TaskForce Update

This is Robbie Dilmore from The Christian Car Guy and Kingdom Pursuit, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build a kingdom. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds.

Enjoy it and share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. A ministry program dedicated to bring light into the darkness of human trafficking. It's time to light the way to freedom. This is Lantern Rescue. We tell the stories, we talk about rescues, and we empower you to do something about it.

William Wilberforce once said, Let it not be said I was silent when they needed me. This is Lantern Rescue. Well, welcome to Lantern Rescue. And boy, we've got a wonderful update for you today. Mark, you're just fresh off the field and a lot going on.

Yes, sir. It's great to be on the show. And I'm so glad that those who follow our podcast or listen to the show on the radio are slowly being introduced to other people. You know, we've got a lot of folks that do a lot of things in the world.

I wish they all spoke English. I wish, Robbie, I wish you and I could just take like six months and go and interview every single person because we have some incredible heroes in different parts of the world. You know, great testimonies, great people, people who get them every day to work on behalf of kids. You know, we train them, we support them, we work with them every day, but they really are the ground crews, you know, who are out there in the bushes, you know, running down people to they have to arrest, running down investigations. And so I just wanted to start the show by giving recognition to them again, as well as our foreign, not only our foreign teammates, but also our foreign partners, the countries that we work in, you know, the fact that we are in some of the some of the most violent, most criminal countries doesn't look over the fact that they're incredible heroes, even in those governments, right? Even inside of corruption, even inside of dysfunction. And so, and they love their children, they know, they know the future of their country depends on how they treat children and how the safety that children grow up and are they offered school are they given a loving, comfortable home to, to grow into adulthood. So, listen, I just can't say enough about the police officers, agencies, government people and those on the ground.

And I'm just so grateful for them. No, it's amazing how God has mobilized people really all over the world to see, you know, I guess where the light needs to shine. Yeah, you know, seems like every every other week, we're pushing into another region of the world, you know, and working into another place.

And that's not by our initiatives by demand. It's by request. It is by governments and agencies and law enforcement who hear about us know about us and request is please come help us please come help us. You're going to hear in the net, not this show, but you'll be hearing soon from I think TC and Ryan will probably do that show about we just did a conference last week. And we had at least six countries actually about eight represented all throughout Africa who came to a conference where we were just having roundtable discussions about our sacrificing human trafficking, terrorism and trafficking, and then see Sam and so was it was a great and gathering it was a great discussion.

I know that that'll be a great show to hear about that. I think today I wanted to take a moment to update folks and I didn't really we can't do it all in 30 minutes. Okay, you know, we've got cases in in South America right now there is the we're about to tie the bow on those we've got some people that were moving out of even the Middle East and places that have definitely need to be brought to safety. We've got some cases in the Caribbean that involve small children and even some Americans.

So anyway, we've got cases everywhere. What I wanted to do is give a short report of one of our team. I won't say what country but I want to just give a short report from from their narrative, their summaries, their investigational reports and arrests just from one week. This is just one task force in one week. This is a task force that we stood up Alan and TC myself ran several years ago, and I will tell you that last week, they rescued 123456789 in children from human trafficking in one week. And with all 10 of those, one was a pair of three children together. So but in every single one of those situations, an arrest was made.

And that person is awaiting prosecution full prosecution while our investigation in and I just cannot emphasize that we can never overstep even one being rescued much less 10 from one group, one task force that never quits doing the job. Wow. Yeah, I know.

That's quite an update. Yeah, these are kids. These are, you know, this is one task for fuel. And this is what lanterns about.

This is a task force that got sustainability that we, you know, work in a country we we got it operational, we've combined it with our employees and least employed and this task force knows the mission set and they're doing it doing it well. You know, as I look even through these cases and see some of them one one kind of comes to mind here where I'm going to try to share some of it without sharing too many of the details because all of these are open investigations, right. But here's one here was a child 13 year old boy. We'll call him most okay. Most is from Country A and he was being moved to not Country B. I'm going to describe it for you because you have to pass through Country B, C and D. So he's going to be being also moved to Country E. All right. So he's from Country A he's being smuggled to Country E and he was full of abduction.

Okay. So he wasn't like, he wasn't an orphan. He wasn't an orphan who was just looking to go to another country. He wasn't someone going under some kind of hopes for even, you know, like labor migration where he's going to go look for jobs, something like that. Not at all, right. This boy was completely abducted.

Okay. And he was he was abducted by a man. And as he was being as he was being taken and moved, his parents, of course, brought us the case and said, you know, we we think he was taken by this man and this is the suspect. So the suspect being from Country E had traveled to Country A, abducted the boy, you know, was introduced to the family. So they actually did they thought he was a businessman, you know, that was there for another opportunity, but he actually took the child and began to make his move. We got the tip and we began to we began to do all the things that we do.

