‘A Tremendous Success’: Several Missing Children Recovered During Alabama Human Trafficking Sting

Members of law enforcement make an arrest during a human trafficking investigation during The World Games in Birmingham, Alabama, held July 7–17, 2022. Courtesy of Homeland Security Investigations

An extensive operation into human trafficking during The World Games 2022 in Birmingham, Alabama, ended July 17 with multiple arrests and the recovery of several missing children.

The Department of Homeland Security’s investigative arm, Homeland Security Investigations, ran the operation.

Doug Gilmer, resident agent in charge of the operation, told The Epoch Times that human traffickers take advantage of large sporting events such as the Super Bowl and The World Games because “they bring in a lot of people and a huge influx of disposable cash that creates a greater potential for commercial sex.”

“We wanted to get ahead of that,” Gilmer said.

The World Games Human Exploitation Task Force launched “Operation Games STOP” two weeks before the start of the games, which ran July 7–17.

However, planning for the event began three years prior, Gilmer said.

The World Games, governed by the International World Games Association, is a multisport competition for events and sports not included in the Olympic Games, such as tug of war, surfing, bowling, and power lifting.

The games started in Santa Clara, California, in 1981, and hadn’t returned to the United States until the most recent event in Birmingham.

Preparation for the operation leading up to The World Games centered around public outreach, Gilmer said, which involved working with local and state partners and placing human trafficking information in every welcome center, rest area, and airport throughout the state.

It also involved special training for law enforcement officers, health care workers, and up to 3,500 event staff, he said.

“Staff in over 80 hotels in the Birmingham metro area were trained on what to look for in terms of potential cases of human trafficking that might be taking place within their hotels,” Gilmer said.

Undercover operations were used to identify traffickers and their networks that facilitated commercial sex, Gilmer said.

“We identified networks that are operating cross-country, from Los Angeles to Atlanta,” he said.

The Homeland Security Investigations command center was stationed in Birmingham, Alabama, for the duration of a human trafficking investigation during The World Games from July 7–17, 2022. Courtesy of Homeland Security Investigations

Dozens Arrested for Drugs, Trafficking

Among those arrested, there were 34 commercial sex buyers, six human traffickers, and eight men who sought out the trafficked minors online and traveled to meet them for sex, Gilmer said.

Investigators identified 15 adult sex trafficking victims, two minor sex trafficking victims, four minor victims of labor trafficking, and 11 minor victims of online sexual exploitation and sextortion (the extortion of sexual acts by threatening to share the victim’s private images or videos of a sexual nature or threatening to harm the victim’s family and friends), Gilmer said.

In addition to making several drug arrests and seizures of firearms and counterfeit goods, federal agents identified seven missing and endangered minors who had been reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

The underage victims were recovered and provided services.

“Everything we do is conducted around a victim-centered and trauma-informed approach,” Gilmer said. “Our goal is to provide assistance for every victim through partners we work with such as the Children’s of Alabama hospital, Alabama Department of Human Resources, and child protective services.”

Traffickers See Victims as ‘Renewable Resource’

Human traffickers make more money and encounter fewer risks than drug traffickers because human traffickers never run out of their supply, Gilmer said.

“Every time [drug] dealers have to re-up their supply, they risk walking into a trap, whether it be buying from an undercover agent or getting robbed,” Gilmer said. “For one human trafficker who may be trafficking six girls, those girls are a renewable resource. They can sell one girl 10 to 20 times a day, seven days a week.”

Gilmer said there probably would have been more arrests if it hadn’t been for the public outreach campaign, a strategy the agency used to deter trafficking operations.

“If we had only recovered one missing kid during this whole operation, it would have been a success,“ Gilmer said. ”But we recovered seven missing kids, so I would say it was a tremendous success.”