Sex Trafficking Victim Found Online from 2 Year Old Photo

Thu Jun 7 14:36:30 EDT 2018

Ditto!!! Congratulations Artur and team! And thank you!!
Best,
        Manuela

On Thu, Jun 7, 2018 at 1:20 PM, Andrew Moore <awm at cs.cmu.edu> wrote:

> 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>.
>>
>> <https://marinusanalytics.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=431757831d2c1c5ec10ecfdf9&id=64b84f5d80&e=edcf27e3bc>
>>
>> <https://marinusanalytics.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=431757831d2c1c5ec10ecfdf9&id=5c04c2ea7f&e=edcf27e3bc>
>>
>> <https://marinusanalytics.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=431757831d2c1c5ec10ecfdf9&id=141ae670dd&e=edcf27e3bc>
>> *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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