Man Faces Years In Jail After Cutting Down Two Worthless Water Sprouts

HOW WRONG IS THIS?

Larry Plooster, a 49-year-old UPS driver in Fort Lupton, Colorado faces several years in jail over felony charges. His crime? He cut down two weeds.

Plooster and his wife bought a two story home, paying a high premium because it overlooked the Coyote Creek golf course. In the last couple of years, that view began to be interrupted because of the unkempt overgrowth between Plooster’s home and the golf course.

Plooster contacted city authorities and golf course officials, asking them to trim back the overgrowth, but was ignored by both. Finally, after a year of trying to work with officials, who were intent on not addressing the issue, Plooster decided to do a little week whacking himself. He climbed over his backyard fence and cut the two most offending weed-like sprouts, piling the brush behind his property to be taken away.

Golf course officials, seeing the two overgrowths cut down, contacted police, claiming that Plooster had just cut down cottonwood trees worth thousands of dollars. Police arrested Plooster and charged him with felony criminal mischief and misdemeanor criminal trespass. He was thrown in the Weld County jail until bond was set at $20,000 (higher than many of our child sex predators are given).

A certified arborist came out and inspected those thousand dollar trees and concluded the following: “It is in my opinion as a certified arborist that the trees/sucker growth in question that were removed by Mr. Larry Plooster were indeed water spouts and sucker growth, not planted cottonwood trees.”

The arborist also stated that the removed overgrowth “can become a nuisance and must be thinned yearly and/or removed to maintain a safety issue. It is my opinion that the water sprouts in question had no monetary value.”

The Weekly Vice Opinion:

Believe it or not, the charges are still standing and the case marches on despite the obvious waste of taxpayer dollars used to prosecute the removal of two wild water sprouts. A fourth hearing on the felony charges is scheduled for 8th.

So there you have it folks, in our society, cutting down two menacing weeds is considered a serious offence on par with molesting a child. Justice is blind – however in this instance, it seems to be intoxicated on it’s own power as well.

Danny Vice
The Weekly Vice

http://www.theweeklyvice.com

source: http://tinyurl.com/mnooex

Arrests made in trafficking of a local 13-year-old girl

Gang members lured a 13-year-old girl into an East Side home last year and forced her to smoke crack before they pimped her for $25, authorities say.

The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office Human Trafficking Unit learned of the crimes, which took place over a week in December 2007 and January 2008, from a probationer.

The victim — who they’re calling “Lisa” — was too terrified to call police, said Deputy Ino Badillo, a Sheriff’s Office spokesman.

“These types of cases … are becoming more frequent,” Badillo said.

In June, deputies said an underage runaway they called “Angela” had contracted HIV and Hepatitis C while enduring forced prostitution for years by an older man and woman.

“Human trafficking is more than just people coming to us from other countries. They’re now kidnapping our own girls and keeping them captive for prostitution,” Badillo said.

Two of four suspects in the most recent case have been arrested and jailed.

The Tactical Response Unit of the San Antonio Police Department on Friday arrested 19-year-old Nicholas Davila, a known gang member, on a warrant charging him with aggravated sexual assault of a child. He is being held in lieu of posting $75,000 bail.

Juan “Spider” Moreno, 44, another known gang member, also was arrested and booked into Bexar County Jail following recent indictments. He’s being held in lieu of $75,000 bail on a charge of trafficking of persons less than 18 years old for prostitution.

Chris Burchell, CEO and president of the Texas Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Child Sexual Exploitation Coalition, said the indictments are a result of stronger state laws and cooperation among law enforcement agencies.

Still wanted on a warrant charging him with aggravated sexual assault of a child is 29-year-old Roland Leija. Authorities are searching for at least one other suspect in connection with the kidnapping of Lisa.

Deputies said Lisa was at a store on Porter and South Walters when she followed a friend to Juan Moreno’s home across the street. After Lisa walked into a restroom, Moreno and another man locked the door from the outside then told her friend that Lisa had gone home, deputies said.

While Moreno held her captive in a bedroom, Davila and Leija recruited neighborhood men to have sex with the girl for $25 each, Badillo said.

“They then got her high on crack and forced to have sex with up to 15 people over the next week,” Badillo said.

At one point, after the girl tried to escape, her captors tied her down to the bed. She endured an unknown number of sexual assaults before a young boy who entered the home happened to see her through a doorway.

