Tim Ballard on Fighting Back Against Child Sex Slavery EP 1469

Calling all conscious achievers who are seeking more community and connection, I've got an invitation for you. Join me at this year's Summit of Greatness, this September 7th-9th in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio, to unleash your true greatness. This is the one time a year that I gather the Greatness Community together in person for a powerful, transformative weekend. People come from all over the world, and you can expect to hear from inspiring speakers like Inky Johnson, Josie Singh, Vanessa Van Edwards, Jen Sinchero, and many more. You'll also be able to dance your heart out to live music, get your body moving with group workouts, and connect with others at our evening socials. So if you're ready to learn, heal, and grow alongside other incredible individuals in the greatness community, then you can learn more at lewishouse.com/summit2023. Make sure to grab your ticket, invite your friends, and I'll see you there. July 30th is UN's World Day Against Human Trafficking, an issue that is far more widespread than you may realize. I spoke with Tim Ballard of Operation Underground Railroad about his mission to end child sex slavery. Though it was an extremely challenging conversation, it's very important and it hits especially close to home for me. Now I would never compare my experience to what these kids go through, but I was sexually abused as a young kid and it took me several years to start to heal. And I feel deeply for any kid who's ever been taken advantage of. Now some of you might find this information disturbing, but hearing this can make such a difference. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur and each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. The School of Greatness is proudly sponsored by Amica Insurance. As Amica says, Empathy is our best policy. That's why they'll go above and beyond to tailor your insurance coverage to best fit your needs. Whether you're on the road, at home, or traveling along life's journey, their friendly and knowledgeable representatives will work with you to ensure you have the right coverage in place. Amica will provide you with peace of mind. Go to Amica.com/ .com and get a quote today.

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Yes.

Yeah. What is sex trafficking in terms of the US? Is it actually happening? And what is it in terms of international? What is the problem at hand right now?

Yeah, so this is not a peripheral issue. Most people want to believe it is. This is the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world. Really? More than drugs, more than-- It's the fastest growing, really. It's rivaling drugs right now. Because you can sell-- That's the fastest growing, guys. That's growing. But in terms of numbers, it's actually getting up to drug trafficking. And the reason is you can sell.

A bag of cocaine one time.

But you can sell a child-- oh my gosh. You know, 10, 20 times in a 24-hour period. So it's very lucrative. And it's enormous.

It's a huge business. Now there's-- so it's a renewable product.

Exactly. Recycle the product. That's right. I don't want to say it like that term, but-- But that's how they see it, so yeah. Wow. So you really start with a bigger issue there is modern day slavery. That's what this is, people not controlling their persons, right? Their own body, their own lives. And there's about 30 million estimated slaves in the world today and about 10 million of those are children. And then they're sold for different things. About 2 million children are forced into commercial sex trade. The rest are slave labor or even organ harvesting.

Really?

Really. And so we work it.

So how many in the category of sex slavery?

They estimate there's two million, this is the State Department, UN, two million children. But my experience tells me because we're in 26 countries, we're undercover, we've been everywhere. And if you're in slave labor, it's just a matter of time before they use you for sex as well. It's interchangeable.

I mean, slavery's-- how can we make money from a person?

Yeah, once you own someone, you think you own them like a product, object, you'll do whatever you want with them, right?

How is this even, I mean, are people, are there slaves in the US right now or is it mostly international? So, great question. So when people ask me about the.

US, because I'd rather, because most people in the US would rather just say, it's happening far, far away and I'm not gonna just go like, you know, I'm not gonna listen to this. And the truth is, we are the number one demand. I'll start with that.

In terms of, we buy the products the most.

Yes, we are the number one consumers of child exploitation material.

We're just not doing it in the US.

Well, we are. We are, so I'll get there. So we are the number one consumer, which means we are the market. So yeah, we are the sex tourists that my group and law enforcement are targeting and catching overseas, hurting kids.

But recently- what would you say, 80% is US consumption?

Or is it- It depends, like in the markets, like south of the border, in Latin America, yeah. But you get- In Asia, it's maybe with like half and half us and then like- the locals. And a lot of locals, they generally make up the most of the market of the consuming side. But we just, the United States just became last year ranked in the top three for destination countries for trafficking, which.

Means-- All the people to come here.

Right, the traffickers say, Look, that's the market I want in. If I can get into the country, then we're really gonna make a lot of money. And so they're trying to get their slaves into our country.

Because so then we won't, so then US people won't have to travel. Right.

This is crazy. It is crazy.

It is crazy. So they just import people here. Yes.

Kids. Yes. Teenagers.

Mm-.

And then they're slaves to whatever they're doing.

Either labor or sex.

And it's not as-- Where is this? Is this in LA? Is this in Mexico? Yeah, that's a good question, because I can go to a developing country where the infrastructure isn't as great and law enforcement struggles, and you can see children being sold on the street corners of this beach. You just got nowhere to go. You're not gonna see that here. Here it's mostly online. It's in the dark net. So like our warriors out there fighting it and finding the kids are like the internet crimes against children task forces, local law enforcement, these guys who have the tools to go in and basically infiltrate criminal organizations that are using those platforms to find kids. But for 17 years I've worked as an undercover operator in some capacity and I have bought and sold a child on every single social media platform that's out there.

Is it social media?

Oh yeah, it starts there often. It will start there and then Leads to private phone calls and all of a sudden you're negotiating the deal for in person. Yeah.

No way. How many, so you've been doing this for 17 years now? How did you originally get into this? I've heard this story, but I want my audience to hear how you even knew this was a thing and decided to go all in on this.

So I started in the CIA and I was, I had prepared my entire life to fight terrorism even before 9/11. I was, I was studying, that's what I was studying. In fact, I graduated from grad school with a degree, a very unique degree, in terrorism.

Really?

In 2001. Wow. So the floodgates opened for us to go work wherever we wanted. I chose the CIA and I was.

Working at the terrorism desk there. You were going into terrorism before 9/11?

Yes. Already. You didn't know it was gonna be something big. Right. It was like, oh my gosh, here we go. And then one of the terrorists, people will remember this name, Mohammed Atta, who came across the border, he was staging in Mexico and he crossed the border and went up and launched those attacks on the Twin Towers. And that just, I was at CIA during 9/11. And I was like, I want to be on that border. I speak Spanish. I want to be on that border to fight terrorism and protect the country from there, from that position. So in the wake of 9/11, the creation of Homeland Security. So I was one of the first to jump ship and I jumped over into Homeland Security. I became a special agent, undercover operator. thinking I was gonna be doing terrorism.

Where were you stationed then?

I was at the Calexico, California, Port of Entry. Right, Calexico. So near Tijuana or near-- It's about 100 miles east of Tijuana. Yeah, I gotcha.

From San Diego, right on that border.

A lot of people come in 'cause it's probably less of a big city. Yes, exactly. There's three ports of entry there.

It's very busy.

Wow. And lots of criminal activity crossing that border. Drugs, people. Yeah. Yeah, so we were finding tunnels and it was-- I mean, my office was right on the border at the Port of Entrances. I've been, for six months I'm doing this. Then they call me in and they said, Hey, we feel it's time to start a child trafficking unit. Child, I said, what is that? I mean, like the rest of the world, like child trafficking. You could Google child trafficking in 2001 and nothing would come up. Like no one was talking about it. So even I was like, I don't even know what that is. I don't think I want to do that. Like that is, I went home and told my wife, she's like, no way. We were just starting a family, had a couple of kids. She's like, you can't bring that darkness into her. Know what people are doing to kids, you know?

