The data
Every case on SlaveryMap, drawn from public sources and shown with its location deliberately generalized to protect survivors.
631 of 1,631 cite a source · Updated
Showing 73–96 of 1,631
United States US
A Cuban man living in Palm Beach County smuggled three Cuban women into the US through Mexico in 2016 and 2017, then forced them to work in Palm Beach County strip clubs to pay smuggling debts of more than $10,000 to $26,000. He beat the women and threatened them and their families.
Turkey TR
Syrian refugee children and adults were found working in garment factories in Istanbul, including factories producing clothing linked to major European brands. Children as young as 13 were documented working approximately 60-hour weeks, while Syrian workers in another factory worked 12-hour shifts under hazardous conditions.
India IN
Kolkata police, working with IJM, rescued three young women, aged about 18 to 20, who had been trafficked from Bangladesh and forced into prostitution in a two-story brothel in one of the city's red-light districts.
Ecuador EC
Children in Ambato were identified in situations of street begging and child labor, particularly in markets, commercial areas and streets. Authorities identified rural communities including Pasa, San Fernando and Quisapincha as areas from which children were coming into the city for these activities.
Argentina AR
Employment agencies in El Alto, Bolivia, recruit workers for textile workshops in Greater Buenos Aires, where many are subjected to labor exploitation. About 3,000 Bolivians were among the roughly 4,500 people rescued from labor exploitation in Argentina between 2008 and 2015, most of them from textile workshops in Greater Buenos Aires and the capital, and some from agriculture.
France FR
A Bosnian and Croatian married couple and their associates forced six Romani children to pickpocket in France. Bosnia and Herzegovina and France investigated the case jointly from 2015; eight defendants were indicted in May 2018, the traffickers were convicted in December 2022, and five were sentenced to prison in 2023.
United States
Nail salon workers earning as little as $3/hour. Immigration documents held threatened with deportation Accused: Salon owners operating chain.
Italy IT
After an investigation that began in 2011, Italian Carabinieri arrested 34 people for mafia association over Nigerian gangs in Rome that forced very young women into prostitution. The women were bound by debts that grew from €12,000 to €70,000 and controlled through intimidation, threats of physical punishment and voodoo rituals.
Bangladesh
30+ workers locked in illegal garment factory. Promised fair wages but worked 16-hour shifts under threat of violence Accused: Factory operators in informal subcontracting network.
Thailand TH
Myanmar migrant workers were trafficked into Thailand’s shrimp-processing industry and subjected to abuses including debt bondage, confiscation of identity documents and passports, restricted movement, withheld wages and excessive working hours. Some workers were forced to work shifts of up to 16 hours.
New Zealand NZ
A bankrupt motel operator has become the first person in New Zealand to be sent to jail for organising a child sex tour to Thailand. The 48-year-old has been given a three year sentence. An anti-exploitation group say despite it being a landmark case, child prostitution here and overseas is a growing problem. The destination was Pattaya, Thailand, an area known for its thriving sex industry. The plan was to have sex with young boys.The man believed he could run a business based on child sex tours and organised one. Justice Edwin Wylie at the Auckland High Court says the man was motivated primarily by his desire to make money. “Organising sex tours where the intent is that the traveller has sex with underage children is despicable,” he said.Stop Demand founder Denise Ritchie says the fact we have had our citizens go over and exploit the vulnerability and poverty of children in many of those countries is “heinous”, adding “it’s a shocking crime”.
Belize BZ
According the Magistrates Court, fifty-four year old naturalized Belizean, Narciza Orellana of Santa Elena Town was found guilty on January 31, 2012 of Attempted Trafficking in Persons. Chief Magistrate Ann Marie Smith sentenced Orellana to eighteen months in prison. The charge is in relation to an incident on April 26, 2010 when Orellana attempted to recruit a female minor with intentions to use her as a commercial sex worker.
Belize BZ
On or about February 10, 2012, Yolanda Garcia, 41, was convicted and given a custodial sentence for trafficking of persons by Chief Magistrate Anne Marie Smith. Garcia is a hair dresser and manager of the La Serenita Bar located on Regent Street West. She is also a mother of three. According to the police, from June 29 to July 6 of 2010, she engaged in the trafficking of persons when she hired a 17 year-old female minor to work in her bar. The minor told police that she had just graduated from high school. This minor also said that Garcia allegedly told her that part of her job description is that she is required to have sex with customers for money.