“When he recognized her and realized what was going on, he arranged to get her out by distracting the guys,” Badillo said. “After she got out of the house, the boy helped her run away.”

For weeks, she remained silent, because her captors had threatened her family, Badillo said. She began talking, though, after deputies alerted her that they received a tip from the probationer.

Lisa now is in a safe place and receiving counseling, authorities said.

source: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/55825927.html

5 things you probably didn’t know about modern day slavery

The US Federal government defines human trafficking as:

“(A) sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age ; or (B) the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude , peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.” [U.S.C. §7102(8)]

In other words, human trafficking is modern-day slavery. Hard to believe that in the 21st century slavery still exists, but not only does it, it’s worse than you can imagine.

Here are 5 things you probably didn’t know about modern day slavery:

1. There are an estimated 27 million people enslaved around the world. That’s twice the number of Africans enslaved during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.
2. It’s estimated that 1.2 million children are trafficked annually around the world, mostly for the purposes of prostitution, pornography and sexual exploitation.
3. Human trafficking isn’t only a problem for third world countries. Cases of human trafficking have been reported in all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories.
4. It’s believed between 40,000 and 50,000 persons are trafficked into the U.S. each year from Asia, Central and South America, and Eastern Europe, 15,000 of them children.
5. The profits from human trafficking worldwide are estimated at $32 billion annually, making it the second most profitable crime after drug trafficking.

For more information about human trafficking and what you can do about it, visit these websites:

* Love146
* International Justice Mission
* Not For Sale Campaign
* HumanTrafficking.Org
* US Department of Education
* US Department of Justice

source: http://www.examiner.com/x-12513-Rochester-Christian-Living-Examiner~y2009m8d27-5-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-modern-day-slavery

Kidnapped by sex ring, but not silenced

Victim of human trafficking tells story of how she survived ordeal.

On a fall afternoon just like any other, in a small colonial city in Mexico, Ana walked down the steps of her school, excited about meeting her younger sister for a late lunch.

The street, a busy thoroughfare much like Orange County’s Harbor Boulevard, was filled with students and street vendors, hawking everything from chips to trinkets. Ana, 22, a student at an adult education school, had just picked up her class assignments when one of the street vendors, a woman, frantically approached her.

“Your sister is not well. You need to go pick her up,” the vendor said urgently.

Ana recognized the vendor, who sold earrings and bracelets outside her school. The vendor also knew her 17-year-old sister’s name. So without hesitation, Ana rushed down the steps behind her and headed toward her sister’s nearby school.

“I imagined that something had happened to her,” says Ana, a caretaker for an ailing woman. She had returned to school after dropping out to help her family make ends meet.

What she didn’t imagine was that she was about to walk into a trap, a kidnapping ambush on the streets of Mexico that would turn into a months-long ordeal. She would be illegally taken into the United States against her will by what Mexican authorities suspect was an international prostitution ring.

I am not using her real name or her hometown because the suspects have not yet been caught. She shared her story with me over the course of two interviews about four weeks after she was found abandoned and dazed near Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles last December.

“You feel such fear and anguish that if they told me to stand up, I’d stand up. If they told me to sit down, I sat down. I obeyed everything, everything so that nothing would happen to me,” she sobs.

“I tell myself ‘It’s over, you’re fine, you’re safe, you’re sleeping on a bed, you have clothes,’ but I fall asleep at night and I’m filled with fear.”

She was placed at an emergency shelter run by the Women’s Transitional Living Center (WTLC), a member of the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force. Since 2005, the center says it has served 30 human clients from across the country, including labor and sex slaves.

But Executive Director Rocio Watson says Ana’s was the first case they’ve handled where a victim was kidnapped. Recently, she says, the shelter has also seen an uptick in trafficking clients.

“A year ago having four clients in our facility at a time would have been unheard of … We currently have 11 clients,” Watson says.

At any given time, an estimated 1.39 million people around the world are victims of sex trafficking, according to the U.S. State Department’s June 2009 Trafficking in Persons Report.

Some experts say there are likely more victims, people whose stories we’ll never hear because somewhere, whether it’s an Orange County massage parlor or a Tijuana brothel, their voices have been silenced.

Ana, however, decided to speak out because late at night, when she tries to fall asleep, she hears the voices of the other women who were trapped with her.

She’s also plagued by unanswered questions: “Why me? I’m not pretty. I don’t have money. It’s not logical that it would be me.”

