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HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND TRANSNATIONAL 

ORGANIZED CRIME: ASSESSING TRENDS 

AND COMBAT STRATEGIES 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND 

COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

NOVEMBER 3, 2011 

Printed for the use of the 

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 

[CSCE 112–1–10] 

( 

Available via http://www.csce.gov 
COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS 

HOUSE SENATE 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, 

Chairman 

JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania 

ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama 

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia 

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas 

ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida 

LOUISE McINTOSH SLAUGHTER, 

New York 

MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland, 

Co-Chairman 

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island 

TOM UDALL, New Mexico 

JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire 

RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut 

ROBERT F. WICKER, Mississippi 

SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia 

MARCO RUBIO, Florida 

KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire 

EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS 

MICHAEL H. POSNER, Department of State 

MICHAEL C. CAMUN ̃ EZ, Department of Commerce 

ALEXANDER VERSHBOW, Department of Defense 

(II) 
HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND TRANSNATIONAL 

ORGANIZED CRIME: ASSESSING TRENDS 

AND COMBAT STRATEGIES 

NOVEMBER 3, 2011 

COMMISSIONERS 

Page 

Hon. Christopher H. Smith, Chairman, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe .............................................. 1 

Hon. Marco Rubio, Commissioner, Commission on Security 

and Cooperation in Europe ..................................................... 3 

Hon. Steve Cohen, Commissioner, Commission on Security 

and Cooperation in Europe ..................................................... 25 

WITNESSES 

Greg Andres, Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the 

Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice .................... 3 

Piero Bonadeo, Deputy Representative to the United Nations 

Office on Drugs and Crime, New York .................................. 9 

Martina Vandenberg, Pro Bono Counsel, The Freedom Network USA ................................................................................. 14 

APPENDICES 

Prepared statement of Hon. Christopher H. Smith ................. 28 

Prepared statement of Hon. Benjamin L. Cardin .................... 30 

Prepared statement of Marco Rubio .......................................... 31 

Prepared statement of Greg Andres .......................................... 32 

Prepared statement of Piero Bonadeo ....................................... 39 

Prepared statement of Martina Vandenberg ............................ 42 

(III) 

(1) 

HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND TRANSNATIONAL 

ORGANIZED CRIME: ASSESSING TRENDS 

AND COMBAT STRATEGIES 

November 3, 2011 

COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE

WASHINGTON, DC 

The hearing was held at 10 a.m. in room B-318, Rayburn House 

Office Building, Washington, DC, Hon. Marco Rubio, Commissioner, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, presiding. 

Commissioners present: Hon. Christopher H. Smith, Chairman, 

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe; Hon. Marco 

Rubio, Commissioner, Commission on Security and Cooperation in 

Europe; and Hon. Steve Cohen, Commissioner, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. 

Witnesses present: Greg Andres, Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice; Piero 

Bonadeo, Deputy Representative to the United Nations Office on 

Drugs and Crime, New York; and Martina Vandenberg, Pro Bono 

Counsel, The Freedom Network. 

HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, CHAIRMAN, COMMISSION ON 

SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

The Commission will come to order, and good morning to everybody. Thank you for being here for this hearing on the Commission 

on Security and Cooperation in Europe—human trafficking and 

transnational organized crime, assessing trends and combat strategies. This morning we’ll be talking about human trafficking, as we 

have done so often in the past on this Commission. In 1998, some 

of you may know, I introduced the Trafficking Victims Protection 

Act, and not long after that chaired this Commission’s first hearing 

on human trafficking. 

At that time, the idea that human trafficking even existed was— 

and was widespread—was met with a wall of skepticism and opposition. People, whether in government or not, thought the bold new 

strategy of the TVPA, although we had a different name for it 

then—we finally added that name near the end of the process—but 

they thought that sheltering, asylum and other protections for victims, long jail sentence and asset confiscation for the traffickers, 

and tough sanctions for governments that fail to meet minimum 

standards, were merely a solution in search of a problem. 
2 

Today, few would deny that the scourge of human trafficking, 

though often hidden, is in fact very widespread. Back in the 1990s, 

the term ‘‘trafficking’’ was applied almost exclusively to illicit drugs 

or weapons. Reports of vulnerable persons, especially woman and 

children, being reduced to objects for sale were met with surprise, 

incredulity or indifference. It took two years to educate people, especially in the U.S. House and Senate, to muster the votes for passage of the legislation. 

Today as we explore the links between transnational organized 

crime and trafficking, I’d like to start by pointing out that there is 

a new frontier in the fight against human trafficking. Years ago 

human traffickers were not highly organized and were not typically 

connected to gangs. They were involved in other kinds of organized 

crime. This is less and less true today, and we need to consider 

how methods of fighting human trafficking need to adapt. We know 

that human trafficking, or modern-day slavery, is the third-most 

lucrative criminal activity in the world. According to the International Labor Organization, ILO, human traffickers made profits 

in excess of $31 billion a year. And so it is not surprising that more 

and more organized criminal groups are engaging in modern-day 

slavery. And, of course, while drug and arms traffickers have a 

commodity that can be sold only once, human traffickers can purchase a slave and continually exploit that individual until he 

makes his money back and then some. And obviously, it is very, 

very lucrative. 

This is a complex subject. It is marked by the growing ingenuity 

of organized criminal groups, the difficulty of knowing what or who 

passes over increasingly porous borders, and the gangs’ use of modern technologies. All this has obscured the activities of many syndicates, and made learning about fighting their activities very difficult. Yet, it is not impossible and simply has to be done, because 

so many vulnerable people—so many lives are at stake. 

I’d like to conclude with one very important point: the premise 

that must shape how we approach the fight against transnational 

organized crime as it diversifies its operations into human trafficking. Human beings are more important than drugs and guns, 

of course. Our allocation of effort and resources which investigate, 

and our prosecutorial strategies, need to reflect this. This needs to 

be the highest possible priority. 

Today we are joined by a panel of experts on transnational organized crime and human trafficking who will shed light on current 

patterns and countermeasures. Their combined expertise should 

paint a clear picture of organized crime’s involvement in human 

trafficking, and what can be done to help to stop it. 

With us today is Mr. Greg Andres, the current deputy assistant 

attorney general in the crime division, where he supervises the organized crime section at the Department of Justice. Mr. Andres 

comes to us with over a decade of experience working on organized 

crime issues. We will then be joined by Mr. Piero Bonadeo, deputy 

representative for the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime in New 

York. Mr. Bonadeo’s testimony will bring the UNODC’s years of experience in combating transnational organized crime. 

And finally, we will have Ms. Martina Vandenberg, a seasoned 

attorney with years of experience combating trafficking in persons 
3 

as well as in broader human rights context of Bosnia and 

Herzegovina, Kosovo and the Russian Federation and Uzbekistan— 

all of which have significant human trafficking histories and problems and are of great interest to our Commission. Mr. Greg Andres, I would like to now turn this over to you for your comments. 

GREG ANDRES, DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR 

THE CRIMINAL DIVISION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE 

Mr. ANDRES. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Smith. Thank 

you for inviting me to speak with you this morning about the 

threat posed by human trafficking and transnational organized 

crime, the efforts of the Department of Justice is taking to address 

those threats, and the steps that Congress can take that will assist 

us in those efforts. 

The fight against transnational organized crime is one of the 

highest enforcement priorities of the Department of Justice. Together with the United States Attorneys’ Office and our many partners in law enforcement, the Criminal Division investigates and 

prosecutes cases involving transnational organized crime all over 

the country, indeed, all over the world. The threats posed by these 

groups are significant and growing. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Andres, if you could just suspend for one—and 

I apologize for the rudeness of the intervention—but would—there’s 

a markup in the Foreign Affairs Committee that I must be at—two 

bills are going to be voted on right now. Thankfully, Senator Mark 

Rubio is here and will take the chair. And when you conclude this 

statement, he will give his statement. And I do thank you for your 

understanding. 

HON. MARCO RUBIO, COMMISSIONER, COMMISSION ON 

SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

Mr. RUBIO. Thank you, Chairman. Welcome. I don’t get to chair 

a lot of things around here, so—people continue. Thank you. 

Mr. ANDRES. Good morning, Commissioner Rubio. 

In recognition of the issues with respect to transnational organized crime, in July the administration released its strategy to 

combat transnational organized crime, which sets forth a whole-ofgovernment response to the threat. At the Department of Justice, 

we are committed to the fight against transnational organized 

crime and human trafficking, and we have enjoyed certain successes to date as to both. 

In the area of human trafficking, the department last month secured the racketeering convictions of two brothers who ran a 

human trafficking scheme. That scheme involved smuggling young 

Ukrainian immigrants into the United States and forcing them to 

work without pay through threats and assault, sexual abuse and 

debt-bondage. Roughly six months earlier, in May of this year in 

a separate case, a Uzbek national was sentenced to 12 years in 

prison after he pled guilty to racketeering conspiracy, which 

charged a scheme to recruit and exploit dozens of workers from Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines and elsewhere, and 

force those individuals to work in hospitality jobs in at least 14 

states through threats of deportation and financial penalties. 
4 

Many of our human trafficking cases involve loosely affiliated 

networks of individuals engaged in the exploitation of human trafficking victims. These criminals tend to utilize smuggling pipelines 

and money-laundering conduits operated by other criminal groups, 

and whose services the traffickers procure for their own purposes. 

On occasion, human traffickers themselves belong to a larger organized crime group or enterprise. In some cases, criminals may operate transnationally, recruiting victims overseas with false promises—good jobs in the United States—and threatening retaliation 

against their overseas families if they try to escape once they realize their true predicament. 

To the extent that these networks or groups are committing portions of their crimes abroad, our investigations and prosecutions of 

these organizations and crimes must overcome significant obstacles. At a minimum, pursuing an investigation abroad is often 

time-consuming and delays can be significant. These delays can undermine our investigations. Tracking down criminals abroad often 

requires the cooperation of foreign law enforcement agencies. 

Furthermore, even if we locate our targets, many of the investigative tools for gathering evidence are not available in the international context. In many countries we cannot employ Title III-type 

wiretaps against perpetrators, or secure routine surveillance. Nor 

can we, in most cases, send an undercover agent to gather incriminating statements. Sometimes the country’s law enforcement agencies may not have the level of training or the technology to implement the necessary investigative steps, even if they were authorized to do so. 

Arresting lower-level members of the organization and persuading them to cooperate against higher-level bosses is also extremely difficult, and may require the approval and cooperation of 

foreign authorities. Finally, many countries have laws which ban 

the extradition of their own citizens to foreign countries for prosecution. There are important steps that we can take to better address extraterritorial threats and the increasing global reach of 

transnational criminal organizations. 

The Department of Justice, together with our partners, have developed a package of legislative proposals to ensure that federal 

laws keep us up with the rapid evolution of organized criminal activity. 