Yeah, and how old are you at this time?

I was probably like 25, 26. Yeah. And, and so I had to go tell my boss, no, I'm not gonna do it. I was really scared to do it 'cause this guy was intimidating to me. Big, he's six foot four, big white hook mustache, wore boots to work, you know, one of those guys, his whole life on the border. And I was not, I didn't want to tell him no. But I'm practicing my speech literally in the mirror, right? Like, okay, how am I gonna say this? And my wife walks in to the bathroom and she's crying and she does not get very emotional usually. I said, what's wrong? She's like, I didn't sleep at all last night. She said, For the same reason I thought we had to say no to this because we have children, that is the reason we need to say yes. Because we understand what a childhood is supposed to be. And if it's true and we weren't even convinced yet, but if it's true that millions are being trafficked this way, how can we allow it to happen and do nothing? Right? So then I said yes, and I entered it, and it was about-- so.

You'Re already practicing your speech, and then you decided, okay, I'm gonna commit to this.

And the speech became one word.

Yes.

Yes.

I'm in.

Yeah. I'll do it. He put me to work right away, and dude, it was like a thousand times worse than I could have imagined. Like, right away, it was just like.

When was the moment where you saw something that just said, I'm taking this on as a life mission, not just as a part of my job, but...

It was the first time I saw a child that was from the videos when I was like, this is it. I had to make a decision at that point. So what had happened was we got Intel, an American man was kidnapping children in Mexico Smuggling them into the United States and in San Bernardino, you can look at this case up. His name's Earl Buchanan. You can look it up, you can Google, learn all about the case. He had a compound up in San Bernardino where he was taking the kids and he was filming his sex acts with these kids.

He was having sex with them and filming it. And then what, selling it online or?

He's keeping it for himself, sharing with people. And so this guy's coming across the border and We're on the scene and we get the kid out, this five-year-old boy. And it was the moment that he ran-- Five-year-old boy. Five-year-old boy. Oh my gosh. And I recognized him from the video. No way. And I was like, oh my gosh, I've never seen one of the kids from the video. And I'm like, I didn't know. I had a physiological reaction. Like, I didn't know if I could handle this. And then the kid kind of inherently knew we were the good guys, right? So he runs to us and jumps in my arms. And he's like, hold it. He's holding me and he's shaking. And I'm just like, oh my gosh, does he speak English? Does he speak Spanish? Maybe both, I don't know. And he spoke perfect English, which was haunting to me because the only reason he did was because he had been with this guy as it turned out since he was taken as an infant.

Oh my gosh.

And he said to me, like no five-year-old should ever have to say to anyone, he said, I don't belong here. And the pain was so severe for me because I could immediately multiply that statement by millions of kids. And that was it. And then that led to rating the compound and we found 11 other kids. No.

How old range?

About from 6 to 12.

Wow.

So that was my point of like, I had to make a decision. I went home after that operation.

So the first operation.

There's the first time I've done a lot of cases where we did the receiving and so we did like the Search Warrants and Arrests of Pedophiles who were receiving child rape videos. But they didn't have kids there. Right, this was the first time I saw one of the kids from the video and it like changed my life. But the change was either gonna be I'm quitting forever or I'm all in because like there was, you can't, it's too much to go one or the other, you can't go middle ground on this, right? And I went home that night after two or three days actually I went home to my wife, she didn't really know what was going on, I walked in the house and then I see my kids, right? And they're playing and having fun. And this kid was literally 12 miles away. I lived 12 miles from the border. This kid, this was happening to this child, and the whole dichotomy of the whole, how can we be in the same community and hell here and almost paradise here for these children who have every, and I just, I lost my mind. I just, I couldn't handle it. I saw my children being hurt. I went to a mental, and I literally fell down. Like my knees collapsed, I fell down, and my wife thought I was having a heart attack or something. She runs over to me, she's like, what's wrong? What's wrong? I'm like, I'm out. I'm out or I'm in. Like, I can't, this is so bad. And it was my wife again who said, you know, she got me calm, and she said, Look, it's hard. I know the pain. You're clearly suffering something, but how does that compare to what that child suffered? Oh my gosh. And I was like, no, you're right, that's it. You're not experiencing it. Yeah, I felt guilty. Like how stupid. I'm up on my knee, I jumped up, and I'm like, I'm in. I'm in 100%. But the thing that happened, and call this luck, providence, whatever, to me was special, is the little boy had a necklace, that little boy, the five-year-old. And his sister had given him the necklace when they were separated by Buchanan. And it was a little dog tag. And he gave it to me. You know, he knew I had to go find his sister now.

Oh, no.

Yeah, and we did. We got her. We got her out.

Oh, my God.

But he gave me the necklace. And I tried to give it back, he's like, no, it's yours, it's yours. This is when he was hugging me. And I'm like, okay, I put it in my pocket, didn't think much of it. But later, one of my children found it and said, Would you get this? I'm like, How do I tell this story to my kid? And I tell my kid what I can. And he says, Isn't it cool that that little kid put your name in the necklace, dad? I said, what are you talking about? My name's not on the necklace. I'm like, yeah, yeah, your name's right here. Sure enough, I flip it around, And that little necklace had a scripture from the Bible on it from the book of 1 Timothy.

Oh my goodness.

So that was like, to me, I was already feeling like, what am I gonna do? Am I gonna quit? Am I gonna go full in? That necklace, it was like, it was like that little boy, whether he knew it or not, just gave me a commission. And that necklace, I wore that for every operation I did from that point on. And it was kind of like my symbol, like, I'm in now.

Wow. And so you started here locally in the US. Yes. And then you started going to different countries.

You're right.

And you started going to South America originally, right?

Right, because what happened in 2006, the US passed a law called the Adam Walsh Child Protect Act. And what it did was it changed my life. People didn't realize for us agents how it did that, but it changed the statutory requirements for sex, we had these sex traveler statutes that said you can't travel to have sex with a child, but you had to prove that the perpetrator had the intent in his heart and in his mind while standing on US soil before he left, which meant before 2006. We had zero prosecutions. So the Adam Walsh Protect Act said no more, you don't have to prove he was thinking about it on US soil. All you have to prove now is that he left and he committed the act. And now we will hold him accountable as if he committed it on our soil.

Really?

So it's a revolutionary law.

So now if you go to another country and have and pay to have sex with a child or don't pay and you have sex with a child, you can still go to jail here.

And there's no double jeopardy, by the way. You can serve 10 years in Mexico and then 20 more years in the US.

Wow. What is the law, I guess, around sex, having sex with a minor or paying for sex? Are they different laws or how does that work?

Every state, there's like different state laws. And then there's federal laws, so it depends what jurisdiction and it's all over the board, really. And then internationally, same thing, it's kind of all over. Which is great to have the safety net in case the guy only gets two years in some foreign country, we're like, well, we got you when you get back. And we'll treat you differently.

So how much is this happening now in the US?

Oh, it's constant.

Really?

It's constant. We can't keep up with the demand. Half our operations are domestically. People don't realize that. They think we're only foreign, but we support operations here. We provide canine units that sniff out digital media. You saw some of that at Tony's party, maybe the video. How do they sniff out digital media? They're trained just like a drug dog, but they're trained to sniff out little thumb drives, 'cause what happens is perpetrators, pedophiles-- They hide it this way. They'll hide it. And this is the evidence, I mean, we'll find a child in here that can lead us to where that child actually is. But these guys are hiding it 'cause they know the cops could come any day, so they hide it in the carpets, they hide it in the floorboards or whatever. And the human being will never find it. Well, we have dogs that run to it because they just train to sniff out the metallic whatever it is. Sniff out the nuts. Yeah, and we nail these guys. So we've deployed a couple dozen of these dogs, right? And I love it, 'cause there's these beautiful animals, and we chart their rescues. Cinnamon Bark is one of our dogs. Dontera is an essential oil company, actually paid for it. Wow. And they said, you can name it. We're gonna name it Cinnamon Bark. That's one of their products, you know? Amazing. So Cinnamon Barks won. We have Spike, and they literally have like Spike says has saved 10 kids. Cinnamon Barks has saved, it's crazy. It's the cool, and you look at.