It was the same question she asked her kidnappers, who stepped in front of Ana as she followed the street vendor on a sidewalk that fateful day last October. “Get in the car!” the men, armed with guns, barked at her using profanities and pointed to a waiting van.

Thus began a trek that would last nearly two months, during which she was transported by van to Tijuana. There, in a house with other young women, Ana says their captors gave them fake identification cards and coached them on how to cross the U.S. border check point.

“We know where you live, who your parents are, and if you do anything we’ll head straight to your families,” one of the captors warned them.

Ana, however, says she was detained by U.S. Border Patrol officials who sent her back into Mexico. Her captors were waiting along a walkway just past the entryway gates.

That night, they took Ana and 11 other women and transported them to Los Angeles by motorboat. It was only then, after arriving at a house in a residential neighborhood that Ana says the ring leaders weeded out those they didn’t want, including Ana.

Second in a series. To read the first story, clickhere.

She was dropped off alone on Skid Row.

She waited for hours at a bus stop until a Good Samaritan took her to a church, where police were called.

Ana was interviewed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Mexican authorities, who believe the traffickers may have intended to kidnap Ana’s 17-year-old sister.

“It’s a miracle that she’s alive and made it this far, but we have other girls out there,” says Watson, who escorted Ana back to Mexico where she was placed in a confidential shelter.

She wants people in residential areas to keep an eye out for suspicious activity. “Our hope is to really educate the community because they’re the ones who can make a true impact.”

She’d like to create a bilateral agreement with Mexico and possibly a victim’s unit at the border.

“Her life was important,” Watson says. “Every human life is important.”

source: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/says-school-mexico-2542877-sister-watson

FBI Searches For Tulsa Man Involved In Human Trafficking Case

Four years ago, Ronnie Presley jammed a gun in the face of a teen-aged girl walking down the street in Kansas, pulled her into his car and drove her to Houston. There, he forced her to have sex for money. Every dime she earned went into Presley’s pocket. As time went by, Presley threatened to hurt the girl’s family if she ever told on him, he abused and beat the girl, and then tried to sell her to another pimp.

For that teen-aged girl, the nightmare is finally over. At least according to the Houston U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Earlier today, Houston’s U.S. Attorney Tim Johnson announced that Presley and his troupe of five other sex-slavers have been charged with a hefty load of federal crimes, including sex trafficking of children, sex trafficking by force and the transportation and coercion of minors.

The five men and one woman team are “charged with in effect turning four 16-year-olds into indentured sex slaves,” Johnson said. “The children worked in deplorable conditions, their earnings were taken from them and they were kept from ever leaving.”

The details are grim.
The group is accused of running girls, both children and adults, in to Houston from other states, including Florida, Kansas, Arizona and Nevada, and then making them prostitute themselves in one of three business fronts here owned and operated by the gang. The businesses, Taboo Modeling Studio North off the North Freeway, Total Pleasures off of the Gulf Freeway, and Paris of Katy in Katy, appeared to be operating as modeling studios, health spas and massage parlors, authorities say. The group advertised these businesses all over the Web and in local papers. In one instance, an ad for a minor read, “just turned 18 and ready,” authorities say.

The defendants are John “Big John” Butler, 47, William “Pookie” Hornbeak, 34, Jamine “Fresh” Lake, 27, Kristen “Princess” Land, 28, Andre “Dre” McDaniels, 39, and Ronnie “Pimpin’” Presley, 35.

Among the victims is Jessica Ford, who worked out of Total Pleasures and a brothel in Nevada, according to the indictment. Butler is accused of flying Ford back and forth between the two to work as a prostitute. Three other minors, ages 16 and 17, are mentioned in the indictment. One was allegedly sold to a different pimp, all three were allegedly beaten routinely. None of the victims were foreigners and Johnson said today that he does not know the condition of the women and girls.

“It’s disturbing that events of this nature occur,” Johnson said, “but it’s especially disturbing when it happens in your own backyard.”

This particular investigation, dubbed “Operation Total Exposure,” began in May 2005. Since then, said Houston’s FBI Special Agent in Charge, Richard Powers, a joint operation including HPD and the FBI has rescued 40 women victims from sex slavery, 30 of them in the last year. The feds are calling this case “the largest domestic human sex trafficking case in Houston.” When asked why, Johnson said it was because “It’s not often that you have four children in one investigation.”

All of the defendants were arrested in Houston on Monday and today. All but Presley, who is living in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Police there had him cornered earlier today, Johnson said, but Presley managed to escape. He is still at large and a wanted man.