We need to change our existing money laundering, asset forfeiture, narcotics and racketeering laws. Additional proposals recognize that an increasingly global law enforcement environment, 

witness security and the protection of foreign witnesses must also 

be available. This last provision may be of particular help in situations where a foreign government is helping us to prosecute an 

international human trafficking ring, but is unable to protect its 

witnesses. 

I’m happy to discuss these proposals and to answer any questions. Thank you very much. 

Mr. RUBIO. Thank you. Thank you very much. And I’ll couch my 

question in the form of the opening statement. 

First—to thank you for being here, and all those who are here 

to testify and be a part of this hearing on this important issue. I’m 

grateful to the chairman and the co-chairman for allowing us to 
5 

hold these hearings and—on what I think is a shocking issue that 

I was not fully aware of before I got here—although I’d heard about 

it. And I think many Americans are unaware of the extent to which 

this issue impacts the country in the world that—we tend to think 

of slavery as something that happened 150 years ago or 200 years 

ago or in other places. But we don’t realize that even here, today, 

in the United States, there are people that are being held against 

their will. 

Obviously, we will talk a little bit about sexual exploitation, but 

there’s also all kinds of other elements to this including forced 

labor and domestic servitude. And we’ve seen those stories and the 

kind of the parameters that are pretty broad in terms of what 

qualifies as human slavery that exist to this day. I appreciate the 

work that you guys do on these issues. This is a cutting-edge issue 

that I think we have an opportunity to create awareness on, because—and I think in our questions we’ll get to some of that. I 

think awareness of the existence of this will help us identify domestic victims. 

And I think internationally, our country has taken the lead in 

terms of the role we’ve played in classifying countries to compliance, and the tier system has taken the lead in terms of calling attention to this human rights issue. And one of the things that always adds to our nation is when we are strong spokespersons on 

behalf of human rights all over the world. And I can think of no 

issue that has a higher priority—or should have a higher priority 

than the issue of trafficking persons and human slavery. 

So with that, let me—a couple questions that I have. I think the 

first is—you talked a little bit about the—obviously the Department of Justice has a long history of prosecuting organized crime 

cases. This human trafficking element is a relatively new component of how we are approaching these organized crime organizations. How has that forced you to—and I think you talked about 

it a little bit in your statement—but how has that forced you to 

alter how you strategize with regard to interacting with these 

groups? What new dynamics does it present from the traditional 

activities that organized crime has largely been linked to—in trafficking in drugs, et cetera. 

And second of all, is the law caught up with the realities of what 

it takes to prosecute, whether it’s how hard it is to get witnesses 

or reliable information, those sorts of things? I mean, I guess my— 

the basic question I have is: This is kind of a new problem that 

you’re facing as you confront these organized crime operations. And 

organized crime itself has changed as well. Are our laws up to date 

with the 21st-century realities of prosecuting organized crime—in 

particular when it comes to the trafficking of people? 

Mr. ANDRES. Thank you, Commissioner Rubio. One thing that’s 

certainly clear about organized crime—and organized crime, even 

traditional Cosa Nostra domestic organized crime organizations 

have traditionally evolved, rather significantly, over the last decades. The abiding principle of organized crime groups is they exist 

for the purpose of making money—period. 

And the fact that human trafficking is an opportunity to generate additional revenues certainly makes it alluring to organized 

crime groups, both here in the United States and internationally. 
6 

So even as we’ve seen when we’ve prosecuted domestically the mob, 

we’ve seen they’ve changed from tactics like murder and extortion 

to now being involved in white-collar crimes or Wall Street. So 

we’re certainly used to the changing nature of organized crime, and 

the fact that it adapts as we adapt our law enforcement strategies. 

There is an international component here. It’s not the only component, but there is an international component here. And our laws 

do need to be updated to address those international concerns. 

When you talk about investigating cases internationally, you have 

to start with cooperation by foreign governments. That’s essential. 

In some of these countries where there is trafficking and organized 

crime influence, we don’t always have the cooperation of those governments. There’s corruption in many of those places, and so there 

are difficulties with respect to that issue. 

On the legislative front, and briefly, we need to update our racketeering laws so that international organized crime groups that are 

operating abroad and don’t have as many physical touches to the 

United States, but that are affecting the United States—the organizations but also their money and their use of the United States 

financial system to launder their money. We need to update our 

witness protection provisions, which allow us to secure witnesses 

who may be involved in prosecutions abroad and that are helping 

foreign governments convict and prosecute these enterprises 

abroad. So we do need to update our laws. 

Let me just finish by saying, we have had successes and we have 

been concentrating on this issue. I think the administration’s strategy on transnational organized crime is another effort to highlight 

the problem of human trafficking. But you should be confident that 

the prosecutors in the Department of Justice, primarily in the Civil 

Rights Division, have taken an active role in prosecuting these 

cases. 

And if I could just give you one example as it relates to Mexico. 

Since 2009, our prosecutors have been working—along with the 

agents in the FBI and ICE—have been working collaboratively 

with Mexican law enforcement officials on arrests, convictions both 

here in the United States and Mexico. We’ve helped to rescue victims as part of this bilateral cooperation; reunify U.S. victims with 

their families, returning them from Mexico. 

We’ve had success with prosecutions here in the United States, 

both in Atlanta—in the United States versus Ruggiero—and also in 

Miami in United States versus Cortez-Castro. So we do have working relationships with foreign governments. That is a vital part of 

this strategy because so much of the evidence, as it related to international organized crime, exists abroad. 

Mr. RUBIO. In terms of the witnesses, the victims, is the current 

structure and nature of our immigration system make it easier for 

these crimes to happen? In essence how is the existing immigration 

structure, complicated visa process, what have you, the existing 

lack thereof or existence of a for lack of a better term the guestworker program. 

It’s not really a guest-worker program but that’s how it really 

functions as. The way our system, our visa program, is currently 

structured today, does it make it harder to prosecute these cases? 
7 

And more importantly, have the traffickers actually figured out 

how to use the system to their benefit? 

Mr. ANDRES. I think the latter is important here, that is, traffickers have used that to exploit the system and to lure people, basically, here to the United States. So through use of the Internet 

or other means to publicize this, those who are interested in committing the crime of human trafficking— 

Mr. RUBIO. Explain to me briefly how they use the system as it’s 

currently structured today. How do they use the current visa system to get people in the country and then kind of trap them here, 

right? 

Mr. ANDRES. Sure, they lure them here with—under the guise of 

getting a guest-worker visa or some other type visa that they may 

apply for. And once they get here, they then exploit those individuals. Obviously, a lot of the human trafficking problem preys on 

the vulnerability of people here in the United States, whether it’s 

a vulnerability because they’re not from the United States—they 

don’t have families and relatives here. They don’t know the system; 

they don’t know the laws. 

So traffickers are able to lure them here to the United States, 

and then basically enslave them to do a variety of different things, 

whether it’s involved in the sex trade or it’s involved as laborers. 

They basically lure them here and then entrap them once they 

have them here and are able to control their lives. 

Mr. RUBIO. Their visas are linked to a specific employer, right? 

Basically that—whoever it is they brought them in to work for? 

Mr. ANDRES. I believe that’s true. But I don’t know that specifically. But we certainly could look into that, Senator, and get back 

to you. 

Mr. RUBIO. Now, in terms of once you find a victim, or a witness, 

or both, how hard is it to get them to cooperate if—for example depending on their status in the country, their fear of family abroad, 

and what kind of measures have you looked at? Because one of the 

things I’ve read about is once you identify a victim, the victim is 

probably very insecure about their own status, their own ability— 

kind of where they stand on this whole thing and where it’s going 

to lead them. 

What’s your sense of how hard has it been to get victims to become witnesses, how—and to become reliable witnesses and to—cooperative ones as a result of two things—number one is their status or their fear and number two is maybe their family abroad? 

Mr. ANDRES. So, let me say two things: One distinction with respect to dealing with victims in human trafficking cases are—they 

certainly have different status; that is, having gone through the ordeal of being a victim in those cases, there are additional challenges that we have to deal with. I think our law enforcement partners in the FBI and ICE and other agencies have developed an expertise in dealing with those victims. 

As for cooperating, again, that’s not new to us. That’s not a new 

struggle for people who’ve been involved in prosecuting organized 

crime cases. Obviously when we’ve done it domestically, whether 

it’s an MS-13 gang or the Gambino family, there are always individuals who are afraid of retaliation by those organized crime 

groups. That’s why things like the witness protection program have 
8 

been a vital part of our fight against organized crime, and there is 

a new proposal that will extend that internationally. So we can use 

some of the tools that we already have and have been using to fight 

organized crime in the context of human trafficking, to provide a 

safe and secure location for people so that they can have the confidence to go into court and testify against those involved in these 

crimes. 

Mr. RUBIO. I think my last question is, with regards to the 

groups that are actually conducting this, obviously we—the 

transnational—the big groups with the brand names, are the ones 

we know a lot about. But there’s some emerging evidence of some 

smaller scale groups, for lack of a better term mom-and-pop, family-run operations that are a handful of family—I mean, I’ve read 

anecdotally; maybe I’m wrong—but I’ve read anecdotally there’s a 

number of smaller scale operations where it’s really three or four 

people. 

How—do they present a different challenge in prosecuting and 

identifying, number one? And number two, is there a specific kind 

of trafficking that they’re more involved in than, say, the bigger 

transnational groups? 

Mr. ANDRES. There is no question that there is a change in organized crime both domestically and internationally, that there are 

emerging groups, that are smaller groups. They don’t necessarily 

have household names. 

Luckily under our racketeering laws, you don’t have to have a 

name or be a recognized group to be charged under racketeering 

because we can charge you with being an association in fact. So, 

if there are a group of individuals, even if it’s a family organization 

or a family group, we can charge them together as an enterprise. 

Some of the legislative proposals that we have add state law crimes 

as slavery and other related human trafficking offenses as RICO 

predicates. So we’re able to attack them with our racketeering 

laws. 

So the updates in the law will address that and, again, I’m not 

sure that the challenge—there are some different challenges, but to 

the extent that we can use our racketeering laws, that’s helpful 

and, again, we have had some success in doing that. Our civil 

rights prosecutors have been working with our organized crime 

prosecutors to bring RICO cases. There was recently a series of 

brothers who were charged in Philadelphia with importing victims, 

and we were able to charge what was basically a family-run operation with importing victims for the purposes of human trafficking. 

So, again, we do need to update our laws, but some of the past 

strategies that we’ve used for organized crime, we’re able to adapt 

those, together with the new legislation, we believe we’ll be able to 

be successful in prosecuting these groups. 

Mr. RUBIO. Thank you very much for your time today and your 

testimony. We appreciate it. Thank you. 

Mr. ANDRES. Thank you. 

Mr. RUBIO. I guess our next witness is a Mr. Piero Bonadeo. 

