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Feds decry trafficking of humans

Immigrants forced into free labor, prostitution

Associated Press


INDIANAPOLIS – Authorities suspect the trafficking of people to force them into work or prostitution is rising among Indiana’s poorer immigrant communities, a report said Monday.

Police and prosecutors have assembled a task force to help overcome cultural and language barriers so they can prosecute ringleaders and rescue victims, U.S. Attorney Susan W. Brooks told the Indianapolis Star.

Brooks said at least two investigations already were under way into such human trade, but she declined to provide details.

“We are going to take down as many as we can and move up as high as we can in these organizations,� Brooks said. “It’s not something people think of existing anymore, but we know it’s out there.�

Brooks’ office will oversee the effort to find and punish human traffickers, working with groups such as customs agents, FBI translators and undercover agents, U.S. marshals, Indianapolis and Marion County police and local prosecutors.

Investigators also will work with non-profit groups such as Heartland Alliance, a service-based human rights group in Chicago that can provide translators in Chinese, French, Polish and other languages, the Star reported.

One victim, an illegal immigrant from Hunduras identified as Marlene Harpi, was lured from New York City four years ago on a promise of a baby-sitting job paying $500 a week, but when the illegal immigrant arrived in Indianapolis, she was held in a west-side brothel and forced to have sex with at least 15 to 20 men a day, the Star quoted police as saying. She escaped after two weeks.

Prosecutors, unprepared at the time for such a crime, dropped charges against her captors – a ring of illegal immigrants from Colombia and Mexico – but deported them on the basis of their immigration status.

“This was a classic case of what we’re looking for – but with a different outcome,� Brooks said. “If we have a Marlene come forward in the future, we can help her.�

Under President Bush, the Justice Department has made rooting out human trafficking a priority nationally and internationally. Aided by a $450,000 federal grant, the local task force is training police to pick up on clues that illegal immigrants might be part of a trafficking scheme.

Federal authorities usually uncover traffickers when they set out to find them, said Mony Ruiz-Velasco, an attorney for the Midwest Immigration and Human Rights Center, a program of the Heartland Alliance.

“People are surprised by the idea of human trafficking, but a lot of people come up after training to say they’ve seen something like what we’ve described,� Ruiz-Velasco said.