These dogs, you're like, I just love you. They're just amazing. Oh my goodness. You're just amazing, you know?

Wow, so when did you, how much longer were you with as a special agent before you left to go start your own foundation? So what happened was after that law passed, they put together a group, and they basically said, okay guys, let's enforce this. Go out and find Americans.

Who are doing this.

Yeah, and they put me on the team and sent me to undercover school and said, now go pretend to be a pedophile or a rapist.

What's cover school?

Undercover school.

What is that like?

It was insane because they sent me to a cover school to teach me how to be a pedophile.

No way.

How to think like one, how to.

Get, you know, that's that's right.

I talk like it, how to. Right, how to get in. And I get there and they bring me into a room, it's like a studio, kind of like this, right? There's a two-way mirror, and they're gonna assess me. 'Cause in the end, it's interesting, they said to us, we can't train any of you guys to be undercover operators. You're just here so we can determine if you are one. It's very unique. It's like an acting and you gotta be able to, you know, it's tough, you know. So it's an assessment, right? And they have this undercover operator who's like the instructor, but he's like one of the top guys in the US government. He's a general, he's playing the role of a general smuggler. And so people are coming in, you know, candidates like me are coming in one by one to be tested and they give everybody a different legend. Like, okay, you're a drug smuggler, you're a terrorist, and you've got to get this guy to commit. I believe in you. And so I get my turn, he doesn't know what's coming, right? And I sit down with him like this and I start, I mean, I'm just tripping all over myself. There's cameras everywhere. I'm like, I suck at this, it's horrible. And I've got to bring up kids now. So I eventually We bring it up and the guy's just like, and he says the words out of roll, which means cut. And he looks at the guys in the two-way and he's like, what are you doing? Are you punking me? Like, I've got a, I have a daughter who's a year old. I'm not gonna play, and he left. I'm like, what's going on? So the instructor comes in and he's like, Tim, bottom line, look, we're in new waters right now, man. We gotta chart this course. So I felt very much alone. so actually what I did was because there was no real hit, there was no curriculum yet.

You were creating it.

We were creating it. And I actually started reading every book on the last time that I could read. We knew that slavery existed.

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I mean, I'm reading her book, her story, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, all the abolitionists.

Really?

And it wasn't a casual decision to call our foundation, eventually when I got there, Operation Underground Railroad, because we use the tactics that they used. They were undercover operators. They were how they used the media, how they used Politicians, it was like these were masterminds. They figured it out and it's like they're now our inspiration. So, that's, you know, we built the curriculum off of largely off of that, off those stories.

So at first they were like, no, you're really bad. But then they're like, okay, you got.

To figure it out because we don't have a curriculum. Yeah, I eventually figured it out and.

Then they sent me overseas.

Where did you go? I was mostly, I speak Spanish, so they sent me mostly into Latin America. I worked in Guatemala, in Mexico, in Costa Rica, and the Caribbean, Colombia. And the problem, there was an unattended consequence to all this. Because if I couldn't find the American in the time allowed by the budget that was given, I had to come home.

So there would be Intel, they would say, We need you to go to Costa Rica. We've got Intel that there's these three guys that live there or that are coming there right now. They're selling with girls boys they're buying them whatever it may be so you had the Intel you had to go there find them figure out where they lived exactly what city they're in exactly and then build rapport with them. That's right so it wasn't like we're gonna go break down the house and Come in. Why should I become friends with them?

Oh, yeah, it's it's it's what was this like your first time?

Oh, like stomach churning meeting this this.

I'm sitting toe to toe with these guys, right? And they'll pull out a cell phone and they'll be like, here's who we got. We got kids. We got 10 year olds.

I'm looking at the pictures.

I'm like, and I've gotta pretend. You have to act like you want that. Like dude, geez, it's horrible. I'm doing it up here, I'm smiling and my stomach is just like churning. I want to reach across the desk and just destroy this guy, but if I do that, we'll never find the kids. So it's a mental game that will crush you if you're not like constantly preparing and constantly-- Wow.

How do you manage energy and body language when you know that in your gut you're against this, but you have to in your mind trick this person? How do they not get fooled? How do you master persuading them when you're against it?

It's just practice and practice. First they send you as a secondary operator, so you kind of watch and you're kind of just playing the role of someone who's kind of watching and then eventually you get to primary which I got to eventually. And then it's, you know, so it's just practice. And like, it's interesting. I can't really answer that because even the instructors, like I said, they would say, we can't teach you how to do this. Either you, we're just here to tell you if you have it or not. And, and, and so that's, that's what happened.

Do you ever feel like because you have to get in that mindset of a pedophile and of, you know, someone who's selling or buying kids that, that it might ever trick your mind into actually becoming that. has that ever crossed your mind where like, how do you keep your mind powerful and strong against those thoughts?

The answer, no, because once you see it, a decent, I couldn't even, I wouldn't even burden you with what it is.

Yeah.

Because you see what this is, the kind of exploitation and the videos that are made of children, you would never be able in your mind. And so it's a punch to your stomach and it gets worse every time. It gets worse every time. If anything, it makes you less interested or interested in any kind of sex.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, I mean, I'm kind of opening up here, but like, in the middle of a case, like, I come home, I'm like, I need to be alone for a-- yeah, I can't even, like, my poor wife, you know, it's like, don't you not love me? Or I'm like, no, I'm just, I can't even, you know-- you-'re emotionally broken. Yes, you're just broken. I mean, it breaks you.

You have to, like, detox. I mean, it's horrifying.

You know?

So what was this like in Costa Rica with this first time then for you? I think you said it was Costa Rica, right? Or maybe I was making that up, but what was that first time for you?

Yeah, so one of the, probably the most interesting case that I worked where it kind of, this was the unintended consequence the US government didn't expect or I didn't expect is, so I make myself the bait, right? And I'm in deep with these guys. I'm their friend, they trust me. We could be weeks or maybe a month or so away from getting the kids and getting to that point. But if I don't find the nexus, the legal nexus, the connection back to the US government, it's come home. But it's like, but if I come home, this whole thing goes belly up. And so that was the thing I would fight until it pushed me too far to the point I was like, then I quit. And it was a case in Colombia and a case in Haiti. Both, I was doing it at the same time. And I went too far. I went further than I was supposed to go anyway. But I got really deep and they said, We're the Americans, Tim. We can't sustain this. Washington's gonna shut this down anyway.

It was no one's fault, there's just no jurisdiction. Unless there's Americans doing it. You can't go to someone in Columbia.

If they're doing it, you can't do anything. Right, right. Because it's only US. The only jurisdiction I have is a US court. So I've gotta find a US person. Who's buying kids? A child or a perpetrator. Either one. Who's the United States. Got it. And so on that Columbia case, we had hit like a gold mine of trap, like I can't call that, but it's we had hit like the mother lode, okay, of bad guys.

And how many kids did they have?