“Presley was fast,” Johnson said. “He might have challenged Usain Bolt.”

Ryan Jenkins Dead — Hangs Himself

UPDATE:
TMZ spoke with the manager of the motel and one of the residents. They say Jenkins checked in on Friday. He was dropped off by a woman in her early 20s who drove a silver PT Cruiser with Alberta license plates. She stayed for about 20 minutes and wasn’t seen again. The room was paid for two days. When Jenkins didn’t check it out today, the manager and his nephew went to check on him. When there was no answer, they entered the room and found Jenkins hanging by his belt from a coat rack. He was wearing a t-shirt and jeans. There was a laptop open on a desk inside the room.

UPDATE: Lt. Steve Holliday of Buena Park PD addressed the press, saying, “The sadness of this is all is that Mr. Jenkins will not stand before an Orange County jury for his crime.”

UPDATE: His body was discovered at about 5:00 PM PT.

UPDATE: Jenkins was apparently ID’ed through fingerprints.

UPDATE: RCMP Sgt. Duncan Pound: “At this present time the investigation into the circumstances of his death is continuing, but preliminary evidence suggests that he took his own life. Any further details will not be released at this time as this investigation remains in its infancy.”

Ryan Jenkins has been found dead in Canada, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

He was found dead at the Thunderbird Motel in Hope, B.C. of an apparent suicide, according to RCMP Sgt. Duncan Pound.

Jenkins’ body was discovered by motel staff. According to law enforcement sources, he was found hanging.

Jenkins was charged on August 20 in the murder of his wife, Jasmine Fiore.

Fiore’s mutilated body was found in a suitcase inside of a dumpster in Buena Park, Calif. on August 15.

Motel where Ryan Jenkins hung himself

source: http://www.tmz.com/2009/08/23/ryan-jenkins-dead/

Atlanta, Sex Trafficking and Christians

The question is what should we do?

The reality is that Atlanta is among the busiest international hubs for all kinds of travel, and thus one of the busiest in assisting sex traffickers.

Check out Not For Sale for an eye opening account of international slave trade and how places like Atlanta unknowingly aid in the efforts of oppressors who force people into labor, sex and other unfortunate living conditions against their will.

An estimated 17,000 people, primarily women and children, are trafficked to the U.S. annually * usually right under the noses of government workers and everyday folk as they are moved from one oppressive circumstance to another.

So what can we do?

Find out what the Bible says. Evangelicals are known for our appeal to scripture but also for our often selective response to what it says. Does the Bible address the Church’s role in dealing with justice? Download a free Bible study here to get a clearer picture of how God feels about what Christians should be doing.

Find out what’s going on. What’s happening in Atlanta and how can we get involved? What’s happening worldwide and what’s our part in the cause? Visit humantrafficking.org, follow the Not For Sale campaign on Twitter at http://twitter.com/not_for_sale, check out http://www.endhumantrafficking.org/ or visit the justice department at http://www.usdoj.gov/whatwedo/whatwedo_ctip.html.

Take action. Once we’ve got the knowledge we’re responsible for it! To get started, join with the local network of churches and other groups fighting human trafficking in Atlanta. Join the Underground Church Network by starting one in your community. Email stephaniev@notforsalecampaign.org.

source:http://www.examiner.com/x-20232-Atlanta-Evangelical-Examiner~y2009m8d23-Atlanta-Sex-Trafficking-and-Christians

International Manhunt in Swim Model’s Gruesome Murder

BUENA PARK, Calif. — Authorities on the hunt for a reality TV contestant charged with the grisly murder of his swimsuit model ex-wife were continuing to search the U.S.-Canadian border after the woman’s relatives pleaded with his friends and family not to help “an animal” evade capture.

Ryan Alexander Jenkins, a Calgary, Alberta, native, was a contestant on the VH1 series “Megan Wants a Millionaire,” about a woman seeking to land a wealthy bachelor.

Police said Thursday that Jenkins, 32, removed the teeth and fingers of 28-year-old Jasmine Fiore, presumably to impede authorities in their efforts to identify the naked body, which was found stuffed in a suitcase in a California trash bin over the weekend.

Fiore, a former swimsuit model, and Jenkins were briefly married after a quickie Las Vegas wedding this year, and had been fighting in recent months. Prosecutors said the two checked into a San Diego hotel last Thursday, and Jenkins checked out the next morning. Fiore was not seen alive again.

