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| Foreshadowing cab ride in Armenia, Colombia. Photo By Dallas Hyland. Used with Permission |
Written by Dallas Hyland
I am a 47 year old man. I have a wife and four children. By all accounts, I am an average American living an average life. The thought that I would be arrested for sex trafficking in Colombia never occurred to me, until it was happening. With my arms cranked behind my back, handcuffs on, and an officer’s knee in my spine, I began to recall and reflect upon the decisions that brought me to this point. What the hell was I thinking?
Armed CTI agents stormed our villa and camouflaged militia appeared out of the trees, just like in a movie, and even though I knew the signal and knew it was coming, it still scared the shit out of me. As one officer lifted me off the ground and helped me to my feet I wondered, will they still throw me into jail? Would I be able to convince anyone I was an undercover reporter from America if a corrupt Colombian government put me away for child trafficking?
My forehead hit the plaster as I had miscalculated how far away from the wall I was when I decided to lean against it, unable to use my hands to break my fall. My head was swimming. Would the man I watched broker the sale of 37 children not two nights prior go down? Would I go down with him – one of the shadowy Americans who make up the numbers ranking the United States of America as the number one consumer of sex tourism in the world? Could I trust the men I had put my life in the hands of, that this sting would go as planned? Would my wife come for me if I didn’t come home?
I really wasn’t sure of the answers to those questions until I landed at McCarran Airport in Las Vegas 24 hours later, but my relief began when I was still on the floor being handcuffed. A CTI officer who was obviously trying not to put too much weight on the knee he had in my back, like perhaps he might if had he really been arresting me, was having trouble clasping the second cuff as my arms are large and do not go easily behind my back. He whispered in my ear, “Sorry amigo, sorry.”
It was the first of many sighs of relief I would breathe in the hours to come as the Colombian government escorted me and the team I was with to an airport, secured a perimeter for us, and stood watch over us for more than 12 hours until we were wheels up and bound for Panama.
It is said that preparation, when met with opportunity, produces the offspring some call luck. There were some who asked me how I got lucky enough to land such an assignment. The fact is, luck had nothing to do with it. It was a combination of having a needed skill set and some guts I think. Or perhaps it was ambitious naivety. Either way, when a friend and colleague of mine, who works for a film production company making a documentary about human trafficking as an integral part of these missions with the non-profit organization Operation Underground Railroad (OUR), asked me if I wanted to join them on a “jump” as a cameraman, adding the caveat that I could report a story on it as well, the answer was obvious.
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| Undercover reporter Dallas Hyland arrested in sting operation to protect his identity. Photo by Dallas Hyland. Used with permission. |
I would soon be bound for San Diego to expedite a passport, check in with friends and sponsors in Ventura, surf a few waves, and within a week, be bound for Bogota with very little information as of yet, precisely, what I was getting myself into. I was in for a paradigm shift of life changing proportions.
I had only been in country for only a few hours when I was introduced to the team and the leader, Matt. We were staying in Armenia and joined Matt and his associate at a rented villa that would be used to stage the phony sex party and subsequent sting operation. I was made aware while traveling that two other similar stings were in the works and likewise months in the planning to all go down on Saturday afternoon in Armenia, Medellin, and Cartagena.
Matt was former CIA of some 12 years and a recent full time operator for OUR. He was a cool head who managed assets well, negotiated effectively, and mitigated risks with precision. When he asked me if I would consider posing as a bodyguard for him and his associates, wearing hidden cameras, and accompany them into the city to meet with the sex trafficker to close the deal for Saturday’s party, I again, naively, said yes. It wasn’t until I got arrested that the decision to do this and the profound amount of trust I was putting in these men, was apparent.
I was deputized by the Colombian government to act in the capacity of an undercover agent and before I knew it, I was wired up and headed to the meeting.
Everyone can likely relate to what it is like to be surprised at the appearance of someone upon meeting them for the first time having only previously heard of them. I really did not know what I expected a child sex trafficker to look like, but when Martine showed up alone to talk with us, I was surprised. He was a young, somewhat trendy looking national, with odd facial features that resembled that of Moe from the Simpsons. But make no mistake, I’m certain that if he knew our meeting with him was the precursor to possibly spending decades in prison, he would have killed us, or had us killed. At this meeting, we were virtually sitting ducks if anything went wrong, as we did not have CTI agents with us. And not being the first such mission in Colombia, it was sketchy as hell.
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| 14 million Pesos for exchange of sex with trafficked minors and women. Photo by Dallas Hyland. Used with permission. |
Martine negotiated and brokered the sale of 37 minor children, six boys, and thirty-one girls, like he was selling steak knives. He unabashedly showed us photos of the children he was selling us in the nude and sometimes in sexual acts that appeared to be “selfies” of him assaulting them.
It is one thing to think that there is evil in the world. It is quite something else to sit down face to face with it and be certain of it.
The details of the next few days have been well covered in national and local media. I am quite possibly ethically compromised to actually report on this as I crossed a line when I became an operative in the mission; a job mind you, that I carried out until the actual bust went down. It was likely an opportunity not many investigative journalists get, to be all the way out on the tip of the spear like that, but the vantage it gave me is a story not to be withheld. Rules were made be broken.