It was over 100 kids. Wow. It was gonna be over 100 kids. And I don't blame my boss at all. He did what he had to do. He's like, you gotta come home. 'Cause there were no Americans involved. You can't, there's nothing I can do for it. He did everything he could to keep it and push it, make it happen, but there came a point where you just couldn't, you couldn't do it. and that's when I had to make a decision. And I called my wife and I said, what do I do? And she's like, my wife, she's like just very stable and very inspired, I'll say. And she just said, well, it's obvious what you do. Do you think you can save kids? I said, I'm very confident we'll save over 100 kids. She's like, Then you quit your job. That's it. We'll worry about, you do the right thing first and you wait, you know, always do the right, how can, How can you live with yourself? And then she said, How can I live with myself? I mean, there came a point with my wife where I was like struggling to stay and do this job. And she said, she ended the debate with these words. And these are verbatim because I'll never forget it. 'Cause it like penetrated my soul. Pierced you.

Yeah.

She said, I will not let you jeopardize my salvation by not doing this.

Wow.

I said, okay. And so if anyone needs to end a debate with your loved one, that line works. It's a powerful line. So that was it and I was like, okay, if that's how you feel, then I'm in. And we quit and started a business.

You're not making millions of dollars. You're making a government salary job.

I have no savings. I have six kids at the time. Okay.

How old are you?

I'm probably now late 30s. And I have no savings.

Yeah, you're spending thousand dollars on food for kids.

I'm like, Catherine, I'm just gonna tell you. Like, this was like fall, like June, I said, or December, I said, By June, we're out of food. Like, I don't know how we're gonna feed the kids. She's like, that doesn't matter. She's like, How can you live with your-- There's 100. I said, okay, no, you're right.

You're right, you're just way braver than me. You're like, I gotta protect you, I.

Gotta protect the family, I gotta be safe. Oh, it was, it was a-- you- gotta provide. It was a hard several, it was a hard month. It was December of 2013. Oh, man. and I was just a mess. I was a mess.

This is seven years ago. Yes. So what happens next? Do you go, was that the first thing, you quit the job and then you go back to Columbia?

Yes.

And you assemble like the Marvel cast of Crusaders to come with you.

I have just enough money to do those two up. So you're funding it yourself.

Yes, yeah.

So I'm like calling a lawyer.

You gotta buy guns, you gotta buy whatever materials, you gotta, We gotta buy.

Everything we need to get. Yeah, and I'm calling a lawyer. I'm like, how do I make a non-profit? I guess that's the best way to do this. I had no idea what I was doing. Like, well, we'll set you up. And I got some people to donate. And we just went in. We had the two cases, the one in Haiti, which is the other powerful story, and Columbia. They're both kind of the reasons I left. And so I didn't have enough money to go home. So I would just jump, I would bounce back between Haiti and Columbia. Until we had success and we did in both. Both of them were crazy cases and we ended up risking over 120.

No way. Yeah. So what happens after you guys go in, you get the bad guys, you break up the operation and then there's 100 kids. What happens to those 100 kids next for the next 10 years?

Right, so that's the most important part. That's the most important question. And then that's the question we ask first before we'll engage with law enforcement partners. First of all, we always work with law enforcement. We're not really local government. The local government law enforcement would say, Here's our services. In this case, it was easy because as an agent, I was already working with them. I had to leave and then I said, I'm back. I lost my badge and my life maybe, but I'm back. But I brought the resources and a coalition of the willing, you know, former law enforcement folks who were willing to just jump on in this operation. And we said, We can't do anything until we know what happens to the kids. And so what we do is we have an aftercare department, which is our most important department, which partners with the local non-government organizations that are aftercare centers, and they exist in every country. And so we partner with them and we say, look, we could rescue up to this many kids. How many could you take? And take means raise. Yeah. Because you don't know.

Fund, house, for, until they go to.

University, you know, because so many times, more than half the time, I'd say, there's not a family waiting for them with open arms. There is no family, which is how they got taken in the first place, or the family's part of the problem.

Because they're getting paid. They're getting the money.

Yeah. And so we set up with those partnerships so that when the kids are rescued, we know exactly, in fact, the aftercare partners are with us when the raid happens and they write to the kids, you're safe, you're not bad guys, because the kids think, Am I getting arrested or what's going on? So we set it up to where the aftercare team is immediately on the ground and the healing process begins.

And they'll either get potentially adopted by another family or they'll be in a facility, a home or some type of facility.

You're exactly right.

Now what about, you mentioned that sounds like half the time the parents are involved in selling their kids. Especially, I've heard about this in Asia, it's like a form of love to say how much money can you bring back to me type of thing. I don't know if I'm off there, but How do parents, what's the psychology behind that for parents where they feel like it's not a bad thing? I've heard of this sometimes, some cases. It's like part of the culture, I guess. Now, how do you, as a parent, how could you do that? How do you get to that point?

So you're exactly right how you're describing it, that is how it is. And it's something I cannot comprehend. It's almost like they're so desperate for means, for money, they're so poor. and they're just like, well, I think they just have to compartmentalize and just kind of normalize sexual activity even if it's your 12 year old daughter. You're like, you just gotta, this is what we have to do, you know? Oftentimes it's cyclical, it's generational. So it's like, that's what I had to do. So that's what you have to do. And we've got to break it. And that's been part of the problem 'cause when it's culturally accepted, sometimes the laws reflect that as well. And so there's a lot of countries where we've gone in and helped them establish their laws. where they didn't exist before. And oftentimes, I'd say the majority of the first cases we do, the first investigations we do in a given country, is their first investigation into this as well. So we provide the tools. We build digital forensic laboratories, for example. We built one in Southeast Asia that services four or five countries there and give them the tools they've never had before to go into the dark net, to go and find where, you know, track IPs where child Pornography is being distributed. Yeah, it's a nutty thing.

So is U.S. the biggest consumers of sex trafficking then?

We're the biggest consumers of child exploitation material.

So pornography. Yeah, child sex pornography. We're the biggest consumers in the world.

And one of the biggest producers as well of it.

Really?

Yeah, so we are the demand.

Oh my gosh.

This is why we have success.

Why are we so messed up?

I think it has to do with, first of all, it's the internet. It's access to the internet. It's the technology that's readily accessible here that we can use peer-to-peer networks, dark net kind of stuff where we can learn how to use that quick. It's software and then all of a sudden you're in. And so it takes a degree of technology and then we have a large population with lots of technology. I don't think per capita it's a.

Whole lot worse here.

It's just that we have the numbers and the technology and that together It's an easier access. It's easier access, yeah. So people become sex addicts easier in this country, en masse.

So there's sex addicts all over the world. We just have easier access to exploiting that thing.

And we have 300 million people that all have that access. So that creates a lot of demand in this country. How easy is it to watch child.

I've never seen child pornography. I don't even know how easy that would be. How easy, if I wanted to go on the internet right now, way too easy. How long would it take for me? Is it 30 minutes? Is it five minutes?

If you have some skill, like, it's not that easy.

If you just type in chopper on.

It, you're not gonna Google it.

No. And no one tried that, by the.

Way, because the cops will track you. No, it's not that easy. It's just like a Google search. But there's ways, if you understand the.

Darknet and how different networks work. I don't even know what the darknet.

Is, but I mean, that's crazy.

So if you can get into that.

Then you could find it quickly. Oh, it's if you have it.

Are they updating new stuff all the time?

Oh yeah. In the last three or four years, there's been a 5,000% increase in new child content. Content. It's growing like mad.

I mean, are they doing it because they're making money? Are people having to pay for it? Is it free?

How do they make money?

By selling it.