United States US
On November 30, 2011, Don Kai Chen, 43, Quincy, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty to engaging in a conspiracy to transport women in interstate travel for the purpose of prostitution. On November 16, 2011, Jin Liang Chen 31, pleaded guilty to engaging in a conspiracy to transport women in interstate travel for the purpose of prostitution, forced labor, and harboring aliens. As alleged in the Indictment, from August of 2004 through February of 2010, defendants Hong Wei, a/k/a “Ms. Chen,” 37, of Flushing, N.Y.; Jing Liang Chen, a/k/a “Mike,” 30, of Quincy, Mass.; Xiang Hua Zhang, a/k/a “Darren,” 27, of Flushing, N.Y.; Yu En Jin, a/k/a “Eric,” 26, of Quincy, Mass.; and Don Kai Chen, engaged in a conspiracy to entice Asian women to travel to Mass. for the purpose of engaging in prostitution. Jin Liang Chen faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison for conspiracy and inducing travel for prostitution, 20 years on each of the two forced labor charges and 10 years on each of the two charges of harboring aliens. Jin Liang Chen will be sentenced by Judge George O’Toole on Mar. 7, 2012, at 2 p.m. At the plea hearing, Chen admitted that from August of 2004 through March of 2010, he conspired with co-defendant Hong Wei to entice Asian women to travel to Massachusetts for purposes of engaging in prostitution. Darren Liu previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy, and was sentenced last week to 21 months in prison to be followed by two years of supervised release. At the plea hearing, Don Kai Chen admitted that from August of 2004 through February of 2010, he conspired with defendant Hong Wei, a/k/a “Ms. Chen”, to transport women to Mass. from out of state for the purpose of engaging in prostitution. Judge George A. O’Toole, Jr. scheduled Don Kai Chen’s sentencing for February 2, 2012. Don Kai Chen faces up to five years in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release on the conspiracy charge. The Indictment charges defendants Wei and Jing Liang Chen with sex trafficking and harboring illegal aliens and using force, fraud and coercion to cause the women to engage in a commercial sex act which the defendants benefitted from financially. All of the defendants are charged with engaging in a conspiracy to coerce and entice women to travel to Mass. for the purpose of engaging in prostitution. The conspiracy involved the use of advertising in various newspapers in N.Y., Calif., Mass. and elsewhere, seeking the services of Asian women to work in the defendants’ brothels. The women generally arrived at South Street Bus Station in Boston from N.Y. and elsewhere around the country, and were thereafter transported to various apartments throughout Mass. where they then engaged in prostitution. Some of the women were not legally in the U.S. when they were harbored in the brothels. Some of the women were forced to work in the brothels.
United States US
Three of six members of an international scheme responsible for allegedly smuggling into the United States hundreds of illegal aliens from Brazil, India, and elsewhere pleaded guilty to conspiracy on December 21, 2011, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced. Nacip Teotonio Pires, a/k/a “Ze Maria,” a/k/a “Baraso,” 47, of Newark, N.J.,; Rubens Da Silva, a/k/a “Diogo Oliveira,” 39, of Haverhill, Mass.; and Claudinei Pereira Mota, 34, of Newark, each pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Joseph H. Rodriguez in Camden federal court to Informations charging one count of participating in a conspiracy to bring aliens into the United States illegally. A fourth member of the smuggling ring, Francismar Da Conceicao, a/k/a “Alex,” 36, of Hillside, N.J., also pleaded guilty to a similar charge before Judge Rodriguez in Camden federal court. A sixth defendant, Priscilla (last name unknown), a/k/a “Clema Aparacida Lopes,” of Long Branch, N.J., remains at large. According to the documents filed in this case and statements made in court: From January 2008 through June 2011, Pires, Da Silva, and Mota conspired with others to bring aliens into the United States illegally from Brazil, India, and elsewhere as part of an elaborate, for-profit alien smuggling scheme that involved co-conspirators in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Texas, and elsewhere. They arranged, facilitated, and monitored the travel of customers along two primary smuggling routes, the first of which included travel through Central America and across the international border between Mexico and the United States. The second route included travel to St. Maarten, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and to destinations in the United States. Pires, Da Silva, and Mota charged customers of the alien smuggling scheme from $13,000 to more than $25,000, depending on the route the customer used and whether the customer paid in advance or paid in installments after arriving in the United States. Many of the customers of the scheme were young women from Brazil, most of whom agreed to repay their smuggling debt after arriving in the United States by working as dancers in strip clubs in Newark and elsewhere. In certain instances, women who fell behind on their debt repayment were urged to consider engaging in prostitution to earn extra money. The defendants induced customers to pay their smuggling debts by threatening to harm family members in their home countries and by obtaining title to property the customers owned in their home countries. Pires, Da Silva, and Mota also instructed customers who were caught crossing the border illegally to concoct false asylum claims and falsely report that they would be abused or face other danger if immediately deported. They then paid attorneys to assert those false asylum claims, which often resulted in the rapid release of their customers.