Okay. First of all, that's, you know, looking into the individual. It's running facial rec. It's looking into phone numbers, social media, understanding who this guy is, where he where he says that he resides, how many spatial, how many, how many Facebook accounts did he have? How many Instagram accounts does he have all of that, right?

And so we build out that profile. And then with God's blessing, we actually were able to locate the man. Now the question became, does this man still have the boy?

Right? Does he have the boy or does he have other children with him? You know, where's he at? Well, as we so as that unfolds, and we flesh out this investigation, and we get to that place, then our team goes in and makes the arrest. I can't imagine already what that 13 year old this was a boy, not a girl 13 year old boy had already suffered at the hands of that trafficker, right. And it was clear I there were some that the boy had been exploited in every way. He'd been abused. Obviously, he'd already been abducted and went through that just the kidnapping itself, and then the abuse that followed after that during that.

So the suspect was, you know, fully detained, he's arrested. We, you know, recovered the child, praising the Lord that this all worked out and that we didn't find a child that because I you know, you don't know if you're gonna find a ever find a boy like that again. Or if when you do find him if you know if he was submitted to Oregon harvesting or submitted to even worse things, right. But this boy was taken and you know, his background information, everything mashed with the case, and that was definitely the right boy and able to reunify him with his family. So that 13 year old boy, because of our team, because of our task force, and because we're in a position in place that we're actually gaining tips and intelligence from people around the region, not just one country, but you know, information from country A, B, C, D and E, we were able to act on that and rescue that child. Darrell Bock Wow, you just think, you know, God obviously had people in places all over, you know, to obviously not only rescue this boy, but think of all the cases there would have been if this guy had gotten away with it. James McPhee Yeah, and that's part of the investigation now, how many other children has he trafficked? You know, what has he done with them? What's his purpose? How's he selling them?

Who's he selling them to? You know, all of those kind of things. So you know, that's all part of that. You know, we're also another case from just last week, right before we get a break, I'll tell you another one. This one really also breaks my heart, a 17 year old girl, we call her Amelia. Amelia, you know, she's a juvenile, she's 17. But at about that age, in this particular country, forced marriages is a very prominent thing.

Okay. And forced marriage means not always just from one family to the other saying, hey, you're going to marry this child. But forced marriage meaning she is taken from a family or her, you know, or she's with a single mom, and they're promised something that's not real, and this girl is going to end up in a forced marriage in the process. Well, even according to all the interviews and everything that happened, the suspect was wanting a bride, and he actually visited the village where the victim was a month ago. And he went to the family and said, Hey, I want to marry that that daughter, that girl.

And they said, No, no, no, we, you know, no, she's, she's still a minor, and we're not going to do that. Well, he tries to propose a purchase of her, right? The family at that point did the right thing and said no, but you know, he's being very, becomes very violent. And so he ends up leaving and, you know, they think it's over. Well, it's not he hires a smuggler, he now hires a smuggler and kidnapper to go and abduct the girl and bring her to his country. So the smugglers, you know, revisit the village, and they take the victim a month later, which was just last week and bring her they're bringing her to the next country to force this marriage on her and to, you know, go against your will. And I mean, you know, what's gonna happen for that a forced marriage means rape. It means right, right, right. It means all of those things.

It doesn't mean you know, just a little bit of Oh, I wish you know, I mean, it's horrible what she's going to go through. Right. I had to jump in but I'm going to after the break.

Yeah, we're with the I'm sure everybody's the same. We're sitting where I am like what the world happened. What a story. Oh my goodness. And two different countries. That's the part that just blows me away. So you're gonna want to stay tuned so much more land and rescue.

Coming right back. Lantern rescue is a USA based organization that conducts international rescue operations for people suffering from human trafficking. Lantern specializes in sending former US special operation law enforcement and intelligence personnel to partner with host nations and assist them in creating specialized units to combat ongoing security problems, such as genocide, terrorism, and human trafficking.

As a nonprofit charity, they offer services free of charge to their host nations. Human trafficking has grown into the second largest criminal activity in the world reaching an estimated $150 billion in annual activity. Lantern rescue has developed rapidly to combat trafficking. Lantern operates through a trained international network in order to rescue women and children from sex and labor slavery and facilitates holistic aftercare services.