They sell it, yeah. You purchase access to certain places and-- Like a membership.

Yeah.

And then you end up traveling. You know, you can then you get into that world, you get into the networks and now you're traveling to engage in and become a contact offender. We call it contact offender where you're now having sex. Having sex. Yeah.

A contact offender.

Contact offender.

Contact offender.

Yeah.

So, man, this is a whole other world.

I'm sorry, I know. I'm bringing darkness to this beautiful show.

No, it's important to educate people on how to live a better life. and how to constantly be educating ourselves on all these different challenges.

We have to because the problem is, considering the fact that we are the number one demand, and we are number three for destination countries, that means that the pedophiles are here, and our kids are here. They're mixed and mingled amongst this group, so parents need to wake up and understand the apps that their kids are using. We had a guy just 30 minutes from my home, just a few weeks ago, who was gaming with two six-year-old girls from Indiana. Six years old. This guy's 42 years old. Like on Twitch or something?

Or like on some platform.

Well, it started on Facebook. These kids were on Facebook and then it went. Most games today have the ability to, you know, you can play with other people.

On other social media.

From across the earth. And it's fun, it's cool. But parents who didn't grow up with this mentality and this technology, they think their kids are playing the computer.

'Cause when I was a kid, it was Atari. Yeah.

And you're playing the computer.

Yeah, you're not playing other people.

Right, so parents don't even think, like, oh, she's playing that cute little game, she's fine. She's been playing for six months with a pedophile from Salt Lake City. And the guy got the kids, the six-year-old girls, two of them, to undress and take naked pictures. No. I'm not kidding. He just said, just desensitize them. They can read or you can talk to them and, you know, and just like, take your clothes off, put the camera down. No way. Yes. And the AG's office picked the guy.

Up and arrested him. Really?

But this is happening in mass, especially right now. We've never seen it like we have right now because the kids are out of school.

Kids are out of school and people.

Are in their homes all day. And the pedophiles are out of work. And we can track their chatter on the dark net and they're communicating and they keep saying, it's harvest time, these kids are sitting ducks. No, they're not. They're not saying this. They are. How many? Six million up to six million additional reports from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the same time last year. And we won't even know the ramifications. It'll take years before these some of these victims come up because these guys are, the lines are out in the water right now. Oh my God. We take for granted the infrastructure of schools and after school programs and sports programs. We take for granted how safe that makes our kids from these online predators because that's where they are, they're online.

So it's easier to fish now.

Oh yeah, 'cause mom and dad are worried about their jobs, they're scavenging for food, the kids, hey, they're told, take the smartphone, take the laptop, stay here.

Play games, do your school work, We.

Gotta go figure out.

It's almost less safe to be on.

A tablet than it is to be at an after school program. 100% less safe to be on a tablet.

I mean, you hear stories about, is it Larry Nassar, I think the, the gymnastics. Yeah, the doctor. Yeah, it's like, okay, you felt like your kids were safe at a, a US sanctioned training program, but this happened to hundreds of girls. But it's less safe.

Right, you can't. It's a great point. Some people say, well, I get worried.

About after school programs. credible doctor who's like cutting edge and.

That happens as well. But this in terms of the sheer numbers is way more threatening because there's millions of pedophiles.

It's easier to do it.

There's millions of kids. They know the parents aren't paying attention because they're worried about their livelihood and they just access the kids and they start gaming with them. They start they befriend them on Facebook or whatever and all of a sudden it's on and it's horrible.

What are two or three things that parents can do now that they have this information to protect their kids? kids against any type of sex offenders.

So the most important thing is understand the apps your kids are on. Understand the social media platforms your kids are on. Know if people can access them pretty readily, pretty quickly. And that's the problem is parents just, if you're my age or older, we missed it. We missed the internet. So we didn't grow up understanding with raging hormones and undeveloped brains. We didn't have to deal with internet too. Our kids do. And so parents just don't know there's.

An education-- what are the most challenging apps they should be aware of?

Or is it all social media?

All social media, anywhere where you can connect with bad guys.

Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, it doesn't matter. The parents of the six-year-old girls I told you about, they said, we had no idea. We thought the kids were just playing the computer. Wow. No, no, they were playing a pedophile and the little kid game, whatever it was. And so parents, that's the number one thing. Know what your kids are doing. Understand. the applications. If you need help, you can go to your internet service provider and say, Hey, can you send me a record of every, you own that phone that you give your kid, right? Right, right. They can give you a record of every site that's hit, every game that's played.

Conversations, yeah, yeah. Right, every conversation. What's the conversation that a parent should have with their kids, whether they're five or 15, to at least educate them a little bit without scaring them, you know, but what can a parent say?

Whether they know something's happening or not.

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Services member NYSC SIPC. So it's a great question and for me having nine kids you have to really meditate and pray and focus on each individual kid and customize that answer. Because if you come in too early you could hurt them. It's a tough subject, you know, but if you miss, if you come in too late you could also hurt them. So when they start asking questions and when you kind of feel your intuition, luckily I have my wife, who I can say, when is it time for this one? It's now. Okay, let's have the talk. And then what you say also is customized to what you think they're ready for, but you have to be in front of it. Whatever that answer is, that's the key. Have a close relationship with your kid, be their friend and their parent, and connect with their soul so that you can get that inspiration. Okay, now's the time and here's what I'm gonna tell you. Too often we say nothing because we don't wanna talk about sex, and, you know, it opens that whole door, birds and the bees, and parents just ignore it. That's the worst thing you can do. Because then someone else is gonna teach them and they're gonna get hurt.

So it's just tuning into that kid. Wow. That's the responsibility you have as a parent to be a leader and to have hard conversations. I'm not a parent yet, so I don't look forward to it, but I also know that I'm gonna rise to the occasion and be able to have the courage to be able to have those hard conversations. How do you categorize a pedophile and how many of them are there in the USA? Well, like what's the definition?

Someone who actively seeks sexual interaction with a child.

In person contact, not... No, there's still a pedophile.

You could not become a contact offender quite yet, but they all want to become... It's like someone who looks at porn, right? An adult who's looking at porn. I don't think anyone looks at porn with that being the end. They want to take action eventually. And that's how child pornographers are as well. They're eventually looking to take action and become a contact offender.

That's crazy. So how many are there?

So there's, we know, I couldn't give you the exact number, but we do know this. The fact that there's two million children in sex slavery, consider what kind of number justifies that demand.

It's probably 50x, right?

Exactly. It's like any other market.

Percentage is gonna take a hit.

If they need two million kids, that means you're gonna have a market of.

Two in the US or two in the world?

That's worldwide. Yeah. But the US number keeps rising. There's a couple hundred thousand we estimate children.

Wow.

But that number, there's about 18,000 women and children a year who are smuggled in to the United States for the purposes of being exploited as slaves.

And is this a financial transaction, 300,000 kids, or is this sexual abuse? Again, side from adults to a kid.

Yeah, there's a mix of both of those.

I mean, for me, you know, I was sexually abused when I was five by a man that I didn't know.

You're kidding me.

Yeah, the babysitter's son, he was probably 16 or 17, I was five. It's one of my probably first three or four memories I've ever had.

Oh my gosh.