Sources told ABC news that Fiore had been playing poker with a group of friends at the Hilton Hotel and, “she was being very rude and kept putting Ryan down. It was really awkward.”

The source said Jenkins became angry, and the group moved to the nearby Ivy Hotel, where Fiore “spent an enormous amount of time in the bathroom on the phone.”

“He kept screaming, ‘Who were you talking to?’” the source told ABC News.

They went upstairs to their room, where the fighting continued, ABC News reported.

Friends and family members, including Fiore’s mother, sobbed at a news conference Thursday as a former boyfriend begged for help in capturing Jenkins.

“This message goes out to the family, his mother and father and to the friends that are helping him try to leave this country. Ryan Jenkins is an animal, what he has done to Jasmine is unspeakable and it’s just not right and I’d appreciate your help,” said Robert Hasman, Fiore’s former boyfriend.

Jenkins vanished after Fiore’s body was found Saturday stuffed in a blood-stained suitcase and Buena Park police Lt. Steve Holliday said he’s possibly armed with a handgun. A preliminary coroner’s report indicated Fiore was strangled.

Prosecutors recommended a bail of $10 million for Jenkins upon arrest and said he had significant resources to finance his flight. A $25,000 reward has been offered for information leading to his capture.

On the show, Jenkins was identified as an investment banker who had a couple million dollars.

A resume posted on the professional networking site LinkedIn.com says Jenkins has a license to fly commercial airplanes and worked in investment sales and as president of a boutique development company focused on cutting-edge green technologies.

“Anyone helping Mr. Jenkins hide from the police may go to prison themselves,” said Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas.

Jenkins is believed to have driven 1,000 miles to Washington state and then hopped in a boat to a peninsula on the border, where he walked into Canadian territory. A Canadian police official said ground, air and canine units are involved in the search for Jenkins.

“We’ll look under every rock for him,” U.S. Marshal Chief Inspector Thomas Hession said.

A car and empty boat trailer belonging to Jenkins were found at a marina in the remote northwest Washington town of Blaine.

Whatcom County Sheriff’s deputies received a report Wednesday that a man matching Jenkins’ description arrived by boat at Point Roberts, Washington, about 10 miles from Blaine at the tip of a peninsula. The point is reachable by land only from Canada, and Jenkins is believed to have walked across the border from there.

Canadian Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan said police agencies across Canada are on the lookout for Jenkins.

In California, police detectives twice visited the luxury San Diego boutique hotel where the couple had stayed. Authorities spent three to four hours there Monday and returned Wednesday for about two hours, said Michael Slosser, vice president and managing director of L’Auberge Del Mar. Rooms at the hotel range from $350 to $3,000 a night.

Slosser doesn’t believe Fiore was killed at L’Auberge.

“It’s very unlikely that it happened here. I can’t talk about the specifics,” he said.

After taping for “Megan Wants a Millionaire” finished in early March, Jenkins met Fiore in Las Vegas casino and the two got married on March 18, said Fiore’s mother, Lisa Lepore.

But in May, “they had a big blowout,” and fought because he was jealous of her ex-boyfriends, Lepore said. “She had the marriage annulled.”

Jenkins then went to Mexico to do another reality TV show, but struggled to get Fiore back when he returned. It was not immediately clear which show he appeared on.

“He convinced her during that month that he was really the guy for her,” Lepore said. “He wrote poems and stories, and prayed, and (claimed he) had this huge spiritual awakening.”

The federal government was issuing a federal warrant that would allow Canadian authorities to take Jenkins into custody. California could then can request that he be extradited to the U.S. but only with reassurances from U.S. authorities that he would not face the death penalty.

Farrah Emami, a spokeswoman with the Orange County district attorney’s office, said the death penalty was not being pursued in the case.

Court records show that Jenkins was charged in June in Clark County, Nev., with a misdemeanor count of “battery constituting domestic violence” for allegedly hitting Fiore in the arm and will be tried in December.

Jenkins also has a criminal history in his hometown of Calgary. He was sentenced to 15 months of probation in January 2007 on an unspecified assault charge, according to the Alberta, Canada Ministry of Justice. No further details were available.

Neal Tomlinson, a partner at the law firm representing Jenkins in the Nevada case, did not return an e-mail seeking comment sent after business hours Thursday. He declined to comment earlier in the week.

Jenkins reported Fiore missing Saturday night to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, police said.