United States US
Patrick Lloyd McGowan, 22; Chad Armand Gow, 20; Roy Manuel Ibarra-Gonzales, 20; and Bryan Steven Burns, 20, allegedly oversaw a human trafficking ring that involved the prostitution of children as well as the sale of methamphetamine and cocaine, according to a 70-count indictment. The indictment names 14 individuals suspected of running and patronizing a human-trafficking ring that used children for sex at locations ranging from Denver to Grand Junction, Colorado. McGowan, Gow, Ibarra-Gonzales and Burns are suspected of arranging "out calls" for the child victims through the Internet and coercing their victims through the use of drugs and threats of violence, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers said. The three are suspected of transporting children to locations in Denver, Boulder, Glenwood Springs, Grand Junction and Lakewood for sex, he said. The indictments also accuse McGowan of selling methamphetamine to an undercover officer at Casa Bonita in Lakewood on Dec. 21, 2011. Nearly 2 grams of meth was recovered from McGowan, according to the indictment. In addition, another 15 grams of meth was recovered when McGowan was booked into the Jefferson County Jail, the indictment stated. On one occasion, one girl was held down on a hotel bed in Boulder and "subjected ... to sexual contact without her consent," the indictment alleged. The ring advertised the girls as prostitutes on the Internet, according to the indictment.
United States US
Michael Malcom, age 55, from Humboldt, Iowa, Ashley Prince, age 21, from Fort Dodge, Iowa, and Nikki Fawcett, age 23, from Fort Dodge, Iowa charged with child sexual exploitation and other charges. The charges are contained in an Indictment unsealed December 19, 2011, in United States District Court in Sioux City. The Indictment alleges that, between 2007 and 2010, Malcom, Prince, and Fawcett employed, used, persuaded, induced, and enticed one or more minors under the age of 18 to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing visual depictions of this conduct. The Indictment alleges that Malcom and Prince conspired to sexually exploit children, and it alleges that Malcom and Fawcett transported persons across a state line, including a person under 18, with the intent that these persons engage in prostitution. If convicted, Malcom faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years’ imprisonment and up to life in prison, $1,250,000 in fines, $500 in special assessments, and at least 5 years and up to life on supervised release following any imprisonment. If convicted, Prince faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years’ imprisonment and a possible maximum sentence of 60 years’ imprisonment, $500,000 in fines, $200 in special assessments, and at least 5 years and up to life on supervised release following any imprisonment. If convicted, Fawcett faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years’ imprisonment and up to life in prison, $750,000 in fines, $300 in special assessments, and at least 5 years and up to life on supervised release following any imprisonment. Malcom, Prince, and Fawcett appeared December 19, 2011, in federal court in Sioux City and were released on bond. Their next appearance for trial is set for February 6, 2012.
United States US
Maximino Morales, 46, and his wife, Melinda Morales, 48, formerly of Paso Robles, admitted harboring illegal aliens after they were smuggled into the United States and forcing them to work in sub-standard conditions at the couple’s elder care facilities. The Morales were each sentenced on February 13, 2012 to 18 months in federal prison. “The Filipino victims in this case were lured to the United States with false promises and were essentially performing slave labor,” said United States Attorney André Birotte Jr. The Morales, both natives of the Philippines, pleaded guilty last May to conspiracy to harbor illegal aliens. The Morales, who operated four elder care facilities under the umbrella of “Four M’s, Inc.,” admitted that they recruited Filipino nationals to come to the United States with promises of work as live-in caregivers. A co-conspirator in the Philippines helped the aliens obtain fraudulent visas that allowed them to travel to the United States. After they arrived, “some of the aliens worked alone in 24-hour shifts...as caregivers at one of the Four M’s elder care residential facilities for less than minimum wage,” according to plea agreements filed in this case. “All of the aliens lived in the care facilities, and some of the aliens slept in a closet, on a sofa, and in a walled-off portion of an unheated, attached garage.” The aliens’ pay was credited against the “debt” they purportedly owed, and the aliens were told that police or immigration authorities would be summoned if they attempted to leave.