For 25 years, I didn't tell anyone and it deeply shaped my life. It only happened once. I can't even imagine something happening over and over again and not feeling comfortable or safe. And it deeply impacted the way I think. the way I took action, how I was defensive, and I felt like everyone was out to get me. It was like everyone's trying to abuse me, everyone's trying to take advantage of me. It showed up in every area of my life, from sports to teachers to relationships to business partners, until six and a half, seven years ago, I finally opened up and started to heal and started talking about it for the first time. 25 years, no one knew about this. Wow. And it was one of the hardest things I ever did was talking about it. And then I knew that this had power over me because I was so afraid of what would happen if people knew this about me. The more I talked about it with family than friends, then I finally opened up publicly about it on my show. And the moment when it was no longer scary to talk about it was when I realized, okay, now my healing is starting. And it's been an amazing six and a half year journey of healing the past, letting go, forgiving, obviously not forgetting. It's always going to be with me, the memory, but the ability to have peace in my heart and move on and see what can I do moving forward to make sure that other people aren't sexually abused. No, yeah.

What you're doing is so important because this is the problem is people, they heal, they've got to come, they've got to start talking about it.

You have to talk about it. It's the only way you can really heal is to start sharing with someone, whether it's a spiritual pastor, a therapist, a parent that you trust, a friend you trust, but when you hold on to this secret and you don't tell anyone, you're gonna suffer.

Right. Now imagine, Liz, that's happened once, right?

Yeah, one time.

Imagine happening every day, every week. Yeah, imagine this. So I was with a neurologist once because I had to understand what's going on with these kids. And he says, Tim, let me show you something. He told me two brains on scans of brains, two children's brains. and he said, do you see the scarring in the, yeah, what's going on? He said, one of these brains was a traumatic car accident. This other one was a child who for five years was sexually abused. And I was like, wait, what?

Very similar.

So that's what, I mean, it creates extra physiological scarring in your brain.

Absolutely.

And this is the problem. So the rehab part.

The chronic stress, the chronic fear, all these different things.

Yes, it actually creates physical brain damage that requires physical healing of that brain.

Martial healing, physical, spiritual healing.

It is. And when I saw that, I can't tell you how motivated I was to get back out and just start nailing these guys. Because this is, I mean, there's nothing worse in my mind and earth or hell than this. Most of these kids would rather that they were killed than go through this. Our sentencing so far, I don't think really reflects the the real damage that's being done. And it's because people don't want to talk about it. Right? We gotta, the more we talk about it, the better our justice system will be, the more, the better our aftercare services will be. But this is a very real, very, very real threat to all our kids.

And how's the process work for you? If you can break it down for me, how do you decide who you're gonna go after? Is it, okay, we're assessing the dark web information first. We have researchers on your team that are finding this person's got 50 kids, this has 20, you know, how do you guys assess like where you're gonna make the hit?

So when I first left the government, I had basically pending cases, right, that I couldn't work because they were outside my jurisdiction. So those first ones, like the ones in Colombia and Haiti, those were easy. But then after that, it was like.

Now where do we find the next one?

So it's funny, it's funny, great question because I start, I'm like knocking on doors, like, can I work? Can I help you guys? Because those two hits were successful so we got more donation dollars. I'm like, and I had to actually to convince people, like, you have a problem, we can help. We were turned down. Seven years later.

Turned down by what?

Governments, countries, law enforcement. Governments, by law enforcement, like we don't need your help. We're fine here. We don't think there's a problem. Today, seven years later, we are saying no. We can't keep up. Everybody's asking us, hey, so-and-so told us you did X, Y, and Z in their country. Can you help us with this piece? Can you help us with that? And so now what we have to do is we have to find the law enforcement units around the world. We're in 26 countries. the ones that can sustain our tools. So if we give them something and give them training, it's a scalable solution they have. So it's not just us doing the work and then leaving. So that's how we kind of judge it right now. We wish we could be everywhere, but we have to go to where they're most prepared to make the biggest difference, the biggest impact. Of course.

And what are the top three countries right now that have the most cases and the biggest problem?

I think Southeast Asia, really, is that whole region is just so sad, huh? Just so sad and so terrible. But the law enforcement is doing amazing work, working closely with them. That's where we put our first digital forensic lab. And so now they're going in and routing out the, this is crazy.

And it's 50% locals and it's 50% kind of US-based who's coming in and committing the crimes.

Yeah, lots of sex tourists. The locals are all, How big of.

An industry is the sex tourist industry? how much money?

Okay, well human trafficking altogether is $150 billion. No way. 150 billion. And so to put that into perspective.

How much is the sex tourism in human trafficking?

That's about $35 billion, I believe.

Wow. Yeah.

Just the sex alone is $35 billion.

The contact, the physical sex, not the digital consumption of media.

Right? Yeah, $35 billion in the selling of people for sex. Gosh. 35 billion, if you can imagine that number. I mean, and then you bring in the slave labor and that's what gets it up to 100 billion. Human trafficking in general. Human trafficking in general. And to give some perspective, because that number's so big, with the amount of money made buying and selling people every year, you could buy every Starbucks franchise in the world, you could buy every NBA team and still have enough money left over to send every US child to college for four years. That's how much money is spent in modern-day slavery every year. That's why I say this isn't a peripheral thing, even though we act like it is, because we don't want to address it. We don't want to engage it. It hurts.

Why do we not want to address it?

It hurts. You know, it's just, it's, I know why, because I didn't want to address it. I ran, I tried to, I tried to quit many times, okay? And my wife always turned me around and said, you, can't, sweetie. Oh my gosh. Because here's what happened, and this is what happened to me, is you see children being hurt and you can't help it. You superimpose your own children's faces on those children and then you just can't bear it. You just can't handle it. I mean, I had to go to psychotherapy to not do that. Mandatory, they sent us every year to get checked out. And I'd go every year and think, okay, this is my year that I'm gonna, they're gonna boot me out because I know I'm crazy. And like, oh, you passed Mr. Bell, congratulations. What? Save me. Because I thought I was crazy. No, you're fine, okay. But one of the things, that was the hardest thing for me to kick is learn how to not see my own child's face so I could deal with it. Later on, about 10, about 15 years later into this, I changed my tune and I allowed myself to see my kids' faces and that made all the difference because all of a sudden now I'm pushing the envelope.

It's more, you're more connected to it.

What happened was, I came across a situation a few years back where we were going into a child trafficking center and there was 28 little children that were being sold.

Little meaning under 12?

Oh, from 1 to 12. Gosh.

For sex.

For sex. And so I'm walking in there, they think I'm a customer and I'm walking in and I see all these kids.

Like a storefront?

It was an orphanage front. They were claiming to be an orphanage. No way. This was in Haiti. They were claiming to be an orphanage but all the kids were mostly kids they collected after the hurricanes or earthquakes. the parents die and they say, oh, come to our orphanage. Oh, it's not an orphanage. So we were actually tracking a missing child that we knew had been there. And so that's what got us in there. And when I saw the kids outside the gate, I was about to go in, it was almost like a PTSD reaction where I'm like, oh, I'm seeing my kids. Okay, do the training they taught you. But instead I said, you know what? What if I don't do that this time? What if I let it happen? What if I just allow these kids to be my kids? So I went in there and it was like, oh my gosh, I never should have done that technique. I should have always done this. And this is what I encourage.

Before you were wearing like a mask. Right. So you wouldn't feel it deeply, but.

Now you're feeling it so deeply. So deeply. And what wouldn't you do for your own child? So now I'm willing to go the distance, right? And that case got nuts. And it's funny, I know this experiment led to this. We, after we rescued, we rescued 28 kids. We did the whole sting by And I ended up adopting two of the kids that we rescued who are now my kids.

In Haiti.

Yeah. It was a preventative strike. Turns out none of them had actually been sold yet. They were all being sold. And so, yeah, so two of my kids now, they came from that operation.

Wow.

So they literally, like literally made-- They became your kids. They became my kids, yeah.

