Sex Trafficking Victim Found Online from 2 Year Old Photo

Thu Jun 7 13:20:59 EDT 2018

This is the perfect depiction of why I'm always so happy to get out of bed
in the morning. Warm congratulations.

Artur: this is public, so I assume it's okay to publicize this story?

On Thu, Jun 7, 2018 at 12:50 PM, Artur Dubrawski <awd at cs.cmu.edu> wrote:

> Sometimes really good things come out of our work.
>
> Congrats to the Traffic Jam team!
>
> Cheers,
> Artur
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> From: Marinus Analytics <info at marinusanalytics.com>
> Date: Thu, Jun 7, 2018 at 12:39 PM
> Subject: Sex Trafficking Victim Found Online from 2 Year Old Photo
> To: <awd at cs.cmu.edu>
>
>
> It started with an outcry from Allie, who was pimped 2 years ago by a
> violent trafficker who went by the name “Julian.”
>
> <https://marinusanalytics.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=431757831d2c1c5ec10ecfdf9&id=8cc594f33b&e=edcf27e3bc>
> Traffic Jam Success Story
>
> “Justice is something for which every generation has to strive.”
> ― John M. Perkins
>
> *The Outcry*
> It started with an outcry from Allie,* who was pimped 2 years ago by a
> violent trafficker who went by the name “Julian.”* She told Detective John
> Patterson,* “I want to get out of this, because of what Julian’s done to
> me. And he did it to a 15 year old girl, too.” Similar cases of this
> scope—which grew to 21 identified victims—would take a year; Detective
> Patterson built this case in about 3 months.  Detective Patterson credits
> the importance of good experience, trainings, and technology tools like
> Traffic Jam.
>
> *The Violent Pimp*
> Julian was a violent pimp, and he required a $1,500 per day quota for each
> victim; he would beat them if they didn’t bring home that money each night.
> He had been arrested many times in the past; for aggravated assault with a
> motor vehicle, running his victims over with a car several times. For
> strangling one of his victims until she passed out. For punching and
> assaulting others. But force, fraud, and coercion aren’t always physical;
> he also threatened to kill their children if they didn’t work for him.
>
> Julian recruited his victims in person and on social media apps like
> Instagram. He broke down one victim by recruiting her to work as a
> stripper, and then repeatedly raping her over a number of days. When she
> still refused to sell sex for him, he withheld food until she broke down
> and agreed. When she tried to escape, he used a location tracking app on
> her phone to chase her down. He found her, assaulted her, and put her back
> to work. She couldn’t work for a few more days, because customers would
> notice her black eye.
>
> *Traffic Jam*
> Detective Patterson used Allie’s testimony to begin piecing together the
> case. By searching victims’ Facebook photos through Traffic Jam’s
> FaceSearch, he was able to find their ads posted across the country, from
> the South all the way up to Pennsylvania and back. He said, “I used Traffic
> Jam to map out the course that Allie exactly described.”
>
> He was searching for Jessica,* an underage victim Allie had told him
> about. He scrolled through Jessica’s Instagram, and found the most recent
> pictures she posted of herself, which were over 2 years old, from when she
> was fifteen. He said, “I didn’t think it would lead to anything, because it
> was such an old photo. But I thought I’d run it through FaceSearch just in
> case. I couldn’t believe it when the 2 year old photo returned top matches
> in FaceSearch that looked just like her.” He saw in the Traffic Jam trail
> that she was currently posting in California, but had posted in his city in
> the months before. Through use of FaceSearch and confirmation of the
> locations/times in the Traffic Jam trail, Detective Patterson successfully
> identified Jessica using a photo that was 2 years old.
>
> Allie told him about another victim, Sammy,* and her Facebook account. He
> found some year-old pictures of Sammy on her Facebook profile and uploaded
> them into FaceSearch to see if he could find a match. FaceSearch returned
> top matches, none of which looked like Sammy. Patterson said, “I thought
> the matches weren’t her, they just didn’t look like her.” He sanity-checked
> the top matches, by checking the timing and location of the ads. Then, he
> said, “I found that one of the phone numbers in the ad was registered to
> her name. That made me realize that the pictures from the FaceSearch
> results were a correct match, but I didn’t recognize her at first because
> she had changed her appearance so drastically.” When the appearance of the
> victim looked completely different, FaceSearch was still able to make a
> positive match, in seconds.
>
> *Where Are They Now*
> By using various technology tools like Traffic Jam, paired with victim
> interviews and evidence gathered through search warrants, Detective
> Patterson determined the 21 victims Julian had exploited over a number of
> years. Patterson assembled a history of money transfers from the victims to
> their pimp. He confirmed that many of Julian’s victims were working in
> different states (as correlated to their ads) and wiring their earnings
> from out of state back to Julian. He determined Julian was making about
> $15,000 a month, from 2 girls alone; and he had a total of 21 victims over
> the span of the investigation.
>
> The police department received an arrest warrant for Julian for 6
> felonies, which they served him when he came out of the house on trash day.
> Detectives intervened right after he had threatened to kill another
> victim’s baby if she didn’t keep working for him. This violent trafficker
> is currently in jail without bail, awaiting prosecution and potential life
> in prison for his crimes, all thanks to the tireless efforts of Detective
> Patterson and his team.
>
>
> * names have been changed to protect individual’s identity
> *Contact*
>
> For law enforcement who would like to be in contact with the detective
> who submitted this story, please email us <info at marinusanalytics.com> and
> we will connect you.
>
> Have a success story other investigators should know about? Share your
> story <info at marinusanalytics.com>.
>
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> *Copyright © 2018 *Marinus Analytics, All rights reserved.*
>
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-- 
Andrew W. Moore <http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~awm/> | Professor and Dean, School
of Computer Science <http://www.cs.cmu.edu/> | Carnegie Mellon University
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