How Criminals Think: Human Trafficking Part 3

The above are five people arrested for trafficking a missing 16-year-old girl and an unnamed 17-year-old in Delaware. They range in ages from 18 to the mid 30s. Here’s some information about their case:

DOVER, Del. – The Delaware State Police, with the assistance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Delaware Department of Justice, arrested five people in connection with a human trafficking case.

This investigation began on May 8, when the foster parent of a child who had been reported missing contacted police. According to State Police, the foster parent told troopers the 16-year-old girl may be prostituting via the website www.backpage.com.  Detectives located a listing on the webpage that displayed photographs appearing to be the missing teen and were able to confirm her identity through the foster parent.  Investigators conducted a search of law enforcement records for the phone number listed and were able to link it to 18-year-old Jason Haith of Dover and his girlfriend, 34-year-old Jessica A. Hutkin of Smyrna.

Investigators called the phone number listed and arranged a meeting for sexual favors in exchange for compensation at a south Dover motel. Police say on May 19, the 16-year-old victim was seen getting out of a car in the parking lot of the motel. After the teen exited the vehicle, the car took off  and troopers conducted a traffic stop on the car.  The driver, Jason Haith, and two passengers, Jessica Hutkin and Austin White, 19 of Smyrna, were taken into custody without incident.  A computer inquiry revealed the care was reported stolen out of Philadelphia on April 6, 2017.

Further investigation revealed that Haith, Hutkin, and White, along with 32-year-old Donnell Singletary and 34-year-old Taliesha Haith, allowed each other to utilize their cell phones to make calls, send text messages, and/or connect to the internet to arrange prostitution activities for the 16-year-old victim and another 17-year-old victim. Police say Information also suggested that the prostitution activities were coordinated out of the Haith residence located one East Lebanon Road.

Jason Haith and Jessica Hutkin were both charged with human trafficking – sexual servitude, promoting prostitution 2nd, receiving stolen property, and conspiracy 2nd.  They were arraigned at JP7 and remanded to the custody of the Delaware Department of Correction on $34,000 secured bond.

Taliesha Haith, Donnell Singletary, and Austin White were all charged with human trafficking – sexual servitude, promoting prostitution 2nd, and conspiracy 2nd.  They were all arraigned at JP7 and remanded to the custody of the Delaware Department of Correction on $32,000 secured bond.

I’m starting with this because people have preconceived notions about how human trafficking operations work and more importantly who is involved in them. I wanted to show you that traffickers can’t be so easily spotted. On the other hand there are, in my experience, four distinct kinds of trafficking groups and as our economy worsens and crime increases knowing if there are any in your area is information important to your safety and survival.

This is a list I developed over a near decade of covering crime, and prior to that working with at risk children. So feel free to disagree. Here are the four I see:

1. Abusive relatives or guardians. Often these are drug users who are commoditizing children they have access to, though sometimes it’s not money or drugs they’re selling the kids for. There are cases I covered where pedophiles traded access to children they were in charge of for access to other kids. But for the most part what you see are parents – usually mothers – who are addicted to some form of hard drug and will sell their children for fixes. There are outliers however – I once covered a story of a woman who sold her five year old daughter for beer and cigarettes and another story of a teen girl who sold her seven year old sister at a house party to at least seven men for no real reason. In those cases abuse was the main goal of the trafficking. Spotting these sorts of traffickers can be tricky but drug abuse and other forms of abuse and neglect of a child are good indicators.

2. Pimps. The above gang is there to show that pimps aren’t just skinny Black guys in flamboyant suits – in fact that image is false. Pimps work in crews that are usually one or two steps below actual gangs. They will reflect the area they’re in – if you live in a rural mostly White area the pimps will be White rural people. Pimps use violence and coercion to force women and children to make money via selling sex or porn. The coercion can be subtle “grooming” or can be actual abuse. Because the job of a pimp is to terrorize and manipulate people into prostitution they’re easy to spot when you know what to look for. They will have a history of low level criminality including minor assaults. They are often what you’d consider an unemployed loser but will have money and girls around. The will groom kids and teens, wanting to interact with them more than a normal adult would.

3. Gangs. Prostitution is a part of most organized gang activity on an opportunistic basis. Any organized gang will basically have “quotas” of earning and some have a philosophical drive to victimize certain types of people which will lead to sexual assaults and forced prostitution. When I wrote about crime there were several cases of gang members kidnapping, raping and selling women they didn’t even know, but were perceived to be deserving of abuse. The culture of some gangs will drive the male members to be rapists and traffickers – MS-13 for example as a culture of rape. In some cases money isn’t the motive as we saw when 1%er biker gang The Breed turned a strip club one of the members owned into a rape camp:

   Members of a gang that prosecutors called ”the state’s pre-eminent outlaw motorcycle club” were arrested in raids early today and charged with extortion and the sexual assault of nude dancers at a juice bar in Long Branch.

   The gang, the Breed, has controlled strip clubs, tattoo shops and other businesses with violence and terror, a federal indictment said.

   Among those arrested on a federal charge of extortion was Salvatore DeIulio, 51, of Middlesex, the president of the Breed’s national organization, said the United States attorney, Robert J. Cleary. Arrest warrants, some based on state charges of sexual assault, were issued for 10 gang members, but 2 were still at large tonight, officials said.

   Five of those named in the arrest warrants are being charged with extortion, a federal crime, stemming from the operation of the juice bar, the Stars and Bars, where members gathered. One of the club’s owners, a former gang member identified as David Snyder, was beaten and forced to sign over his business to other gang members after he tried to ”restrict sexual assaults on female dancers,” according to court papers.

   The sexual assault charges were brought after four women who danced at the bar complained to the Howell Township police, John Kaye, the Monmouth County prosecutor, said. One woman said she had been chained to the floor for several days, forced to engage in oral sex with several men and beaten severely.

   In this case the gang members actually didn’t care about money – some reports were that the DJs would have to blast music to cover the screams of dancers so customers wouldn’t hear and the whole thing was running the club out of business. The dancers were forced to work at the club as sex slaves for the gang members.

4. Transnational gangs are separate from regular gangs because of their massive resources. Here’s where we see not just sex trafficking but labor trafficking, human smuggling etc. Gangs like MS-13 have cells in every state where they control drugs and prostitution. Illegal immigrants are usually the victims here. This includes though Asian communities where women are trafficked not just for sex but in those nail salons people love. Anywhere you see a large number of immigrants who don’t speak English but are working long hours or menial jobs there’s a good chance they’re literal indentured servants working off massive debts to transnational gangs.

Gangs can be recognized by graffiti, tattoos and other signifiers that your local police will keep track of an will be a public resource.

As the person taking charge of your own and your family security recognizing these people is something you’re going to have to learn to do.

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