How are you? Give you a few minutes to set up. Thank you for 

coming today. 
9 

PIERO BONADEO, DEPUTY REPRESENTATIVE TO THE UNITED 

NATIONS OFFICE ON DRUGS AND CRIME, NEW YORK 

Mr. BONADEO. Thank you. Thank you for inviting the UNODC 

and for allowing us to bring some international perspective to this 

important discussion. 

On behalf of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, a 

sincere thanks to the Commission on Security and Cooperation in 

Europe for inviting me to speak. The cooperation spirit of the Commission as well as the one of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has often supported the United Nations Office 

on Drugs and Crime and the United Nations Global Initiative to 

Fight Human Trafficking. 

Human trafficking is a truly global phenomenon and a crime 

which affects nearly every part of the world, whether as a source, 

transit or destination country. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Human Trafficking Report, released in 

2009, victims from at least 127 countries have been identified, and 

this is estimated that the more than 2.4 million people are being 

exploited by criminals at any given time. 

More than a decade after the adoption of the protocol to prevent, 

suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and 

children, supplementing the United Nations Convention Against 

Transnational Organized Crime, the Palermo Convention, the largest majority of countries have criminalized most forms of human 

trafficking in their legislation. Nevertheless, the use of such laws 

to prosecute and convict traffickers remains limited. In 2009 ‘‘Global Report on Trafficking Persons,’’ for instance, two out of every 

five countries covered in the report had never recorded a single 

conviction for human trafficking offenses. 

The demand of trafficking victims, especially those related to sexual exploitation, remains high, particularly in Europe. According to 

the United Nation Office on Drugs and Crime Organized Crime 

Threat Assessment, the majority of the victims detected in Europe 

come from the Balkans and the former Soviet Union, including 

countries such as Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, the Russian Federation and the Republic of Moldova. With regard to victims originating in South America, mostly from Brazil, they are being sent 

to destinations such as Spain, Italy, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. African victims are 

sourced mainly in West Africa although North African victims 

seems to be increasing. Finally, Asian victims are mainly originating in Thailand; mostly recently Chinese, Vietnamese and Cambodian victims are also increasing. 

Traffickers remain using deception and coercion as the main instrument to recruit victims. As recent trend, women seem notably 

only involved in recruiting other women, but also playing the role 

of guardians in the countries of destination of victims. Another 

crime is that, in the case of Europe, the perpetrators are frequently 

not nationals of the country where they operate, but often national 

of the same countries as their victims. 

Distinguished Commissioner, cooperation is fundamental to combat the exploitation of women, children and men by human traffickers. With the outcome of our own efforts to gather information 

from member states, trafficking in persons for forced labor is the 
10 

second most reported form of exploitation. But we share with all 

of you a concern that this form of trafficking is less frequently detected and reported than trafficking in persons for sexual exploitation. Labor traffic just until recently was started to be taken into 

consideration by the world community. Prosecution and criminalization of this particular type of trafficking also needs to be set in 

practice. 

UNODC is helping to shine a powerful light on this crime. Working with others, in particular the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, we are developing clear strategies to meet 

government and civil society concerns. In doing so, UNODC brings 

a unique criminal justice approach. As the guardian of the United 

Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, we 

have ready-made legal framework for international cooperation and 

the prevention of human trafficking. Thanks to the convention, police no longer have to stop at frontiers while criminals cross them 

frequently. 

We should also not forget how human trafficking is related to instability. When social and political upheaval exists, as in North Africa at present, our work is even more important in such turbulent 

and disordered regions. 

Trafficking in human beings is one of the most lucrative forms 

of organized crime, estimated to generate 32 billion U.S. dollars in 

gross proceeds each year. Criminal assets arising from this grave 

violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms may be invested in legitimate and criminal activities, challenging economic 

security and fueling corruption and undermining the rule of law. 

In a bid to answer these questions, UNODC has developed a 

database of human trafficking case law to provide immediate public 

access to officially documented instances of this crime. The database contains details of the nationalities of victims and perpetrators, trafficking routes, verdicts and other information related to 

prosecuted cases around the world. As such, it provides not only 

statistics on the number of prosecutions and convictions, but also 

the real-life stories of trafficked persons as documented in the 

courts. 

A little over a year ago the General Assembly passed by consensus the United Nations Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons; promoted universal ratification of the United 

Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and 

the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, as well as other relevant 

international instruments that address trafficking in persons and 

reinforce the implementation of existing instruments against trafficking in persons and building on the relevant subregional, regional and cross-regional mechanisms and initiatives. 

An important operationalization of the global plan of action and 

another mechanism promoting the right to an effective remedy for 

victims of trafficking is the United Nations Voluntary Trust Fund 

for Victims of Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, launched last November in New York. The fund, managed by 

UNODC, provides humanitarian, legal and financial aid to victims 

of trafficking in persons through established channels of assistance, 
11 

such as governments, nongovernmental organizations and international organizations. 

I would like to conclude the statement by thanking the U.S. government in supporting not only the actions of the United Nations 

Office of Drugs and Crime, but the international community at 

large. We have an excellent cooperation with the office of the Ambassador Louis C. de Baca, especially on human trafficking. 

Thank you. 

Mr. RUBIO. Thank you for your testimony, and I actually read it 

before today as well. 

Mr. BONADEO. OK. 

Mr. RUBIO. Thanks for the audience and for repeating it to me. 

A few quick questions just on the role of the United States: How 

big a role does the United States play with the office, in particular 

with your operation? In terms of the funding and personnel and et 

cetera, how would you characterize the U.S.’s role today, and how 

important is it? 

Mr. BONADEO. Well, in general, the U.S. government is one of the 

largest contributors to UNODC. Of course, it’s contributing to support and implement projects that are addressing transnational organized crime in general; so I cannot tell you now how much of this 

money is going to projects related to human trafficking. 

Of course, the fact that there is a trust fund now. It’s managed 

by UNODC, but is a U.N. trust fund that is basically supporting 

nations—mainly implemented by nongovernmental organizations 

around the world as a way of increasing the U.S. support to this 

kind of problem at multilateral level. So it’s a relevant contribution, as I said, and is addressing transnational organized crime in 

general. 

Mr. RUBIO. Now, when these organizations look to recruit, for 

lack of a better term, victims, what are the conditions—what are 

the underlying conditions that create fertile ground for that? What 

are the markers of a society that tell you that they’re vulnerable 

to this sort of activity? 

Mr. BONADEO. Well, in the U.N.—United Nations Global Plan of 

Action Against Human Trafficking [sic], there are somehow recognition of the basic elements that are somehow fostering human 

trafficking and those are, of course, underdevelopment, poverty. 

And most recently we have been seeing that in countries that are 

also affected by instability due to— political instability due to 

transnational organized-crime type of activities, in particular drug 

trafficking, also human trafficking is somehow increasing. 

I’m thinking about West Africa, for instance, as a region that is 

under attack by drug traffickers, and we have been seeing how 

there is an increase of smuggling of migrants and human trafficking coming from that region. So, to the traditional issues of 

underdevelopment and poverty, there is this new element of instability that organized crime organization are also exploiting for increasing their human trafficking activity. 

Mr. RUBIO. So, when we look at source countries or source areas 

for victims, what you’re basically looking at is a combination of the 

society where people don’t see economic opportunities, deep poverty 

and despair, combined with a government that’s either unwilling or 
12 

unable to stop these predators from coming in and taking advantage of that? 

Mr. BONADEO. Correct. 

Mr. RUBIO. And then—so on that question of governments that 

are unwilling or unable to take care of it, how many of them—and 

you can identify them if you want to—but how big a problem do 

we have of nations that don’t want to do anything about this because the transnational entities have corrupted the government 

and have basically allowed them to—or gotten them to look the 

other way? 

Mr. BONADEO. Well, as I said, the protocol to the Palermo Convention is the most powerful tool that the international community 

has available for pushing those governments that are not responsive or are not doing enough to do something. A hundred and fortysix countries are parties to the protocol, but of course, being party 

doesn’t mean that the protocol is fully implemented and the countries that are somehow trying to cooperate on this issue could also 

take advantage of the protocol itself. For instance, mutual legal assistance is one of the elements included in the protocol and is always helping in cooperation—making it possible—cooperation 

amongst countries on criminal justice aspect of human trafficking. 

Mr. RUBIO. What I’m trying to figure out—— 

Mr. BONADEO. Yeah. 

Mr. RUBIO. ——and you, because of your global view on this, is 

how many—obviously I think we know that there are countries 

that would like—we have that tier system that our State Department uses—I think there are countries that would want to improve 

if they had the resources to do it, and obviously there are mechanisms in place to help them. Is there any evidence of a significant 

number of either national governments or local governments in 

these places that are in essence cooperating with the traffickers 

and with these organizations because they’ve been corrupted, because they’re being paid off, because of some mutually beneficial 

arrangement? I mean, is that a significant part of the problem? 

Mr. BONADEO. Is there—well, we are going to release a new 

human trafficking report in 2012. The office is precisely working on 

this—on this study, so all those elements will be highlighted in the 

new study, and we are also working on the new UNODC global 

threat assessment, which is trying to highlight how organized 

crime in all its forms are somehow affecting the stability of countries. 

Of course, there is a link between instability, corruption and the 

inability of countries and governments to properly address this 

issue. Corruption is not only fueling human trafficking and activities of the international organized crime organizations; it is also 

fueling instability and, as I said, I’m always referring to West Africa because it’s the most evident example of how corruption—and 

generated by transnational organized crime—is really basically failing governments of the countries. 

Mr. RUBIO. And this is probably another question for some other 

advocates as well, but what I would ask is, are there any jurisdictions in the world—cities or countries—that are basically known— 

that we know are tolerating this or maybe even encouraging it? In 

essence, they’re sending out the message that this is the place to 
13 

come to find victims? Or this is the place to come to participate in 

these acts—and as particularly when it comes to sexual exploitation? Are there any countries in the world who are generally regarded as places where this is tolerated and maybe even encouraged as either a source or as a destination? 

Mr. BONADEO. There are, but I— 

Mr. RUBIO. —find them? Like who would—and maybe you don’t 

want to tell me, but how do I—— 

Mr. BONADEO. Maybe if you re-read the report of the U.S. government on this issue, you can find some— 

Mr. RUBIO. OK. 

Mr. BONADEO. But, as the U.N., we are not really pointing the 

finger at over one country or another; we are looking more at the 

regional level—this phenomenon from the regional point of view 

and the route of traffickers. So there are. 

Mr. RUBIO. The last question is, I would imagine that awareness 

is a big—if most people knew that what they were being recruited 

in—not most people, but if anyone knew that they were being recruited into slavery via forced labor, sexual exploitation, they 

wouldn’t go. So obviously, they’re being deceived. 

In addition, as a society, if everyone knew the signs of this, people would understand it, would recognize it and call it out. And I 

think that’s true for some governments, that if they had the ability 

to recognize this stuff or were sensitive to it—a lot of this is just 

an issue of awareness. It’s hard to believe that this is happening. 