They're gearing up for operations right now and you can go to lanternrescue.org to see how you can support them financially. Well, welcome back to lantern rescue and the update we're getting today. This man, Mark, God has been hard at work over the last week or so, and we're just giving updates of just what's happened in the last few days. So when we finished up this last segment, we had this poor girl who'd been taken from her house, her family who'd rejected this idea, this marriage, and now she's been moved to the other countries. So tell us what happened.

So when we got the case, we were able to easily find the suspect, were able to easily arrest the smuggler, you know, and to rescue the girl. You know, I just, this happens, though. Oh, so much. And we're not always able to be on site, you know.

I think in the stat, you know, you know, when lantern we know the stat, the my only hesitation to share is because we didn't develop that stat, you know, so I don't know. But I know that I've heard around 12 million girls a year, are forced into marriages are placed in entangled in some type of forced marriage. And a lot of those I know are abductions. And then it's, you know, it's rape. And that's what this particular situation was.

For sure. It wasn't a forced marriage between two families. It was this guy hired his mother to go and abduct her a month later and bring her to his country. We intercepted all the interrogations and all the arrests were made, you know, and I'm just I'm just glad that the family was wise enough, you know, not to allow this man to take her in the first place.

That day, there was no dowry exchange, nothing like that. I hate that this man was able to so quickly and easily find a smuggler who would go and, you know, take a girl 17 year old girl, it's not like taking a seven year old girl with a 17 year old victim, you know, so he had to, you know, bind her and do those things that, you know, we only think of and lose. And it's a nightmare. And, you know, people we talk about human trafficking in states, we all know what it looks like what it doesn't look like. I know in the world, there's different scenarios.

But let me just be real clear on this radio show. Anybody listen for all the other other organizations out there saying that human trafficking is is not abduction, they need to travel a little bit with me and my team, because it is a great deal of his abduction, a great deal of it is kidnapping and, you know, binding people and harming them to, to force them into whatever it is you want to force they want to force them into whether it's, you know, being stuck in a small room. And, you know, in South America, where they've got sleep with 15 victims a day, and all they've got bread and water and a bridge to a girl who is taken from her village and going to be traveled to another country and forced to be married to a guy she doesn't know who's going to rape her that first night. You know, it is violent, it is abduction. And it is that way all around the world.

I'm not trying to spatialize it. I know that that's rare here in the state. I know that, you know, we have those few cases, but and the FBI is on those things and all that home that does a great job. Everybody does a great job here in the state, our police officers and so forth. But in other parts of the world, this happens every stinking day. Okay, and it happens by the 10s of 1000.

And they're not blessed with the law enforcement and resources that we have in the US. So I'm grateful for my task force and my team. And I know that when they did this, when they did just even this case, and that 17 year old girl, girl, girl, life is spared from rape, trauma and everything else. I mean, she's got trauma, obviously, from just being abducted, but the things that were coming at her, oh, my, what a what an amazing rescue operation that that task force did.

And I can't proclaim all their names and who they are on this radio show. But I know in heaven, they're going to be rewarded for it. So, you know, I know. So did they actually get her back before the marriage? Yeah. Oh, yes. Yeah, we made the interception when she was still in the hands of the smuggler. Wow.

What an amazing thing. And I just can't imagine the joy of the family to have their daughter back, which they probably thought was certain she was gone forever. Yeah, I'll tell you another one. This one did involve an orphan. We'll call her Rosie. Rosie was 13. She was an orphan and then was residing with a lady who claimed to be her aunt. You know, that's what the claim was.

We learned otherwise. But basically, this, this lady was enslaving her, okay, from, you know, even from a younger age, then when Rosie turned 13. She's got, you know, she's got more options to make money on this girl, she can keep her a slave, she can sell her as a bride, she can sell her into this 13 year old can be sold into not just residential slavery, but like into some commercial, you know, slavery operation. And so this supposed aunt was negotiating the sale of this girl Rosie, who was 13. And she wanted to sell her the the lady didn't want to keep Rosie nearby. She wanted to sell her to another country, you know. And so she made the connection and that this, this buyer came and said, Hey, yeah, we'd love to buy her. We're going to take her and we're going to put her into a job, you know, and but we're going to pay her, don't worry, and we're going to pay you and all this, right.

I mean, there's no telling the number of lives. It's always when you're listening these interrogations. And even when I'm not there, I want everybody's got to know this, that we produce videos of our interrogation, and also all of our interviews. So we get to review those, see those, right. And so we can teach the trash force.

And when we're there, we can, you know, work on different things. But here, this, this victim was, you know, completely being sold by this, this woman and was being smuggled. And of course, we made we made the interception at a border. Realized I one of our interception officers realized something was suspicious. Then we began to pull into that.