VH1 said it has postponed any future airings of the show. The statement also said that the show was an outside production licensed to VH1, but that it was produced and owned by 51 Minds Entertainment.

51 Minds said in a statement that Jenkins never would have been accepted for its show if the company had known of his past criminal history.

source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,540980,00.html

Profile
Sex Male
Race White
Age Now 32
Hair (Color, Description, Facial Hair) Brown
Eyes (Color and Correction) Brown

Possible Location
Last Seen
Buena Park, CA
Other Possible Locations
Canada
National
Vehicle To Look For
Jenkins’ vehicle, a white Mercedes 2007 CLS-550 with paper plates has not yet been recovered.

Missing Model Dead, Boyfriend Also Missing
Jasmine Fiore, 28, was last seen on the night of Friday, August 14, 2009 at her home in Los Angeles. According to police she had been at a card game with her boyfriend, Ryan Alexander Jenkins, in San Diego earlier that night.

A missing person’s report was filed Saturday evening by Jenkins, 32, who also disappeared shortly after making the report. “It’s suspicious that after he reported her missing, he is nowhere to be found,” Lt. Gary Worrall of the Buena Park Police Department said.

Oddly enough, Jasmine’s dead body had already been found early that morning in a dumpster in Buena Park — an Orange County city south of L.A. — but wasn’t identified until later. The body was found by a man who had been rifling through trash for recyclable bottles and cans.

Cops say Jasmine had been strangled and stuffed in a suitcase and her body had been mutilated.

Jenkins was named a person of interest in the case and it was announced that he was being sought for questioning. Police had tried unsuccessfully to contact Jenkins and feared he may have fled the country, Lt. Worrall said.

Reality Star Boyfriend Had Past Problems

Jasmine’s mother, Lisa Lepore, said Jenkins met her daughter at a club in Las Vegas. She said the couple got married a few days later but Jasmine had the marriage annulled this past May. Jenkins had since convinced Jasmine to take him back, Lepore said.

Court records show Jenkins — the former husband of a swimsuit model — has a history of violence against women: he was convicted of assaulting a girlfriend in 2007 in Calgary. Jenkins’ sentence included 15 months probation and mandatory counseling for “psychological/domestic violence/coping skills.”

Jenkins was a contestant and finalist on VH1’s reality show “Megan Wants A Millionaire,” in which he competed for the affections of a woman looking to become a “trophy wife.” On the show, Jenkins claimed to be a Calgary investment banker worth $2.5 million dollars. As a result of the ongoing investigation, VH1 says it is postponing any future airings of the show.

Missing Man Becomes Suspect In Girlfriend’s Death

Jenkins was announced as a suspect in Jasmine’s murder on August 20 by Buena Park Police.

Buena Park Detectives said in a news conference that Jasmine’s vehicle had been recovered in Blaine, Wash., near the Canadian border. There was a boat trailer attached to the black BMW SUV.

Jenkins’ abandoned boat was found further closer to the border in Port Robert, Wash., leading cops to believe Jenkins most likely crossed into Canada on foot.

A white Mercedes 2007 CLS-550 with paper plates is still outstanding.

If you have any information on the whereabouts of Ryan Alexander Jenkins, call our hotline at 1-800-CRIME-TV.
Wanted For
Information valid as of last update.
Murder, Buena Park, CA; Aug 15, 2009

source: http://www.amw.com/fugitives/case.cfm?id=67744

Global Recession Feeds Human Trafficking

The recession is feeding the global supply of sex and labour slaves in some countries and New Zealanders are helping drive demand says Salvation Army justice advocate Chris Frazer.

The Salvation Army, in conjunction with the Australian Institute of Criminology and The Pacific Immigration Directors’ Conference, will host New Zealand’s first major conference on human trafficking starting on September 2.

Deteriorating household living standards in countries where traffickers source their victims are making the impoverished more vulnerable to profiteering traffickers, Ms Frazer says.

A recent report released by anti-child sex trafficking network ECPAT and The Body Shop highlighted the increasing vulnerability of children and young people being coerced or conned into prostitution or the production of child pornography.

Kiwis who surf the internet for porn are likely to be contributing to misery of those trafficked for the production of pornography, Ms Frazer says.

Estimates of the number of trafficking victims range up to 4 million, of whom 79 per cent are victims of sexual exploitation. The overwhelming majority are women and children.