It’s hard for people to accept that. 

Well, how much of a challenge is that awareness aspect of it 

around the world? Clearly, in a society like the one that you live 

in or I live in with massive number of communications operations, 

news 24 hours, multiple newspapers, more news than you ever 

want or need, it’s one way to create awareness for these issues, but 

I would imagine, especially in many of these source countries, the 

fact that this even exists is hard to disseminate and hard to explain to people. I mean, is that an accurate assessment? And what 

strategies are there in place to overcome that? 

Mr. BONADEO. At multilateral level? Well, first of all, awareness 

is essential. And raising visibility around this issue is even more 

important, especially in countries of source. At multilateral level, 

we are running a global campaign called the Blue Heart Campaign, 

which is somehow raising visibility and also bringing to the potential victims what are their rights and how they can somehow avoid 

a certain situation or detect in advance being in certain situation 

that are then leading them to be victims of human trafficking. 

So in any of the UNODC projects that are addressing the human 

trafficking around the world, there is also a component on awareness, especially in the country of Africa and especially for projects 

implemented in Southeast Asia. So it’s there, the message sometimes is well received; sometimes it’s not received. So there is a 

huge, huge effort that this—should still be done on this issue. 

Mr. RUBIO. Thank you very much for your work and for your testimony. 

Mr. BONADEO. Thank you. 

Mr. RUBIO. We appreciate it. Thank you. 

Mr. BONADEO. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. 
14 

Mr. RUBIO. And I think our last witness today is Ms. Martina 

Vandenberg, who is the counsel for Freedom Network USA. 

MARTINA VANDENBERG, PRO BONO COUNSEL, THE FREEDOM 

NETWORK USA 

Ms. VANDENBERG. Thank you very much, Senator Rubio. It’s an 

honor to appear before you today. I would like to start by thanking 

you for your leadership in this area in human trafficking, particularly your work on the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. It’s an honor to appear this morning before the Helsinki 

Commission, and I appreciate this invitation today to testify. 

You and Chairman Smith have been particularly strong in your 

fight against all forms of human trafficking, not just trafficking for 

forced prostitution, and that is very, very much appreciated by the 

organizations in the advocacy community. I was particularly heartened to see the hearing before this committee in May on forced 

labor. 

Over the years, the Helsinki Commission has steadfastly fought 

to keep the view, to keep the focus on the victims of human trafficking. And it’s that perspective that I hope to bring to bring to 

you today. 

I lived in Russia for four years in the fight against violence, 

against women and trafficking, and my favorite word that I learned 

in Russia was ‘‘konkretenosti,’’ so I’ll be very concrete today. I’ve 

spent 17 years in the fight against human trafficking, both as an 

activist and as an attorney. I currently serve as pro bono counsel 

to the Freedom Network USA, which is a coalition of 31 nongovernmental organizations and leaders providing services to and advocating for the rights of trafficking survivors here in the United 

States. The Freedom Network was created in 2001, immediately 

following the enactment of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. 

I’ve submitted lengthy testimony for this hearing, and I’d ask 

that that lengthy testimony be placed in the record, but I’ve 

changed my comments to fit the time allotted this morning. And 

I’d just like to highlight three organized crime trends that have 

been identified by advocates in the field, and also three strategies 

for combating this grave human rights violation. And then, finally, 

I’ll provide some concrete recommendations to the Commission. 

So trend number one that I’d like to focus on is that human trafficking is not only organized crime, it’s what we might call disorganized crime. Often today, in the United States, we see human trafficking conducted by small groups operating independently. In the 

words of Florrie Burke, a Freedom Network leader and one of the 

leading experts on human trafficking in the United States, quote, 

we are seeing more family-run operations and small criminal networks. It is not the old definition of organized crime, but it is just 

as dangerous. 

Take the Carreto case, for example. In 2008, a diminutive grandmother from Mexico pled guilty to sex trafficking for her role in a 

family-run gang based in Tenancingo, Mexico. According to the indictment, two of Ms. Carreto’s sons and an associate used, quote, 

physical violence, sexual assault, threats of harm, deception, false 

promises and coercion to force the women into forced prostitution 

in the United States. 
15 

The traffickers brought impoverished women from Mexico, 

women and girls. They did so for more than a decade before they 

were stopped by the Department of Justice. And in some cases, the 

traffickers approached the young women in their villages and 

claimed that they had fallen in love with them, tricked the women, 

in some cases, impregnated them, and then held the children back 

in Mexico as essentially hostages. 

These organized groups are small and opportunistic and they can 

be incredibly brutal. But that said, they don’t have to rely on extreme violence. Often, the threat of arrest, detention and deportation by U.S. law enforcement is enough to hold victims in servitude. Threats to family members and especially to children in the 

country of origin often compel the victims’ compliance. 

So let me move to the second trend that we’ve seen in the field, 

trend two: Where are the prosecutions? 

According to the State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report, in 2010, there were just 6,017 prosecutions and 3,619 convictions. Those aren’t statistics for the United States; those are statistics for the entire world. In the United States, in the same year, 

2010, there were just 103 federal prosecutions of 181 defendants, 

with 141 convictions. Now, in light of the State Department’s own 

estimate, that there are between 14,500 and 17,500 trafficking victims brought into the United States for forced labor and forced 

prostitution every year, 103 prosecutions is appallingly low. In Europe, in 2010, there were 2,803 prosecutions resulting in 1,850 convictions. 

Again, these numbers should give us pause, because they indicate that traffickers, whether they are members of international 

criminal enterprises or syndicates, or solo practitioners like so 

many of the traffickers I have sued as a pro bono attorney here in 

the United States—families, husbands, wives, diplomats who have 

brought individuals into the United States and held them in forced 

labor—these individuals enjoy near-complete impunity, and only a 

tiny fraction of the prosecutions and convictions that have taken 

place have been for forced labor. 

Prosecutors are focusing on low-hanging fruit. They’re bringing 

prosecutions for sex trafficking. In Europe, for example, of that 

enormous number, 2,803 prosecutions, only 47 were for forced 

labor. The rest were for forced prostitution, trafficking for forced 

prostitution. 

So let me turn now to trend number three, which is, organized 

crime feeds on corruption. 

Corruption is absolutely essential to traffickers’ success. I have 

testified before this Commission in the past about the concrete 

cases of corruption that my colleagues and I at Human Rights 

Watch documented in Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

As reported in the Human Rights Watch publication, ‘‘Hopes Betrayed: Trafficking of Women and Girls to Post-Conflict Bosnia & 

Herzegovina for Forced Prostitution,’’ corrupt police officers participated directly in trafficking. Some of the police officers moonlighted 

as guards in brothels holding trafficked women, helping to enforce 

their enslavement. Traffickers provided pay-offs to local police in 

the form of cash and free sexual services from the trafficked women 

themselves. This was all in exchange for protection from raids. 
16 

Every time there was going to be a raid, the brothel owner would 

get a call and a warning. The International Police Task Force 

would arrive on the scene, and the women would all be holding 

their passports. They had been instructed on exactly what to say. 

All of this was made possible through official corruption. 

Corruption and organized crime and, indeed, those organized 

criminals engaged in trafficking have a symbiotic relationship. And 

yet corruption is one of the most under-reported elements of human 

trafficking. 

But for the victims, it is one of the most fundamental elements 

because corruption is the backdrop to all of the trafficking-related 

exploitation that they experience in the United States. The women 

and children and men who are trafficked into the United States 

fear that police officers are simply in cahoots, in business with the 

traffickers, that judges can easily be bought off and that prosecutors would never zealously prosecute a trafficker. These beliefs are 

common among the victims that we confront every day at the Freedom Network, at the member organizations. Many of the people we 

deal with, many of the victims come from countries where corruption is utterly rife. And they assume that the United States is no 

different. Indeed, that’s what the traffickers have told them. 

The traffickers have told them time and time again that once 

they are captured by U.S. law enforcement, they’ll be detained, 

they will be prosecuted, they will be deported. Some have been told 

that they will disappear. For many of our clients, a so-called rescue 

by Immigration and Customs Enforcement is not a rescue. For 

them, it is the culmination of all the horror stories that they have 

been told by the traffickers. It is in their eyes an arrest. Victims 

from countries where justice is bought and sold on a daily basis see 

little hope of escape; they see little hope of justice; they see little 

hope of prosecution. The traffickers stoke and exploit these fears, 

telling them that the police are actually on their side, that the police will help the traffickers. This corruption silences the victims 

and it guarantees impunity. 

So let’s turn now to the strategies. The second portion of the 

hearing is, strategies for combating human trafficking. 

So strategy one, and this is essential: Protect the victims and the 

witnesses. Trafficked men, women and children arrive on the Freedom Network member organizations’ doorsteps in very different 

ways. Some have come through good Samaritans; some have come 

through law enforcement; others find our organizations through 

faith-based communities. But no matter how they find the Freedom 

Network member organizations, these victims have several things 

in common. First, they are highly traumatized. Second, they are utterly terrified. And third, they are concerned most about their family members back home in the country of origin, particularly their 

children. A victim of trafficking who is not safe cannot cooperate. 

In the face of threats from the traffickers, she cannot testify 

against the trafficker. 

Now, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act provides tools to protect the victims, but these tools are grossly, grossly underused. One 

of the key building blocks here in the United States is called continued presence. It’s a temporary form of immigration relief available only through an application by federal enforcement officer. 
17 

Continued presence, or CP, permits victims of trafficking to remain 

in the United States during a criminal investigation without fear 

of deportation. But the number of victims receiving continued presence in the United States has utterly plummeted. According the 

State Department Trafficking in Persons Report in June 2011, 299 

victims received this very basic form of protection in 2009. But in 

2010, that number dropped to 186. 

It is not only victims of trafficking who need protection; it is, indeed, their families. In the Carreto case, the forced prostitution 

case that I mentioned earlier, the traffickers and, in fact, the 

grandmothers—the mothers of the actual traffickers operating in 

the United States—held the victims’ children hostage. According to 

Suzanne Tomatore, an attorney and co-chair of the Freedom Network, Russian traffickers currently operating in New York routinely terrify their victims by bragging about links to organized 

crime back in the Russian Federation. Family members, these 

women are told, will not be safe unless they continue to work in 

strip clubs, they continue surrendering all of their earnings. 

So these cases, I think, speak very poignantly to the need to protect not just victims in the United States where, I would argue, we 

are falling down on the job, but also their family members abroad. 

Family members should be paroled into the United States. The categories for derivative status—because, again, trafficking victims 

can get special visas known as T visas, and their relatives, their 

very close relatives, can get T-derivative—T-derivative visas—those 

lists, those categories of individuals who are able to get T-derivative visas should be expanded. 

Now, strategy number two—and this has been raised, I think, in 

the prior testimony: Watch not just the illegal immigration streams 

but the legal immigration streams, and in particular, watch the foreign labor recruiting organizations. Traffickers are enormously 

clever. They are very what the Russians would call ‘‘gibka,’’ which 

is flexible. They can adapt quickly. 