What I know is this: on that day 123 victims were rescued across three cities and 15 sex traffickers and child pornographers were arrested and face serious jail time.
The footage both from hidden cameras and phones insured not only compelling visuals for the upcoming documentary film, but iron clad evidence of crimes committed with forethought and malice of intent that would be damning as hell and nearly impossible to refute.
As Martine escorted young girls off his rented bus to deliver them to a fate of hours of forced sex with eager American sex tourists, what surprised me was how nonchalant he was about all of the recording by way of camera phones the actors were using.
“Want to take pictures of the child you are going to rape? Right on, I’ll pose with her.”
Martine even went as far as to instruct the girls in front of the entire group, that they were there to have sex with anyone who wanted it, however they wanted it. All the while being recorded by cell phones he could see, and hidden cameras he could not.
The look of abject surprise on his face when agents stormed the door and took him down was priceless. The man did not even think he was doing anything wrong.
Human trafficking and slavery boast victims in the numbers of roughly 23 million worldwide; 2 million of which are children. To put that in some perspective, at the height of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, that number was around 14 million. Those numbers reveal that we are not progressing as a society, we are digressing. As Matt said to me while in Colombia, slavery did not end with Lincoln. Not by a damn shot.
It is a supply and demand business though. And that raises some serious ethical, moral, and socio-economic questions. One can understand the supply side in as much as it is a business for profit. One can understand the platitude of reasons one becomes a victim. One is vexed to get there head around the demand side and what fuels it.
The fact is, Americans are the number one consumer of sex trafficking in the world.
So while some Americans are up in arms about the recent influx of refugee children trying to enter our country from points south, I have been introduced by way of severe shock therapy to a blinding hypocrisy and dilemma.
What would possess a person to put a child on a boat bound for a country where they may never see them again? What would scare a child enough to leave home and family for a foreign land? Is it perhaps the prospect that all of the risks involved do not compare to the horrors of raising your child or living in a kidnapping mecca of the world where monsters like Martine operate with near impunity? Evidence was later discovered that Martine had been in the business of human trafficking and the production of child pornography for over eight years before he got arrested.
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| The consequence of action. Perpetrator and his girlfriend accomplice. Photo by Dallas Hyland. Used with permission. |
What if those same parents knew they were sending their children into the lion’s den? That the very civil society and land of opportunity they sought to find asylum was a driving force behind the state their own country was in? The hypocrisy of the U.S.’s border policy being so glaringly evident, one can only conclude that a consciousness of guilt factored in to it.
Americans are great at making a mess. They are lousy at cleaning it up, let alone taking responsibility for it.
While I am not in the business of advocacy, I cannot help but be compelled to lend my public voice and my reputation as a journalist to the individuals who comprised the teams who conducted these very dangerous missions and intend to conduct more.
It has been reported that the three sting operations conducted that day comprised the largest single human trafficking bust in history. But will these isolated acts of supposed heroism make a difference? Though noteworthy, 123 saved out of 23 million is hardly a dent. And the next logical question is this: will organized criminals, engaged in human trafficking and child pornography, a multi-billion dollar enterprise, seek retribution?
I have in the past been an imbedded reporter with American law enforcement on drug raids. It is my understanding that to the drug cartels, these busts are part of doing business, and it is generally an accepted loss, but repeated busts are not. Did we do a good thing or did we make it worse? If the adage that all that is needed for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing, then perhaps good people doing something needs to include more than a small non-profit organization and a film crew. Knowing that drug cartels also run human trafficking rings, and knowing their proclivity for violence, I cannot help fearing for the safety of the people doing these missions as well as the families of the victims. There has to be more good people fighting against this than those who seek to promote it or indulge in it.
I was told I could not photograph the children in the interest of their protection. And while I understand that, it did raise in my mind the question that by not showing their faces, am I not conveniently insulating the general public from a menacing reality? Does not the power of a photograph of a child recently liberated from bondage and a life of repeated rape until they are discarded for an un-profitable commodity or dead, need to be shown to the public to shock them into the realization that this is not just a problem, but a god damned epidemic incumbent upon humanity to vanquish without delay? How long can we let this scourge continue to exist behind closed doors and in the dark shadows of society because we don’t want to know it exists?
I want to believe that I was a part of something that made a difference, but seeing what I saw, and knowing what I now know, I am cynical. I am not without hope, for a dent is better than nothing at all, but I am still haunted by the things I have seen and cannot now un-see.
See you out there.
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| Undercover photojournalist Dallas Hyland poses with armed escort in Armenia, Colombia. Photo by Dallas Hyland. Used with permission. Dallas Hyland is a freelance writer, award-winning photographer, and documentary filmmaker with three films currently under his belt. The opinion editor of The Independent, Hyland’s investigative journalism and opinion columns have ranged in topics from local political and environmental issues, to drug trafficking in Utah, as well as the international front, covering issues such as human trafficking in Colombia. On his rare off-days, he can be found with his family and friends exploring the pristine outdoors. Listen to him live as a regular guest co-host on the Perspectives talk show on Fox News 1450 AM 93.1 FM in southern Utah. |
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