United States US
Lavont Flanders, Jr.. a former Miami police officer, and Emerson Callum were found guilty December 7, 2011 by a federal jury of luring women to Florida, raping them, and filming it for profit. Sentencing for both defendants is scheduled for February 16, 2011 before the U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore. The jury found defendant Lavont Flanders, Jr., 40,of Miami Gardens, guilty of all eighteen counts in the indictment, including enticing and conspiring to entice women to South Florida, knowing that fraud would be used to cause the women to engage in commercial sex acts. Flanders was also convicted of five counts of distributing benzodiazepines, a date rape drug, to the women. The jury also convicted defendant Emerson Callum, 45, of Miami, of the fourteen counts in which he was charged, which included enticing and conspiring to entice the women to South Florida, knowing that fraud would be used to cause the women to engage in commercial sex acts. Callum was not charged with distributing the benzodiazepines. At the trial, seven different women victims, all aspiring models from around the country, testified that they had been contacted online by a female model. In fact, however, the purported female model was actually defendant Flanders pretending to be a woman. In this way, Flanders contacted the victims about purported modeling auditions in Miami. After the victims provided their phone numbers, they would receive a call from a purported modeling scout - again, defendant Flanders - who claimed to represent large, multi-national companies, like Bacardi, Sony, or Paramount Pictures. Flanders told the victims that he liked their "look" and offered them a supposed role in an audition in Miami. According to the trial evidence, when the victims flew to Miami, Flanders instructed them to do an audition for a commercial. During this purported audition, the victims were asked to promote and drink different brands of alcohol while he filmed. Unbeknownst to the victims, the alcoholic beverages Flanders provided them was laced with benzodiazepines, a common date rape drug. Once the drugs had taken effect, Flanders drove the victims to Callum, who had sex with the victims while Flanders filmed them. Flanders and Callum then edited, produced, and sold the footage of the sex acts over the Internet and to pornography stores and businesses across the country.
United States US
On January 30, 2012 a federal jury convicted Alex Campbell, a suburban massage parlor owner of various federal crimes including sex-trafficking, forced labor, harboring illegal aliens, confiscating passports to further forced labor, and extortion involving four foreign women whom he mentally and physically abused while forcing them to work for him between July 2008 and January 2010. Campbell was found guilty of three counts each of forced labor, harboring illegal aliens for financial gain, and confiscating passports and other immigration documents to force the victims to work, and one count each of sex trafficking by force, and extortion. The jury deliberated approximately two to three hours following a three-week trial in U.S. District Court. The trial showed that Campbell, who formerly operated the Day and Night Spa on Northwest Highway in Mt. Prospect, Illinois used violence and threats of violence to force three women from the Ukraine and one from Belarus to work for him without pay and, at times, little to no subsistence. The testimony and evidence showed that Campbell recruited and groomed foreign women without legal status in the United States to become part of his “Family,” which he claimed was an international organization that would provide them with support. He offered them jobs in his massage parlor, a place to live, assistance with immigration, and lured each of them to enter into a romantic relationship with him. After gaining their trust, he forced the victims to get tattooed with his moniker, which he said made them his property and allowed him to stop paying them. At the same time, he acquired the women’s passports and visas. The women were forced to work long hours every day and do as Campbell instructed them, and they were beaten and punished if they disobeyed him. Trial testimony established that Campbell confiscated passports and identity documents from three of the victims, as well as harbored and transported them to ensure their continued labor. Campbell forced one victim to engage in commercial sex acts with customers at various other massage parlors, but not at the Day and Night Spa, which testimony showed he operated “cleanly” to avoid problems with law enforcement. All four victims testified as government witnesses at trial, as well as co-defendant, Danielle John, 25, who pleaded guilty before trial to two counts of harboring illegal aliens for financial gain and is also awaiting sentencing. Campbell extorted another victim to pay him more than $25,000 to leave the “Family” by threatening to send a sexually-explicit video recording to her parents in Belarus.