Consider the case of Askarkhodjaev, an Uzbek national. Now, 

Mr. Andres has already told you a bit about this case, so let me 

just fill in a few of the details. This Uzbek citizen and his co-conspirators lived in Kansas City. According to the 90-page indictment 

in this first case as a RICO criminal case against a foreign labor 

recruiter, according to the 90-page indictment, the traffickers 

charged their victims between 3,000 [dollars] to $5,000 to obtain 

temporary H-2B visas, employment visas to work temporarily in 

the United States. The victims and their families borrowed heavily 

to pay these enormous fees. They were told, however, by the traffickers, that if they left the exploitative labor conditions that they 

were held in in 14 states in the United States and if they returned 

home, their families would have to pay an additional $5,000. The 

traffickers not only did not pay them wages, did not pay them overtime, but put them in apartment buildings, told them they had to 

live there, charged them astronomical rents, and when the victims 

actually did occasionally get a paycheck, sometimes that paycheck 

was for negative earnings because they owed the traffickers so 

much money. 
18 

Now, in that case, there was a guilty plea, which brings me to 

the next point, another strategy for fighting human trafficking: 

Grab the money. 

Under U.S. law, restitution for trafficking victims is mandatory. 

That’s 18 USC 1593, part of the TVPA. That’s the law. But the reality that the advocates see in the field is quite different. 

In the experience of Freedom Network members, restitution orders are rarely collected. In some cases, the seized assets go directly to government coffers. In other cases, the U.S. Attorney’s Office does not enforce the restitution orders aggressively. Restitution 

orders must be enforced. And in the first instance, it is the federal 

government’s responsibility to do so. 

Now, why? Why does restitution matter? As we’ve all heard 

today, human trafficking is highly, highly lucrative. And seizing 

criminals’ assets, to some extent, will deter their crime. Enforcing 

restitutions renders trafficking slightly less lucrative. And second, 

trafficking victims are owed these funds. This is money that was 

stolen from them. When asked several years ago how much restitution was actually ever distributed to the victims, the Department 

of Justice just responded that they didn’t collect these statistics. 

The Department of Justice should track the amounts of restitution 

not just ordered by the courts but the actual amount of restitution 

that’s collected. There is no higher use for organized crimes’ ill-gotten gains than the restoration of the victims. So we need a scorecard: how much was ordered, how much collected. 

I have a host of recommendations, but I will just highlight a few 

this morning. 

First is increase the use of continued presence. The Trafficking 

Victims Protection Reauthorization Act had a section on lowering 

the standard slightly for continued presence. It is important to do 

so, so that law enforcement will use this tool to protect victims. 

Again, increase the categories available for T visa derivative status to permit more family members to come in the United States. 

Ensure that trafficking victims are not held in immigration detention, because some are. 

Increase the attention in the State Department’s Trafficking in 

Persons Report to the role of corruption in human trafficking. This 

should include trafficking by state officials, including a focus on 

diplomats trafficking domestic workers for forced labor to the 

United States and around the world. 

Include fraud in foreign labor contracting as a RICO predicate 

act. As you’ve heard today, we see much fraud in foreign labor recruiting, and that is one of the main, main methods used today by 

traffickers. 

And then finally, request a Government Accountability Office 

study on the collection of criminal restitution orders in human trafficking cases. 

So I will leave it at that. I appreciate your concern and your 

focus on this issue. And I’m happy to entertain any questions. 

Mr. RUBIO. Thank you. And what I want to focus today on my 

questions with you on is mostly the U.S. aspect of it. And here’s 

why—not because the global one isn’t—it’s very important. I think 

in order for us to have credibility on this issue globally as policymakers, as a government, as members of this Commission, we have 
19 

to say that we ourselves are employing the best practices. You have 

to hold yourself up to that standard, and you have to lead by example. And I think we should never underestimate what an example 

America can be. 

So what I want to explore with you a little bit is when you talked 

about the legal immigration streams. My guess is that—and really, 

let’s explore the forced labor aspect of it—not that the sex trafficking is not egregious and outrageous; it is, and we should focus 

on that as well, and it’s probably coming through some of the same 

streams. But I think the one that—correct me if I’m wrong, but the 

one that probably gets less attention but is a big problem nonetheless is the forced labor one, because it can get nebulous. So my first 

question—walk me through a little bit of what a typical—I would 

imagine the majority of these people that are in forced labor actually enter legally through one of these foreign worker programs. 

Walk me through what that experience is like for the trafficked 

person. You are in a society where somehow someone reaches out 

to you and says: There’s jobs available in the United States. This 

is how much they will pay. I mean, walk us through how that 

works and how they navigate the existing legal immigration process to bring people here. 

Ms. VANDENBERG. I can give you two examples. One is here— 

right here in Washington, D.C. It’s a case that I brought against 

a Tanzanian diplomat here. 

Mr. RUBIO. And it’s a typical— 

Ms. VANDENBERG. It’s typical— 

Mr. RUBIO. Except for the diplomat part, is that pretty prevalent? The diplomat— 

Ms. VANDENBERG. No, in Washington, D.C. and surrounds we see 

a large number of cases of trafficking by diplomats. So in this particular case the diplomat in Tanzania recruited a young woman to 

come to the United States and serve as a nanny. Got her a visa— 

an A-3 visa—a visa reserved for diplomats to bring over domestic 

workers to the United States. When she arrived in the United 

States, according to the complaint that we filed and according to 

testimony that she actually gave before the House Foreign Affairs 

Committee, he refused to pay her. 

He took her passport away and forced her to work 17 hours a day 

for free. She was not allowed to leave the house. She was cut off 

from her family entirely. Because her visa—that A-3 visa—was 

completely bound to her employer, the moment she walked out the 

employer’s door she was out of status. That is one of the things in 

all of these visa schemes that makes it so frightening for the victims. They understand that if they leave the trafficker they are immediately in undocumented status. 

Now, the other case I want to highlight is, again, this Uzbek trafficking case. We call it the Giant Labor Solutions case. In this particular case—and again the defendant Askarkhodjaev pled guilty in 

this case and was sentenced to 12 years—the scheme there, according to the criminal indictment, was to find individuals already in 

the country with legal visas, whether they be J-1s or other—B-1, 

B-2—other visa status—and tell them, OK, we can get you an H2B visa. 
20 

And then they would file false statements to the Department of 

Labor to try and get a certification, because in order to bring someone in on an H-2B visa, you don’t necessarily need a name—you 

don’t need the name of the immigrant. What you need are a number of slots. And you need a labor certification stating that you 

can’t find U.S. domestic workers willing to fill those slots. 

And so the indictment actually covered the failure to—first 

fraudulent submissions made to the Department of Labor indicating that there were companies that needed these slots, and then 

also the indictment covered the traffickers switching, if you will— 

when the individuals came in on these H-2—H-2B visas or when 

they received H-2B visas, they were not put in the slots. They were 

not put in the jobs that had been certified by the Department of 

Labor. They were moved all around the country and put in different billets. 

So from the perspective of the victim—and I’ve seen this in many 

of the pro bono cases that we have brought on behalf of victims— 

from the perspective of the victim, he or she believes that he or she 

is coming to the United States legally. He or she will make significant amounts of money, certainly enough to pay off the labor recruiter, or to pay off all the debts that they’ve incurred at home 

and that the family has incurred at home. And they believe that 

they will have a normal job—that they will be able to leave during 

the day after work, that they will still have their passport, that 

they’ll earn a salary. 

And so the shock when they come here is that they are bound 

to the employer, many times the employer takes their passport. 

They are held in squalid conditions. I had one case where a trafficking victim was forced to sleep on a kitchen floor like a dog. And 

they realize that if they leave they risk being undocumented. And 

they risk deportation. And they are terrified, particularly in this 

immigration environment in the United States. 

Mr. RUBIO. Most of these victims are cut off from all information? 

I mean, do they a have access to television? Do they have any time, 

typically do they have any access to any news or information? 

Ms. VANDENBERG. They have two things. One, if they have come 

in in the last few years, since the 2008 reauthorization, the Department of States consular officials now give a brochure to every single individual coming to the United States on a work visa. And 

that brochure is a— 

Mr. RUBIO. In their native language? 

Ms. VANDENBERG. They—it’s not always in their native language. 

Mr. RUBIO. OK. 

Ms. VANDENBERG. It’s been translated by the Department of 

State into about 11 languages. That brochure, however, which I 

think is the product of one of the finest public-private partnerships 

I’ve seen under the Obama administration—the Department of 

State cooperated with the nongovernmental organizations and together created this pamphlet. The pamphlet has the phone number 

on it for the national hotline and—so that National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline is listed on the brochure. And there 

have been literally thousands of calls that have been prompted by 

people having the brochure. 
21 

Now, in my experience, with the trafficking victims that I have 

represented in pro bono civil suits and from the cases that we’ve 

seen with Freedom Network members, the victims may be able to 

watch television to some extent, although in my experience—particularly with domestic workers—the moment they sit down to 

watch television they’re told to get up and start working. You 

know, go iron the curtains. I mean, there’s always some work that 

is created for them so that they don’t have the opportunity to sit 

down. 

Their access to telephones is very limited. They’re not generally 

allowed to call anyone. They’re not generally allowed to have cell 

phones. And so that isolation makes it very difficult as well. 

I have seen cases where trafficking victims have come to the 

United States and have gone into, you know, debt to their employers, who refuse to pay them and then charge them all sorts of fees. 

And literally, those folks have contacted their relatives in the country of origin to ask those relatives to send money to them in the 

United States. The entire point of migration by people who become 

trafficking victims is to come to the United States to earn money 

so that they remit it home to their families and children. 

Mr. RUBIO. This hotline that you have, has there been any effort 

to create public service announcements on news outlets that may 

reach migrant communities? 

Ms. VANDENBERG. There has. And Mary Ellison, who’s from the 

Polaris Project, which actually runs the hotline, is here today. 

There is, I think, a provision in the current draft of the TVPRA to 

increase the amount of publicity for the hotline. And the hotline is 

now posted quite significantly around the country. So there have 

been a large number and a growing number of calls. 

Mr. RUBIO. I get—and well, who is it that runs the hotline? 

Ms. VANDENBERG. Mary Ellison. Mary— 

Ms. ELLISON. Yes. 

Mr. RUBIO. Hi. Just a followup that I would have is, I think one 

of the things we could and should explore is whether some of the 

national networks and local affiliates that—particularly broadcast—whether they’re local stations, or broadcast, say, the Spanish 

networks or that broadcast to migrant communities would be willing to run public service announcements highlighting this issue. 

And in particular—you’re right. I mean, there are certain things 

that are not legal. If these things are happening to you, it’s not 

normal, it’s not legal, and this is a number you can call. Obviously 

it leads us to the— 

Ms. VANDENBERG. The Department of Homeland Security has actually created two public service announcements, that are done 

both in English and I think they’re also available in Spanish, that 

they’re planning to blast across the country. 