Wow. How many kids do you have now?

I have nine now.

Wow. Seven from birth of your own.

Seven, yeah. By the wife.

Yeah. Two adopted. And then two adopted.

Yep. How many more? I mean, how many do you want to have? Oh man, we were, the prenups had six, okay, when we got married. Yeah, and we were done at six. And we were both done. We're like, okay, we got the six. I came from six, my wife came from six. And then this case happened after that, and we saw these kids, and it was just like, here's my wife again. I call her, I said, you won't believe this. What I just saw, these two little kids, it was the two kids I actually bought in the sting operation. I just grew attached to them. And it was my wife who just had this experience and she just said, I want to be their mom. I said, no, you don't. You can't do this. We can't do this. I want to be their mom. So that's how it started and we ended up bringing them home. And then the seventh one came defying all science somehow.

How much does it cost to buy a kid? I mean, to buy a kid? Is it to buy them, to own them? To buy them, to have sex? What's the difference between...

They do both. Okay, so generally if you're gonna take a kid, if you're gonna use a kid for the weekend or something, you can probably double or triple the price of what the adult sex market would be. So if you, whatever a prostitute, you know, a sex worker, whatever you want.

To call it, you can double or triple it.

Double or triple for a child.

For a night or for a weekend.

For purchasing, it depends what the country, but those kids they sold me that became mine were 15,000 each. But the work we do- 15,000 for a person's life.

Yeah, unbelievable.

Just say here it's yours. In the Middle East, where we're dealing with ISIS and we're working and this is where we're getting organ harvesting. And a pediatric heart is up to a quarter million dollars. So that's a kid's heart. A kid's heart. That's how much it sells in the black market. How often is this happening with organ harvesting? In the Middle East quite a bit. So ISIS rolls in in 2015. and they make sex slaves out of the Yazidi people, these beautiful people that are just peaceful, living in northern Iraq and a little bit in Syria as well. And ISIS came in and just said, you are less than human, and they just took them and made sex slave markets out of them. Also, a lot of the Christian communities were devastated in a similar way. Eventually, ISIS gets pushed off its sovereign territory and was making its money by taking over Cities and like taxing people so they lost their oil revenues when they got pushed off the land, but they kept the kids and so like well, I got to make money so they start selling these kids to sex slavery or to organ harvesting.

Oh my gosh.

We've taken down two organ harvesting rings already so far. So we, this is a- Do they.

Keep the kids alive after they take out some of their organs or is it you're dead?

Obviously depends, yeah. And not if it's a kidney or something.

They just take it out and then, okay, see you later.

Yeah. People are finally reporting on it. I think CBS or ABC News recently did a story on it, but we're in the middle of it. This is the Nazarine Fund. I'm the CEO of also the Nazarine Fund, which is a sister organization with O.U.R. Mercury One, Glenn Beck started that.

Oh, wow.

And then I took it over three years ago. Glenn Beck's still the founder. Yeah, no, he was the godfather of O.U.R. as well. He gave us all our first money. Glenn Beck. the money I needed to rescue those kids in Colombia, in Haiti, that was Glenn. Really? He was the only one that took the chance. He's like, I'll front it, go for it. I'm like, Are you serious? He's like, yeah. He got me the money. It was pretty intense. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, it risked his whole media company. Wow. His lawyer said, Don't do it. If they fail or somebody gets hurt, you're screwed. He's like, I don't care. He's like, I'm not gonna go to my maker and tell him, I said no. It was an amazing story. So yeah, he asked me to run the Nazarene Fund three years ago, so that's our work in the Middle East, which is just this stuff. And we're extracting these kids, I mean.

We'Re going in and taking the kids out. So have you found kids who had, you know, I guess organs taken out or?

Oh yeah, no, the ones that are surviving. Yeah, the crazy stuff.

Really?

Yeah.

So you find them and they got.

They'Re sewn up or whatever. Yeah, and there's been, like I said, some mainstream media have gotten into it, thank goodness, in the last several months. and you can see that people can go on Google and you can see it. They're stitched up. They're, but if you're a small child, they're gonna make their most money off a pediatric heart. Really?

Quarter million dollars off a heart.

They're very high in demand, yeah.

Man, this is crazy, man.

Servicing markets generally outside the United States, right? Like these are markets in countries that there's no regulations and there's just, it's just black market stuff.

The work you're doing is really amazing and you've got a movie coming out, which I got to see a trailer of it a couple months ago. And when's the date it's coming out? Do we know it?

We don't know it. Later in the year, it's probably. COVID shifted everything, so we don't really know. But the film is locked.

It's done.

Stars Jim Caviezel, Mary Serrino, Bill Camp. It's gonna be amazing.

It's these guys are artists.

They're geniuses. They did a very good job. And what's the movie called? What's it telling the story of? It's called the Sound of Freedom. And it basically tells the story. I just A lot of that I just told you. Yeah. Like, for example, the little boy in the van, they actually filmed that scene exactly where it happened with the necklace and all that. Oh, my goodness. And it gets into Columbia, the Columbia raid where we rescued the 120, our first big operation that rescued 121. Yeah.

What's your mission moving forward with the movie, with just everything you're up to? Is it to end sex slavery? Is it to rescue a certain amount of kids a year?

Is it to end it? So we did an experiment and it was very telling in 2014. We put almost all of our resources into the northern region of Colombia.

One region.

One region and we just said, just pound it.

How do we get rid of it?

Pounded. Like every month, two or three operations and empowered law enforcement and then to the point where they stopped and the would-be traffickers said, yeah, I had to give it up. I'm into drugs and I'm doing something, this is crazy. And so we did it, we knew what would happen, it's logical. Now there's a consequence, there wasn't before. But we did it to show, if everybody would focus, focus, focus on child crimes, if we all did it together, we could end it. But it's not gonna be governments alone, it's gonna be people getting loud, which is, we have an opportunity right now, 'cause people are getting loud about it for the first time in a long time, or maybe ever. On July 30th, which is anti-human trafficking, you know, world anti-awareness day.

So how can my listeners get involved with a small way, or they want to get involved in a bigger way, what can they do? Can they go to your website? Can they email you?

People can go to our website. Oourrescue.org. Oourrescue.org is the website. Look at our videos, and there's something on there that says join the fight. We have all sorts of ideas people can do to get involved. So, if people want to go out and get that commission and a little symbol that reminds them of the fight, you can go to FreedomDogTag.com It's an opportunity for people not only to kind of get their symbolic commission, but for every 30 necklaces sold, we literally with that money we can rescue a child. People can also text, help them to 51555 and we're giving specific instructions on how you can get involved in your city on July 30th. 60 cities have already committed to get loud in some way. They'll go to a park, you know, obey the laws and the social distancing, but that's generally you go to a park and local leaders will show up and commit that we're gonna do more for kids and make sure the kids in your community are protected.

Wow, man. It's exciting. And if you want to be a part of helping spread the message, make sure to share this video out or share this audio out and make sure to follow Tim. What are you on social media?

Tim Ballard, 89.

Tim Bowden 89. Make sure to follow Tim. Make sure to tag him when you're sharing this out so he can follow up with you as well and stay connected. I know you do a lot of other stuff behind the scenes that I want to get into hopefully soon in.

Utah and be a part of learning about how you guys are doing.

We're bringing you up, man. We're going to put you into one of our training programs. Lock me in. So the movie be aware.

So if you go to the website.

If you sign up, you follow you, you'll be able to watch the movie when it comes out.

We'll keep you up to date on everything.

You've got I've got a bunch of books to talk about this as well. If you want to dive in down.