United States US
Federal officials charged 20 people November 30, 2011in a scheme to recruit illegal immigrants from Russia and Eastern European countries to work as exotic dancers in New York strip clubs, according to Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Charges against the 20 individuals include racketeering, extortion, visa and marriage fraud, and transporting and harboring illegal immigrants. The accused are alleged to be members of the Gambino and Bonanno organized crime families, according to federal authorities. "The defendants themselves had one thing in common -- the desire to turn the women they allegedly helped enter this country illegally into their personal profit centers,"Bharara said. "Today's arrests have brought an end to their illicit activities." Several of the accused are alleged to have run the "Strip Club Enterprise," which controlled a series of strip clubs throughout Queens and Long Island. Through these clubs, the accused are alleged to have recruited Eastern European women to enter the United States on student J1 visas to perform as strippers in their enterprises. Prosecutors also charge the defendants threatened physical violence and economic harm if the owners and operators of New York strip clubs as part of a broad extortion scheme. "The defendants controlled their business and protected their turf through intimidation and threats of physical and economic harm," said James T. Hayes, Jr., special agent in charge with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Some of the exotic dancers brought illegally into the United States were also matched with U.S. citizens in fraudulent marriages to resolve their immigrations status, prosecutors said in the indictment.
United States US
Johnny Ray Davis, most recently a resident of Ohio, pleaded guilty on January 4, 2012 before U.S. District Judge Richard J. Arcara to making a false statement to officers of the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, a fine of $250,000 or both. In September 2011 David attempted to enter Canada at the Peace Bridge port of entry with two female passengers. Canadian officials refused him entry because he was the subject of outstanding arrest warrants in the U.S. Davis and his two passengers were escorted back to the U.S. and turned over to U.S. ICE officers. During questioning, Davis lied about his whereabouts before the attempted border crossing. Subsequent investigation determined Davis was seeking to transport one of the women for the purpose of prostituting her.
United States US
Wayne Allen Ginnis, 28, of Seattle, Washington, was arraigned January 11, 2012 in United States District Court in Pocatello, Idaho on a charge of transporting a minor in interstate commerce with intent to have sexual activity with the minor, U.S. Attorney Wendy J. Olson announced. Ginnis entered a not guilty plea. Ginnis and co-defendant James Russell Ashley were indicted by a federal grand jury in August 2011. Ashley, 47, of Augusta, Georgia, was arraigned on August 24, 2011. The indictment alleges that on or about May 2, 2011, Ashley and Ginnis purchased bus tickets for two girls, ages 12 and 13, both from Pocatello, Idaho to travel to Hollywood, California, with the intent to engage in sexual activity with the girls. The girls and the men met on an Internet game site and later talked by cell phone. The girls were intercepted by police in St. George, Utah, and returned to their home.
United States US
A federal grand jury has indicted the owner and seven other individuals linked to a local Korean nightclub for allegedly operating an interstate prostitution scheme involving Asian women, many recruited overseas, who worked as "hostesses" at the club to repay their travel and living expenses, announced U. S Attorney Jenny A. Durkan. According to court documents filed in the case, the defendants sought Korean females to work as "bar girls" at The Blue Moon, a Korean "room salon" in Federal Way, Wash., where the women were expected to entertain male clients and set up subsequent meetings for paid sex. The 12-count indictment charges the defendants with a variety of violations, including conspiracy to commit money laundering, visa fraud, harboring illegal aliens, bribery and transportation in furtherance of prostitution. The charges are the result of a two-year multi-agency probe spearheaded by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). "The organizers of this criminal scheme exploited vulnerable young women to satisfy their greed," said U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan. "They also sought to protect their business by offering bribes to law enforcement." Six of the individuals charged in the investigation were taken into custody Thursday morning by ICE HSI agents in the Seattle area. They made their initial appearances in federal court Thursday afternoon. They are: • Chang Young Kim, 58, of Milton, Wash., the owner of The Blue Moon; • Yeun Jeong Mun, 35, of Milton, Wash., Kim's wife, who allegedly served as a former madam at The Blue Moon; • Miyoung Roberts, 40, of Federal Way, Wash., allegedly serves as the current madam at The Blue Moon; • Jung San So, 55, of Seattle, current manager of The Blue Moon; • Raymond Jung, 51, of Federal Way, Wash., leased apartments where hostesses were allegedly housed; and • Kwang Frank Lee, 57, of Federal Way, Wash., allegedly provided money to finance a fraudulent marriage tied to the scheme. In addition to the other charges, defendant Kim is also facing five criminal counts involving $15,000 in bribes he allegedly paid an undercover officer in the case. In exchange, The Blue Moon's owner allegedly wanted advance notice of law enforcement inspections at the nightclub and cooperation from immigration authorities to allow the undocumented Korean women to enter the country.