Mr. RUBIO. OK. 

Ms. VANDENBERG. The one thing I would say about public service 

announcements is that it’s very important to involve the nongovernmental organizations in the creation and vetting of those 

public service announcements. We recently sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security with exactly that point, because 

the nongovernmental organizations have by far the greatest experi-
22 

ence with victims of trafficking, and a much better sense, I think, 

of what will bring the message home to them. 

Mr. RUBIO. Because I think you’re dealing with this a lot, our existing visa programs—and obviously not to wade too far into another debate, which is politically problematic for a lot of people— 

but our existing visa programs, in and of itself, are bureaucratic, 

complicated, burdensome, difficult to navigate. 

To what extent is that utilized by traffickers? To what extent 

they figured out how to maximize it? And to what extent would reforms to those programs be devastating? In essence, are there specific reforms to those programs that we should explore, and what 

are they, to help make it harder for these trafficking operations to 

function? 

Ms. VANDENBERG. Ironically, it is the difficulty of getting into the 

United States—it is the difficulty of getting a U.S. visa that traffickers exploit, because you need someone to help you. People sometimes will go to individuals they think are smugglers to help smuggle them into the United States because of, again, the very fierce 

immigration regime that the United States has, only to learn that 

those smugglers aren’t actually smugglers. Those smugglers are actually traffickers. 

But let me give you an example of how traffickers are so incredibly nuanced and subtle in their crimes. I recently met with Paul 

Fishman, who’s the U.S. attorney for New Jersey. And that office— 

the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey brought a very important 

case out of Newark. It was a case of 20 or so young girls brought 

from Togo and Ghana—brought to Newark, forced to work in hairbraiding salons. They would spend 16, 17 hours a day braiding 

hair. They got to keep none of the money that they earned. They 

were abused, again, held in conditions of squalor by the traffickers. 

In that case, the question is, how did those young girls get here 

from Togo? How did they get here from Africa? The trafficker, who 

was actually a very well-respected businesswoman, realized that 

people who had won the green card lottery in Africa couldn’t necessarily come to the United States because even once you win the 

lottery it costs quite a lot of money to facilitate all of the paperwork that you have to do. 

So she, a very experienced businesswoman, said I will pay all 

those fees. I will help you with all the paperwork. All you have to 

do is bring in this young girl as your daughter. And so she paid 

off a number of individuals to bring in these children. The children 

were then turned over to the traffickers in the United States—part 

of the same network. And in this case, again, it was a family network—a wife, a husband and her son—who ran the entire network, 

which over time earned about $4 million in proceeds. 

And when those children arrived in the United States they were 

handed over to the network, and they were put in these hair-braiding salons. 

Mr. RUBIO. Basically, the complexity and expense associated with 

it creates an environment conducive for middlemen. And oftentimes, the middlemen are traffickers who help you because they 

can front the money and help you navigate the complicated process, 

but once you’re here you’re at their mercy. 
23 

Ms. VANDENBERG. That’s exactly right. And once you’re here you 

may owe them money. And once you’re here you are—you are constantly under the threat of deportation. Yeah. 

Mr. RUBIO. You talked about how the CP process is not being 

used as often. Is there any reason that you’ve been told why that’s 

the case? Or do we know why—I’m sure there’s an explanation. I 

don’t know what it is, but— 

Ms. VANDENBERG. Yeah, we have racked our brains on this one. 

And the NGOs have asked precisely this question, because as a 

representative, as an advocate and an attorney for trafficking survivors, whenever I go to the Department of Justice and my client 

submits to an interview with the FBI or ICE or the Department 

of Justice, we always ask for continued presence. It’s always sort 

of one of the very first things on our agenda, so that the client is 

safe and can continue to cooperate. 

My feeling is that the problem is threefold. One, the standard is 

too high. Right now the law enforcement authorities have to certify 

that someone is a victim of a severe form of trafficking. After one 

interview with the victim, it is very hard for a law enforcement officer to sign a declaration saying this person is a victim of human 

trafficking. And they’re afraid to do so. 

The second is I think that law enforcement personnel still need 

more training. I think they are still convinced, many of them, that 

trafficking requires snarling dogs, barbed wire, being chained to a 

radiator and high levels of physical violence. And what we saw, 

and what we see now with human trafficking is that that level of 

violence is unnecessary. 

Indeed, the entire creation of the forced labor statute in the 2000 

TVPA, if you go back and look at the legislative history—the entire 

purpose for passing that statute was to, in a sense, go past 

Kosminski, the lead Supreme Court case on involuntary servitude, 

and to show that a far lesser degree—far more subtle forms of coercion, far more subtle threats, threats against third parties—that all 

of those things are enough. The problem, I think, is that law enforcement is still looking for rapes, sexual assaults, and snarling 

dogs. And those things are not always present. I think the third 

problem is there’s a conflation of two different standards. There’s 

the standard for CP, and the standard for CP should be available 

even after just one interview with the victim— 

Hello. 

Mr. COHEN. Steve Cohen of Memphis. 

Ms. VANDENBERG. Hi, Commissioner Cohen. Welcome. Thank 

you. 

But the second standard is for T visas. When you file for a T 

visa, if you are lucky—and it doesn’t happen very often—if you are 

lucky, you get what’s called a Sup B—an I-914 Sup B, which is a 

certification by law enforcement that this is indeed a trafficking 

case. And I fear that law enforcement has confused these two 

standards. The standard for CP is much lower. It should be just 

that we have an investigation going on. The standard for a T visa 

is, this is a human trafficking case, and I certify that it is a crime. 

I fear that those are getting muddled. 

Mr. RUBIO. And my last question is, the trafficking cases like the 

one you outline from Ghana and other places—they have to have 
24 

markers. There has to be certain markers to a typical case that 

raise a red flag. I would imagine two things; you correct me if I’m 

wrong. Number one is, there are certain markers that you would 

see in a trafficking case that you wouldn’t see in another clear-cut 

case, right? If someone’s coming in to work at an elementary initial 

level, an ability to differentiate between those that clearly look legitimate and those that have some markers to it. 

And the other is, there’s got to be some best practices. There’s 

got to be organizations out there that we know are not traffickers 

and are involved in the process of recruiting foreign workers, and— 

as opposed to those we’ve never heard of before or are new to the 

marketplace or et cetera. 

So for lack of a better term, we know what the routes are. We 

know where the places are that people are coming through. We 

know what some of the markers are. Isn’t there something to be 

said again, for lack of a better term, profiling some of these cases, 

flagging them, understanding cases that bring three or four elements that, at a minimum, require an additional level of scrutiny? 

You talked about the diplomat case, for example. I imagine there 

are legitimate diplomats that are bringing people in and are really 

working and doing OK, and then there are others that maybe we 

had bad experiences with. 

Is there a role for that in the initial process, in the initial visa 

process of trying to—I don’t know if the word is profile, but certainly identify cases that raise certain red flags and maybe, at the 

front end, would provide more scrutiny and follow-up? And I know 

a lot of that is a matter of resources. 

Ms. VANDENBERG. So let me start with the diplomats. There are 

diplomats who are what I would call repeat offenders. These are 

diplomats who bring in domestic worker after domestic worker 

after domestic worker. And what happened to all of the other domestic workers before who ran away or who went home without 

warning is a mystery. So I think that the State Department should 

definitely be looking for what I would call serial domestic worker 

visas. 

Mr. RUBIO. How do we find who they are? How do I get the name 

of those people? 

Ms. VANDENBERG. Oh. Call me. 

Mr. RUBIO. OK. 

Ms. VANDENBERG. But I think the State Department legal office 

actually, I think, has a sense. And because of the changes that you 

made in the 2008 TVPRA, that reauthorization, they are now required to track these things. And they are supposed to—at least to 

put red flags in the system so that individuals who are accused of 

exploitation on numerous occasions cannot get more visas, which is 

a good sign. 

In terms of the red flag and what we need to watch, I think you 

really put your finger on it when you said our immigration scheme 

is complex and difficult, and you need a middleman. We need to be 

looking at the middlemen. We really need to be focusing on labor 

recruiters. And one of the things that has recently happened—and 

a representative from the Department of Labor who appeared before this Commission in the May forced labor hearing talked about 

this a little bit—there are now regulations on the H-2A visas that 
25 

indicate that you cannot, as a foreign labor recruiter, demand fees 

from the actual employees that you’re bringing to the United 

States. Senator Cardin at that hearing asked a very important 

question, which is, how do you enforce that? How are you enforcing 

that? 

And so the nongovernmental organizations and the Freedom Network advocates and others put forward a proposal for enhanced 

regulation of foreign labor recruiters. Again, the nongovernmental 

organizations also put forward a proposal to make fraud and foreign labor recruiting a RICO predicate act so that criminal cases 

can be brought in these cases. 

It is highly troubling that there are labor recruiting agencies who 

are able to bring over not just hundreds, but thousands of individuals who then find themselves in situations of exploitation in the 

United States. And let’s be fair: Not all of those situations of exploitation rise to the level of human trafficking, which is a high 

bar, but labor exploitation in the United States is rife. 

What I can say is that what I see, even with my clients, even 

with the victims of human trafficking I’ve represented pro bono, 

even with those individuals after they get T visas and everything 

in the United States is supposed to be terrific, I have seen, time 

and time again, those victims end up with exploitative employers 

who do not pay the minimum wage, who do not pay them overtime 

when they work overtime. And that level of labor exploitation that 

occurs in the grey economy, even for people with legal visa status, 

is very, very problematic. 

So the NGOs, the nongovernmental organizations have called for 

greater involvement by the Department of Labor and greater enforcement of labor exploitation laws generally because that will 

change the playing field. If labor exploitation is focused upon, then 

trafficking will be also more difficult to commit, or at least noticed 

more frequently. 

HON. STEVE COHEN, COMMISSIONER, COMMISSION ON 

SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

Mr. COHEN. Thank you. I appreciate the work you do, and you 

do most of it pro bono, and you’re to be commended and thanked 

by this Commission and by our government. But let me ask you 

about the labor exploitation. In what fields is that mostly taking 

place in? 

Ms. VANDENBERG. It’s a wide variety of fields. And if you look at 

the cases that the Department of Justice has prosecuted and 

should get tremendous credit for prosecuting, they run the gamut 

from, as I mentioned, hair-braiding salons in Newark, New Jersey, 

to nail salons all up and down the Eastern Seaboard, to agricultural labor in Florida, harvesting of beans; hotel work, hospitality 

work. There was one particularly egregious in South Dakota that 

was prosecuted by the Department of Justice where a husbandand-wife team brought in a group of workers from the Philippines, 

some of them with master’s degrees in hospitality, and told them 

that they would be sort of running a hotel, and when they arrived, 

they were basically forced to work around the clock, many of them 

doing housekeeping services in the hotel rooms. So it really runs 

the gamut. 
26 

Most of the people that I represent in civil cases, including a 

RICO civil case that we brought in the Eastern District of Wisconsin against what we called a family criminal enterprise, most of 

the people I’ve represented are domestic workers. 