The rabbit hole, you can read that.

Yeah, I got lots of content for you if you want to learn more. Exactly. Exactly. But this is an amazing mission that you're on for me who's been, you know, I wasn't sold, but I dealt with sexual abuse and I know the trauma that it has in the years of unwiring that it takes to feel normal, to feel like the world isn't out to get you, to feel like your stress levels go down, to feel like I couldn't go to sleep at night. It took me hours to go to sleep every night until I was about 30. And then when I started to heal, I could finally sleep. So I know what it does to the wiring of a human being with sexual abuse. I can't even imagine what it would do to someone who's being sold by their parent, not by their parent, over and over and over again for years. I couldn't even imagine how you would start to heal. So what you're doing is an amazing gift and a service to humanity, and I really acknowledge you for that, Tim, for for being an incredible leader in this space, being a hero in this space.

Oh, thank you.

And using your wisdom, your skills, your tools, your resources, your relationships to make the biggest impact in this space. And I want to be a support for as long as I can on this.

It's a big part of me.

That I want to help out as well. I want to ask you a final few questions. This is called the Three Truths. So imagine it's your last day on earth.

Okay.

And you go somewhere else after your body dies, right?

Okay, yeah.

But you've accomplished every dream you could think of in your whole life, for your personal life, with your family, your kids, for your businesses, for your foundation, anything you can imagine, it's come true. But for whatever reason, all of your work has to go with you. Your videos, movies, content, it's got to go with you to the next place. But you get to leave behind three lessons you know to be true. You get to write it down on a piece of paper and this is all we would have to remember you by, these three lessons, or what I like to call three truths. What would you share with the world that are your three truths?

I think the first truth, the most important truth, and this comes from years of trying to find light in my darkness, because to work in this world is so dark and it will destroy you, it will destroy you. I needed to find light. And so my advice to people would be, or you know, what I would share is, because we all have darkness, I don't care who you are, you don't even be fighting trafficking, right? Darkness is everywhere. So I would, mine would be based on how to get light in your darkness. And the number one thing is serving other people. Service turns the lights. Tony Robbins taught me this. I mean, I knew it just functionally, but until he put words to it in the research. I mean, when you serve people, something happens to your brain. There's a physiological, in my mind, it's God. I'm a faith guy.

And.

When you serve people, your brain literally releases serotonin and endorphins and oxytocin. And what it does is, people that have an excess of those beautiful... You feel better. You feel better. You're healthier, you have more courage, you have more optimism. This is science, right? Now in my mind what that is, is it's all, I believe it's God preparing your body to commune and with God, your Creator, whatever it is, I don't care, but a higher source that will then give you, that you need to be a better version of yourself. So service has all these benefits apart from just doing the good of helping somebody, it's this amazing thing that turns the lights on in so many ways.

So service, number one, to other people.

Number two is kind of related to it, but it's that communion part. It's prayer, meditation, whatever you want to call it. But connecting to that greater being, whatever that is, and getting that positive energy. Because it just makes, if you're a better version of yourself, you are a blessing to other people, right? So it's not a selfish thing. It's actually a self-list thing. Get yourself good, because then you're good for others. And so number two, I'd say that is that meditation, that communion. And the number three is find at least one person that you really love and that really loves you back. There's a lot of relationships where you don't have time or there's the ability to connect that way. But for me, it's my wife. But find that person, because I've told you many stories. And you have, the coolest story I told you was actually me running away and my wife turning me back around. Thank good, none of this would happen. I wouldn't be sitting here with you if she hadn't turned me around when I ran for cover throughout my life, throughout my career. And I credit that relationship with, what's.

The thing you love about Catherine the most, your wife?

She does the right thing no matter what. And it doesn't matter The consequences, I mean she literally said to me, if we end up on a beach in a tent and that's where we're living because we did this, I don't care. We have to do the right thing by these children and by God and the right thing is to quit and leave everything. I mean I calculated it was millions of dollars in pension and I had a whole charted out, my life was charted out. I'm like, Catherine, we're why, she's like, it doesn't matter. These are real children and there's consequences.

For- yeah and if you say one, it's worth this in her mind.

How is it not worth it? and just how quick she gets to that. Like, this is wrong, this is right, we're gonna do the right thing. Okay. Like that, she has that kind of, it's intuition, it's inspiration, a conscience, I don't know what you call it, but she has it and I know I can go to her and say, I don't know what to do, what do I do? And she's gonna be right, you know? And if she doesn't know, she'll tell me, I don't know, let's figure this out. So I think that's the thing I.

Love most about her. That's beautiful. Okay, we can find you online, Tim Ballard@9, we'll connect you and link up everything in the show notes. Is there anything that you want to share that you haven't shared before my final question? Anything you wish people asked you about this or do you feel like people need to know about?

You know, one thing I'll say is I'm worried about the world right now. I'm worried about kids right now, a lot. Because I feel like we pursue good things and they make sense makes sense, but too often we don't consider the children are being hurt. And it's unintended, it's no one's intent to do this. But we talked about, for example, we're in the middle of a debate right now. And I'm not, this is not partisan for me, it's not political, even though everything seems to go that way these days, right? But the idea of opening schools and what that does, all I'm saying, I'm not going to give the answer to the question, I'm not smart enough to give an answer to that question. But I will say this, that we're not even, I don't see the kids as part of the debate. For example, the spike, 6 million additional reports of children being abused originating online, this is from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. And that's a lot of pain. And it happened because as a society we decided to shut everything down because of COVID Okay, do we know the trade-offs? That's all I'm asking. Are we considering the trade-offs? And the concern I have is, the CDC and others have come out, I'm not a scientist, but I can read data, and if you're 60 years or younger, you have a 99.9% chance of surviving. If you're older, it's very, very, very dangerous, and you should definitely take mass precautions, and we should do everything we can to support that. But teachers who create the infrastructure that keep kids from being sexually assaulted, they, like 89% are under 60 years old. And so the real question that we should be asking is what's scarier to you, a virus, once we've taken care of the most vulnerable, what's scarier, a virus with a 99.9% survivability or the trade-off, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of children being sexually assaulted? We're not even having the discussion, that's my concern. I'm not smart enough to come up with the actual solution.

Yeah, yeah.

But at least have the discussion. And it boils down to answer to this, kids can't get loud, they can't organize, they can't protest, they can't march, and so we don't hear from them. It's on us adults to stand up and be their voices and say, we will sit at the table for you, we will make sure you are represented. So that's my- that's something to think about for sure.

Something to think about.

We need to figure out a solution. Right, it's hard, these are complex things. I don't have the answers, but I know kids are being hurt and I.

Know more can be done to make sure they're not. For sure, absolutely. well, there's always more we can do, that's for sure. You're doing amazing things, man. I appreciate you. I got one final question. That's, what's your definition of greatness?

I think for me, greatness is how much positive impact you can be on others. In fact, I try to make this a rule, I'm not great at this. I'm a believer in it, okay? I'm not a master of it. But when given a fork in the road, a crossroads, you gotta make a decision. And we do it every day. Do I do this? do that. I don't know what to do. Which one will help more people? And if you always take that road, I think that's the definition of greatness. Yeah. Thanks, bro. Thanks, bro.

Appreciate you, man. Thank you, man. I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me as well as ad free listening experience. Make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus Channel on Apple podcast. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend. Leave us a review over on Apple podcast and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels at Lewis Howes. I really love hearing the feedback from you and it helps us continue to make the show better. And if you want more inspiration from our world class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness Newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com/newsletter. And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.

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