And my task force leader began to do the actual interrogation of the smuggler and then began to develop and understand this whole story. Rosie, though, is now in with, and she was going straight to be exploited. She was already enslaved. She was already missing out on school. But today, Rosie is with social services in that country. She's going to be placed in school. She's already got medical care.

She's got everything that she needs to, to have a change in her life, you know, and beautiful, beautiful 13 year old girl. And so I'm just grateful. Again, there's another example from the 10 of just last week, just from one task force. This is another success and another slam dunk by the team.

Darrell Bock Oh, my goodness. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's one thing for the other victims. They had parents who cared about them and all those things, you know, that obviously were part of the equation.

But Rosie, you know, had no one but the Lord, but he still saw her, right? And again, he put those people in that task force. And, you know, what an amazing thing that God allows us, those of all of us who are listening, to be aware of what he's doing through Land and Rescue and all these governments really that are all part of what's going on. And that's the part that I think is so encouraging is this. It's not just all the volunteers. It's actually the governments and everybody cooperating to get these things under control. Right, right. It really is.

It is. And, you know, the hard ones are I just shared three cases of success. I'll share one two weeks ago, two weeks ago, we got a tip, a baby was being had been abducted and was being smuggled and was going to be moved through a region of the world at night. And the whole team in that region, that whole task force deployed at night, they spanned out, you know, a large distance, many, many kilometers apart from each other, just rotating through forest, working through, you know, big places that we know smugglers use setting up on even areas of highway that we know they'll cross over. And, you know, the team, we had all the information, we do with the child look like we knew everything. And but we're, we aren't successfully able to retrieve that that victim, right. And I know that was hard for the task force, because they got the intelligence, they did what they should do, they reacted quickly, they mobilize, they got into the right areas where, as far as our intelligence that that would have been that smuggling would cross with that that baby.

We even all we even dug deep into the nearby country to where we know traffickers like to work from, you know, we did everything we possibly could do. But we came up empty handed, you know, and you you you take 24 hours, 48 hours of your life and team and you don't eat, you don't sleep in and you do the hard things hoping it results in a rescue and it doesn't, you know, that's a hard one for that's a hard one for the team, right. No, man, but we don't give up. We're not going to give up that team's not going to give up, you know, and they're going to keep they're going to keep doing what we've trained them to do. And I admire that in them. Which just highlights, you know, one of the neat things that God's doing with this program, right?

Everybody listening right now knows man, I mean, we need to be praying for this child, we need to be praying for that team, we need to be praying for the other children that are going. It's a needle in a haystack sometimes. It is, it's a needle in a haystack.

You know, when you're working in countries where there's not even street addresses, right, sometimes, you know, it's very hard. But again, God knows just like he knew in those other situations. And, you know, everyone that's captured, you know, you stop who knows how many other children from having the same, you know, horrible experience as we get those people behind bars and under custody and those kind of things. Well, hey, we're just about out of time, Mark. But how do you want to leave our listeners?

Yeah. Hey, let me remind our listeners this too. Because we've grown as an organization. And if you're on our website, or you've seen us grow, you've seen us grow into this. You know, originally, our mission set was only human trafficking victims. Well, that's what we talked about. But we actually also work all the time in our operation, helping those who are persecuted and other things.

You know, today, we're very clear about lantern lantern. You know, we unite with nations, and we combat human trafficking. And we rescued the exploited, the persecuted, and the displaced. And today, we've talked about the exploited, we've talked about human trafficking cases. But even as I sit here in every breath share with you about human trafficking cases, we've got cases approaching, I've got three people right now being moved out of, well, you know, one of the worst Middle East countries.

And now that we don't, the US doesn't have access to it. So, you know, we're moving three people there, a father and a daughter, and then another individual, a Christian who's a former Muslim Christian. And then in this place, you know, this morning, I woke up to our entire all of our operations in Ukraine received a bomb threat.

Okay. And, you know, we're trying to help displaced people, but you know, we received a bomb threat that's in addition to the air raids and the air strikes and everything else. They receive a direct bomb threat in the location of facility, our facility. So you know, I'm grateful that they're safe today. So and we rescued the exploited, the persecuted, and the displaced and we do it in violent areas, we do it hard areas.

We do it in hands with countries, and we're trying to help them all that we can to build sustainable programs. And a week like after last week, though, it's a great success to share with you one task force, in rescues, seven arrests. That's what I'm talking about, Robbie. That's what I'm talking about. You know what I mean?

Like that's a good week. It really, really is. And so again, we'd ask that you'd part where they're with us. In prayer financially, if the Lord puts it on your heart, it's lanternrescue.org. Thank you so much, Mark. Thanks, brother. God bless you. This is the Truth Network.