he like there it's not just that because that's easy. Bring them in, put handcuffs on, but you're not doing your job the way you need to if you're not saying who's a victim, who's a real life victim that might have been in the house, and how are we going to start bringing them care too?

SPEAKER_00 52:42

And I'm sure it's frustrating to you know have a case that you that you've worked on and have something go wrong and they get off on a technicality, or some uh sharp lawyer finds a little loophole and they end up getting a slap on the wrist. We don't get those too much.

SPEAKER_03 53:05

Uh FBI usually does pretty well. Those occasions do pop up, but for the most part, like we have typically done very well of saying this is sealed. Um the the you know, defense attorney comes and he's like, Look, we're looking to make a deal. What can he do? That's it. This like here's the images. I have no desire for my guy to try to testify about those.

SPEAKER_02 53:32

Yeah. Well, that's good. I mean, uh But you know, I guess the ones who do get off, it it really hurts.

SPEAKER_00 53:44

I know if I was in law enforcement and I worked on a case and and I messed up by not, you know, dotting an I or crossing the T properly, and and the guy walks, you know, that would bother me a lot. But I'm I'm sure y'all have uh double checks and triple checks on things. Yeah, I mean that often, but that happens, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 54:07

Yeah, definitely on other types of cases. I've had ones go criminals that I know should be charged. I know they broke the law, but prosecutors are gonna decline. Hey, we're just gonna we're gonna indict these five instead of seven or eight. And I get it. They they've got limited time. They can't afford to go to trial on guys, even if they would agree to me, man to man. Yeah, that guy broke the law.

SPEAKER_02 54:29

Yeah. Unfortunately, that's the way life is.

SPEAKER_00 54:35

Tell me one other thing. I understand you wrote a book.

SPEAKER_03 54:38

I wrote a book about uh these and other crazy stories, and my book will be published in the fall. It's with the FBI right now that they're reviewing to make sure I'm not sharing state secrets, which I didn't. Uh and the book is entitled Irreverent from Saving Souls to Chasing Sinners in the FBI. And I tell about how a guy who was a Baptist minister and never handled a firearm before happened to get in the FBI and some of the remarkable cases that I got to initiate or assist in along the way, telling stories about working with informants, being on the SWAT team, and working a couple cases that were honored by an attorney general's award. So I got to do quite a few things, and I never lost the fascination uh despite some days of tedium and and frustration, of like this is remote, this is amazing that I get to be in the FBI, I get to be part of this storied organization, and many of the things that I got to do really blew me away, especially in retrospect.

SPEAKER_02 55:46

That wow, we did that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:51

Well, before you got in FBI, you were saving souls. Now you're saving bodies.

SPEAKER_03 55:56

Yeah, yeah. So if people want to follow along and see when the book comes out, they can go to my website, which is preacher to breacher.com. Because I used to preach and then later I busted down your door.

SPEAKER_00 56:13

I'll make sure to put that on and let everybody know and you know keep us posted and let us know when it comes out, and I'll try to get the word out.

SPEAKER_03 56:22

Absolutely. I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_00 56:25

You have anything else to add that uh you want to say before we go?

SPEAKER_03 56:29

Uh I I I appreciate your time. I uh thanks for getting to share such an important message so that parents can understand, not not that they're going to worry so much and be frozen in their lives, but just to have a healthy awareness that there are people praying. I know parents are aware of this, but start, especially if your kids are young, of just having that conversation and normalizing acceptance and a support so that you can have that um you can have that review of the kids' devices and and discussions without it feeling like you're that hovering parent.

SPEAKER_00 57:13

All right. Well, thanks again. Uh I'm sure that uh you've you know gave us a lot of food for thought and a lot of information, and that's what uh the podcast is all about getting information out there, sharing uh people's experience, and hopefully it will you know save some child uh from uh falling into hands of some pervert. I hope so. Thanks again, and uh thanks for everything you've done and and service to your community and the country. And thank you. Appreciate it, David. That's it for our show for today. Thank you for joining in. I hope you were able to learn something today that may help you understand what is going on around you, allowing you to be aware of the dangers to yourself and perhaps a loved one, and maybe inspire you to get involved in the fight to stop human trafficking. Please follow me on Facebook, subscribe to my podcast, email me at David Jstory dot com with your questions or comments. Music by Tunerel dot com and please remember, always watch your six and others too.