Mr. COHEN. Is there any particular corporation that we might 

know about that has some dirty little secret that uses labor exploitation that you would like to reveal at this time? 

Ms. VANDENBERG. I’m going to take the UNODC approach to this 

and not name any names. But I would say that the organizations 

that are doing labor recruiting, and they are certainly known to the 

Department of State and to the Department of Homeland Security, 

those organizations need to be monitored to make sure that the 

visa applications and the Department of Labor certifications that 

they are submitting are accurate and not fraudulent. 

I will say that there are number of companies that are now facing civil lawsuits. The Southern Poverty Law Center has brought 

a lawsuit on behalf—it’s actually, I think, now been certified as a 

class action—brought on behalf of workers brought into the United 

States from India, including high-skilled workers like welders and 

other skilled builders in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. And so the 

Southern Poverty Law Center is now pursuing a lawsuit that’s 

been written up in The New York Times on a number of occasions 

for allegations of trafficking those workers to work in Mississippi 

and the Gulf states. 

Mr. COHEN. When people hear about human trafficking, I think 

they normally think of sexual exploitation and bringing in from 

Eastern Europe or wherever. What percentage of the problem is indeed in that capacity, as distinguished from ordinary labor? 

Ms. VANDENBERG. You know, it’s a very difficult question to answer, and the statistics on this are very problematic. But I would 

say that the best statistics on this are the International Labor Organization’s statistics. And the International Labor Organization 

has said that there are approximately 12.3 million people around 

the world who are held in forced labor. Now, the ILO’s understanding of that is that of that, some subset, 2.4 million, are held 

in conditions that they would consider trafficking. 

Now, when the International Labor Organization sort of breaks 

that down in terms of forced labor as opposed to forced prostitution 

as opposed to sexual exploitation of children, I think the numbers 

get a little bit murkier there. And part of the reason is because in 

many of the forced labor cases that we have seen with the Freedom 

Network members, particularly forced labor cases involving children, it is not just forced labor; many of the children are also sexually violated. So many of the children are raped and sexually 

abused when they’re in situations of forced labor. 

So it’s a difficult question to answer, but I think Congressman 

Smith has said in the past, as have many others, that forced labor 

is actually the majority of trafficking that we see around the world, 

number one. Number two, it is what I always call the caboose of 

the human trafficking train, because it’s the most forgotten, the 

most ignored, the least discussed. And third, it is the least prosecuted. I mentioned some statistics, then: You know, of the 2,803 

prosecutions in Europe, 47 of them were for forced labor. 
27 

And so there is this danger, I think, in law enforcement, to go 

after the easy stuff. The easy stuff, in a sense, is forced prostitution 

and street prostitution. It’s very easy to go after those cases. It’s 

fairly obvious. It’s our traditional view of forced—of—it’s our traditional view of trafficking. As you say, it’s the kind of trafficking 

that we read about in the newspaper. Forced labor is harder to 

find. It takes far more effort to find forced labor. And unfortunately, that kind of effort is not being expanded. 

Mr. COHEN. I did not have the opportunity to hear your opening 

statement, which I wish I could have, and I don’t think it’s in our 

books. So you may have answered this already, but are there recommendations that you have for laws that need to be tweaked in 

our country? 

Ms. VANDENBERG. I included in my remarks 12 recommendations, so a host of—— 

Mr. COHEN. Oh, OK. Keep me busy. 

Ms. VANDENBERG. ——a host of recommendations. They’re not all 

legislative. 

What I would say is, the Freedom Network members have been 

making the rounds in meeting with many, many members, both of 

the House and the Senate, including Senator Rubio’s staff, to talk 

about the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization that is up 

this year. And the members of the nongovernmental organization 

communities really feel that this reauthorization is enormously important. 

So the current legislative ball that we have our eye on is the 

TVPRA and the importance of passing the TVPRA, which has some 

elements that we asked for and some elements that we did not— 

that we requested and did not get. So, for example, the CP changes 

to protect victims, those are in the House version; they’re not in the 

Senate version. The foreign labor recruiting provisions that had 

been requested were in the House bill but now have been stripped 

out. The Senate bill includes a request for a GAO study to look at 

foreign labor recruiting. So at a minimum, I think the GAO study 

should go forward. But I think the NGO community feels very, very 

strongly that the TVPRA is sort of the most important piece of legislation that could pass in the near future. 

Mr. COHEN. Thank you very much for your time and for your 

work, and I appreciate it. And Senator Rubio, thank you for your 

time. I yield back. 

Mr. RUBIO. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you all for 

being here. And the Commission is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:30 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 
28 

A P P E N D I C E S 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, CHAIRMAN, COMMISSION ON

SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE

I’d like to welcome everybody today to the Helsinki Commission hearing on 

human trafficking and transnational organized crime. This hearing is part of the 

Commissions long standing efforts at examining this modern day scourge in all its 

facets. I’d like to thank my esteemed colleagues here with me at this hearing, especially Senator Rubio as a new Commissioner in his first Commission hearing. 

In 1998, I first introduced the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. One year later, 

as Chair of this Commission I held its first hearing on human trafficking. Today, 

I am proud to say that it has been 11 years since the original TVPA was passed— 

the most comprehensive and significant piece of anti-trafficking legislation the 

United States has. Soon, both the House and Senate will be debating its fourth reauthorization since it originally passed back in 2000 and each time I have worked 

to strengthen its protection for victims and punishment for traffickers. 

Our efforts are often informed by the combined work of governments, international organizations and civil society, all of which are represented at this hearing, 

in combating modern-day slavery. Through their outstanding work we have made 

it a point to continually draw attention to this issue, and we will not stop until slavery becomes a thing of the past. 

Unfortunately, human trafficking and organized crime have co-existed for centuries. But whereas the slave in the 1800’s would have to be traded under perilous 

conditions for the modern day equivalent of thousands of dollars, today with just 

the click of a button you can purchase somebody’s life for just a couple of hundred, 

maybe less. 

Modern technology and a collapsing world economy have doubled the amount of 

people in bondage throughout the world as were taken from Africa 350 years ago. 

As scores of people search for a beacon of hope in developed societies, organized 

criminals from the ‘‘under and upper’’ world stand by to seize the moment, enslave 

the weak and turn a profit. This multi-billion dollar industry presents a threat to 

human security at all levels. 

Not only do countless men, women and children suffer at the hands of traffickers, 

but the enormous amount of profits made in this industry serve to corrupt officials 

at all levels. Former and current members of the security sector, including law enforcement and the military can be found in key roles in many trafficking rings. 

From corrupt police, to dishonest prosecutors, judges, and politicians, efforts are 

made to undermine the fight to end modern day slavery worldwide. 

Even as we’ve looked to discourage traffickers by adding provisions to our laws 

that promote long jail sentences, asset confiscation and sanctions to governments 

who fail to meet the minimum standards, the sheer profit gained by the exploitation 

of human beings now rivals that of the drug trade. 

Whereas drug traffickers must engage in extreme violence by murdering informants and engaging in war with criminal rivals to remain in control of their networks, human traffickers need only threaten their victims or their families with violent reprisals to remain in control of their slaves. 

Whereas drug traffickers have a commodity that can only be sold once, a human 

trafficker can purchase a slave and continually exploit them until he’s made his 

money back. And after that it’s all profit. 

With such high profits to be made and relative low risk, it is no wonder why more 

and more organized criminal groups are engaging in human trafficking. 

The growing ingenuity of organized criminal groups; a borderless world for crime; 

and the use of modern technologies, have made it increasingly difficult for law enforcement to gather data on the extent that transnationally organized criminals are 

involved in human trafficking. 

But we know enough to know that something has to be done before it’s too late. 

We hope that our distinguished panel of experts can shed some light on this problem. 

Today we are joined by a panel of experts on transnational organized crime and 

human trafficking. Their combined expertise should paint us a clearer picture of organized crime’s involvement in human trafficking and what we can do to help stop 

it. With us is Mr. Greg Andres the current Deputy Assistant Attorney General in 

the Crime Division where he supervises the Organized Crime Section at the Department of Justice. Mr. Andres comes to us with over a decade of experience working 

on organized crime issues. 
29 

We are also joined by Mr. Piero Bonadeo, Deputy Representative for the United 

Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in New York. Mr. Bonadeo’s testimony will 

bring the UNODC’s years of expertise in combating Transnational Organized Crime. 

Finally we have, Ms. Martina Vandenberg. Ms. Vandenberg is a seasoned attorney 

with years of experience combating trafficking in persons, as well as human rights 

reporting in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Russian Federation, Uzbekistan and 

Kosovo. All of which are countries of great interest to our Helsinki Commission. 

We look forward to your testimonies. 
30 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, CO-CHAIRMAN, COMMISSION

ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE

I would like to extend my thanks to the distinguished panel of experts present 

today at this hearing. There is no timelier topic than trafficking in persons, as Congress will soon debate the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2011 (TVPRA). 

The Helsinki Commission has been devoted to the fight against trafficking in 

human beings in the United States and internationally for more than 20 years. Now 

more than ever, as the world struggles through economic turmoil and traffickers 

take advantage of the impoverished and vulnerable, we must remain committed to 

this fight. In my capacity as Chairman and now Co-Chairman of the Helsinki Commission I contributed to the 2008 TVPRA. Additionally, I convened several hearings 

to galvanize U.S. government contributions to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in its efforts to combat this trend. The OSCE remains 

a leader among multilateral organizations in facilitating international coordination 

to end trafficking and we must better utilize its unique competencies. 

Today, millions of people want to escape their impoverished situation in search 

for a better life for themselves and their families. Unfortunately, traffickers know 

this and exploit their vulnerabilities. It’s a sad reality when human life has been 

transformed into a marketable commodity to which unscrupulous criminals have 

turned to and yet receive lesser sentences than those who traffic drugs. This fact 

is most evident when you look at prisons throughout the world filled with drug traffickers in contrast to the few and declining number in international convictions for 

human trafficking, making trafficking in human beings a high-profit low-risk crime. 

Even as we build momentum and awareness to combat trafficking in persons, 

criminals have not slowed down their operations. They are finding new ways to 

avoid law enforcement, adapting their operations to the effects of globalization and 

exploiting modern technology to broaden the scope of their illicit enterprises. Without a doubt, the new age slave trade is a transnational crime that bears resemblance to its tumultuous history, yet finds new sophisticated ways to maintain its 

grip besides our most guided efforts. 

Whether it’s major international and highly structured criminal organizations like 

the Russian or Albanian Crime Syndicates or loosely connected networks of specialized criminal entrepreneurs, trafficking in human beings is mostly the business of 

organized crime. The diversity in actors engaged in human trafficking demonstrates 

the complexity and danger of this heinous crime. It also demonstrates how many 

vile people out there are willing to enslave others for personal profit. 