Most New Zealand homes will contain items or components of products that have been produced by slave labour, Ms Frazer says.

Industries as diverse as clothing, sports shoes, coffee, chocolate, sugar, fireworks, glassware, jewellery and mobile phones and laptops offer products that have been found to have been made with slave labour.

“These are not one-off crimes against mainly children and women – the victims suffer day after day, year after year and the damage to their lives is often permanent,” Ms Frazer says.

The three-day Pacific Trafficking in Persons Forum will include speakers from government departments and NGOs from the Pacific region as well as UN and law enforcement agencies.

source: http://www.voxy.co.nz/national/global-recession-feeds-human-trafficking/5/21801

Modern-day slavery rears its ugly head around the globe

Slavery in the world today

It has been over 500 years since the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade but, despite that, the practice still continues in various forms all over the world. In 2005, the International Labor Organization estimated that just over 12 million people were working as forced laborers in the world.

Siddarth Kara, in his book “Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery,” says that there were just over 28 million slaves worldwide in 2006 divided into three categories: bonded labor/debt bondage, forced labor and trafficking slaves.

According to Kara, the profits generated worldwide by all forms of slavery in 2007 were just over $91 billion. That is second only to drug trafficking in terms of global criminal activities.

“Information on slavery is very inexact. But we believe that the majority of slave victims – in the neighbourhood of 80 percent – are the female gender, and that around 50 percent are children. We believe that the largest category of slavery is sex slavery. This is not to minimize other large categories – domestic servitude slavery, forced labour in farms and factory slavery, child soldier slavery,” said John Miller, director of the US State Department‘s Office for Monitoring and Combating Trafficking in Persons.

“Human trafficking is synonymous with slavery. Human trafficking relies on coercion and exploitation. It thrives on converting hope to fear. It’s maintained through violence. The trade in people is a major source of revenue – in the billions [of dollars per year] – for organized crime, along with the drug trade and the arms trade. Let there be no misunderstanding, modern slavery plagues every country in the world – including the United States,” Miller said.

Sex slavery endemic – an economic reality

These days, human trafficking, otherwise known as sex slavery, is the fastest-growing form of organized crime in eastern Europe. Sex trafficking has become a multi-billion dollar underground industry.

Tom Porteous, the director of Human Rights Watch in London, told Deutsche Welle that “the major factor contributing to sex slavery is supply and demand. There is a huge demand for prostitution and an equally huge supply of participants because of the economic situation in the world.”

An estimated half a million women are trafficked annually for the purpose of sex slavery. They are exported to over 50 countries including Germany, Britain, Italy, Japan, Canada and the United States. Sex slaves are smuggled taking a route known as the “Eastern route” from eastern European countries, through Poland and subsequently into European Union countries. The cities of Prague, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt are common final destinations for the slaves.

“The susceptibility of victims despite the publicity focused on the issue is a question of economic reality and economic desperation. The countries which provide the bulk of the victims in sex slavery are poor; the victims are predominantly of the poorest countries,” said Porteous.

“Enforcement of the law needs to be strengthened, along with the formation of international treaties that could properly deal with sex slavery. More information on the reality of the situation needs to be disseminated directly to the communities that provide the bulk of the supply in sex slavery i.e. the economically challenged,” he added.

Germany’s fight against sex slavery

Germany is known as a “receiving country” in the sex slavery industry; a destination and transit country for the trade, with scores of victims coming in from eastern Europe and also Asia and Africa.

Berlin has in turn proven itself a leader in many aspects of the fight against modern slavery.

A spokesman for Germany’s criminal police office told Deutsche Welle that, “since the strong rise in trafficking of sex slavery victims into Germany in 2007, the problem has steadied in the subsequent years. Sex slavery is still a problem and prosecution of those involved relies largely on identification by the victims. The victims of sex slavery these days are members of EU countries and are thus legally permitted to stay in Germany if they so wish. Prosecution and curbing of this crime requires victims coming forward and identifying the criminals involved, achieving this would require efforts of both governmental and non-governmental organizations.”

The basis of sex slavery, experts say, is economic. The industry renders billions of dollars in revenue for its perpetrators and the reality of the victims, who are predominantly from economically-challenged accounts for their susceptibility to the trade.

“There is anecdotal evidence suggesting that the economic crisis in the world has made the sex slavery problem even worse,” said Tom Porteous.

source: .uhttp://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4584481,00.html?maca=en-en_nr-1893-xml-atom