Trafficking networks often run alongside other forms of organized crimes like migrant and drug smuggling, money laundering, fraud and corruption. Porous borders, 

corrupt officials and high unemployment rates are among the many factors that fuel 

this grievous crime. 

Our own backyards have been polluted by this scourge, as organized criminal 

gangs are engaging in prostitution rings using the internet to recruit and exploit 

women and children into a life of sexual slavery. High profile cases of labor trafficking have also demonstrated how complex this crime can really be. Labor trafficking rings have brought hundreds of legal migrants into our country under what 

seem like legitimate businesses. These criminal truly operate transnationally in 

such an organized matter, that they enslave their employees in front of our very 

eyes and we do not see it. 

Last month, the OSCE Office of the Special Representative and Coordinator for 

Combating Trafficking in Human Beings organized an expert seminar on leveraging 

anti-money laundering regimes to combat human trafficking. At this event experts 

and scholars alike, including some from United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime 

(UNODC), came together to ponder the emerging challenges of this transnational 

crime. Innovative efforts like this to increase our comprehensive response to trafficking and identification capacity are vital. 

The U.S. Government as well as the many multilateral organizations like the 

OSCE and the United Nations recognizes trafficking for sexual and labor exploitation as a threat to security and peace keeping efforts. The United Nations Convention against Transnational Crime and its Protocols and the recently released White 

House Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime have both recognized 

this fact. It is essential that we enhance our political commitments in these venues 

to match the evolving trends of exploitation and counter the increasing sophistication of organized trafficking networks. 

I thank our accomplished witnesses for joining us today to help us formulate more 

effective strategies to address these new challenges. I look forward to their contributions. 
31 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. MARCO RUBIO, COMMISSIONER, COMMISSION ON

SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE

The Helsinki Commission has chosen to hold a hearing entitled ‘‘Human Trafficking and Transnational Organized Crime,’’ to address the growing problem of 

human trafficking as part of organized crime in the United States and abroad. 

The United States is plagued by the issue of human trafficking with an estimated 

17,000 new victims each year and with a global estimate of 700,000–800,000 new 

victims. My home state of Florida is one of the top destinations in the United States 

for victims to be trafficked. While this modern slavery comes in many shapes and 

sizes, there has been an emergence of transnational organized crime groups engaging in this horrendous trade. 

Groups which have traditionally specialized in the drugs trafficking, arms trafficking, money laundering and fraud have expanded their operations to include slavery due to the lucrative nature of this industry. Human trafficking is estimated to 

create $32 billion profits annually, making it the second largest crime industry. 

Transnational organized crime groups recognize that unlike drugs or arms, human 

beings can be exploited, over and over again which results in larger profits. 

Since the original Trafficking Victims Protection Authorization of 2000, the 

United States has been the global leader in combatting this modern day slavery. 

Each year the State Department releases their Trafficking in Persons Report that 

ranks countries all over the world by their efforts to fight trafficking in all forms. 

The report forces countries to take the battle against modern day slavery seriously 

and brings this crime to the international spotlight. I have joined 28 of my colleagues in cosponsoring the current human trafficking legislation, § 1301 The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization. 

While key to the government’s efforts to fight modern day slavery is the structure 

provided by § 1301, the fight against transnational organized crime groups who engage in human trafficking is not an easy one. There is no typical transnational organized group. Groups vary in size from complicated networks to loosely tied cells. 

Some of these groups may engage in numerous illicit activities while others specialize in human trafficking. This variety makes the battle to combat this issue even 

tougher. 

We face numerous challenges when combatting transnational organized crime including the lack of comprehensive law enforcement, poor international cooperation, 

lack of data, and lack of awareness on the subject matter. In particular, the crime 

of human trafficking is often difficult to prove and even harder to prosecute. Law 

enforcement officials must have special training to pursue these cases correctly.Today, the Helsinki Commission addresses the issues faced by the international community with fighting transnational organized crime groups who engage 

in human trafficking. The United States and other Operations and Security and Cooperation in Europe countries need to continue to be vigilant against in the fight 

against human trafficking and transnational organized crime. 
32 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF GREG D. ANDRES, DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL

FOR THE CRIMINAL DIVISION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

INTRODUCTION 

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Co-Chairman, and distinguished Members of the Committee: 

Thank you for inviting me to speak with you this morning about the threat posed 

by human trafficking and transnational organized crime, the efforts of the Department of Justice to address the threat, and steps Congress can take that will assist 

in these efforts. I am honored to appear before you on behalf of the Department of 

Justice. 

The fight against transnational organized crime is one of the highest enforcement 

priorities of the Department of Justice and the Administration. Together with the 

United States Attorneys’ Offices and our many law enforcement partners, the Criminal Division investigates and prosecutes cases involving transnational organized 

crime all over the country, indeed, all over the world. 

Transnational organized crime refers to self-perpetuating associations of individuals who operate transnationally for the purpose of obtaining power, influence, or 

commercial gains, wholly or in part by illegal means. These organizations promote 

and protect their activities through a pattern of violence and corruption, including 

by insinuating themselves into the political process and becoming alternate providers of governance, security, and livelihoods to win popular support. In the process, transnational organized criminals are often assisted by willing facilitators, including lawyers, bankers, and business owners, who exploit their professional legitimacy to perpetuate and disguise illegal activity and profits. 

The convergence of threats posed by these groups is significant and growing. In 

July of this year, the Administration released its Strategy to Combat Transnational 

Organized Crime (‘‘TOC Strategy’’), which enumerated the threats posed by 

transnational organized crime to United States national security, including the following: 

1. Penetration of State Institutions. Transnational organized crime’s penetration 

of governments is subverting the rule of law, democratic institutions, and transparent business practices. The growing reach of transnational organized criminal networks is pushing them to seek strategic alliances with state leaders and 

foreign intelligence services, threatening stability and undermining free markets. 

2. Threat to the U.S. and World Economy. Transnational organized crime is increasing its subversion of legitimate financial and commercial markets, threatening U.S. economic interests and raising the risk of significant damage to the 

world financial system. 

3. Growing Cybercrime Threat. Transnational organized criminal networks are 

becoming increasingly involved in cybercrime, which costs consumers billions of 

dollars annually, creates risks to sensitive corporate and government computer 

networks, and undermines worldwide confidence in the international financial 

system. 

4. Threatening Crime-Terror Nexus. Terrorists and insurgents are increasingly 

turning to crime to generate funding and acquire logistical support. 

5. Expansion of Drug Trafficking. Despite demonstrable counterdrug successes 

in recent years, illicit drugs remain a serious threat to the health, safety, security, and financial well-being of U.S. citizens. 

The TOC Strategy also identified Trafficking in Persons as a threat posed by 

transnational organized crime to the United States, noting that human traffickers 

target the trafficked person as an object of criminal exploitation, often for labor or 

sexual exploitation purposes, and that trafficking victims are frequently physically 

and psychologically abused. The Strategy noted that human trafficking can take 

place within as well as between countries. 

At the announcement of the TOC Strategy, Attorney General Eric Holder noted: 

Today’s criminal organizations are increasingly sophisticated. They know no 

borders. They threaten the stability of our financial system and the promise of 

a competitive marketplace. And their operations are putting far too many American businesses, government institutions, consumers, and citizens at risk. 

The TOC Strategy sets forth a whole-of-government response to these threats. It 

outlines several strategic objectives at the heart of the Administration’s efforts to 

address this threat: • the protection of Americans from the harm, violence, and exploitation of 

transnational criminal networks; 
33 

• breaking the economic power of transnational criminal networks and protecting 

strategic markets and the U.S. financial system from penetration and abuse by 

transnational criminal organizations; and • defeating transnational criminal networks that pose the greatest threat to national security by targeting their infrastructures, depriving them of their enabling means, and preventing the criminal facilitation of terrorist activities. 

The Department of Justice is committed to the fight against transnational organized crime and we have enjoyed certain successes to date. Serious challenges remain and additional tools are needed. As part of the TOC Strategy, the Administration has proposed a number of important legislative improvements, which the Department believes could assist us in meeting these challenges and addressing the 

identified threats. 

II. CURRENT SUCCESSES IN TRANSNATIONAL ORGANIZED CRIME 

The Department has made great strides in attacking transnational organized 

crime groups, particularly those with some physical presence or foothold in the 

United States. We have prosecuted groups involved in narcotics and narco-terrorism, kidnapping and extortion, and health care and other identity fraud crimes 

alike. Below are several key examples: 

• Joint Colombian-United States Drug Trafficking Investigation: On September 

2, 2011, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida announced that 34 individuals were charged in five separate indictments in an operation that targeted a Drug Trafficking Organization based in Bogota, Colombia that utilized U.S. registered aircraft to transport thousands of kilograms of 

cocaine from South America, to clandestine airstrips in Central America and 

the Caribbean region. The drug trafficking organization purchased U.S. registered aircraft using nominees, who in turn submitted false documentation to 

the Federal Aviation Administration to hide the identities of the South American drug traffickers who were purchasing the planes. The Colombian-based organization, which arranged for the aircraft to depart from South America, had 

ties to drug trafficking organizations in Mexico. During the course of the investigation, law enforcement seized 1300 kilograms of cocaine, $1.6 million in U.S. 

currency, and eight U.S. registered aircraft. The case is being prosecuted by a 

special unit within the Southern District of Florida that was established in February 2011, to prosecute the violent Bandas Criminales drug trafficking groups 

in Colombia. • Armenian Health Care Fraud: In October 2010, the Department announced 

charges against 73 members and associates of an Armenian-American organized 

crime group, with ties abroad, in five states (California, Georgia, New Mexico, 

New York and Ohio) for various health care fraud-related crimes involving more 

than $163 million in fraudulent billing. The defendants were charged with engaging in numerous frauds, including sophisticated schemes to defraud Medicare and insurance companies by submitting fraudulent bills for medically unnecessary treatments or treatments that were never performed. As part of this 

prosecution, the defendant Armen Kazarian became the first ‘‘Vor’’ or ‘‘Thief-inLaw,’’ convicted of racketeering in the United States. 

• International Computer Hacking: In November 2009, charges were filed based 

on a successful FBI investigation into a sophisticated international computer 

hacking ring involving defendants from Estonia, Russia, and Moldova. Various 

defendants were charged in the Northern District of Georgia with hacking into 

a computer network operated by a credit card processing company and using 

sophisticated techniques to compromise the data encryption used to protect customer data on payroll debit cards. Ultimately, counterfeit devices were employed to withdraw over $9 million from more than 2,100 ATMs in at least 280 

cities worldwide, including cities in the United States, Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, 

Italy, Hong Kong, Japan, and Canada. Remarkably, this loss occurred within 

a span of less than 12 hours. Through this investigation, the FBI uncovered a 

previously undetected hacking technique that compromised the bank’s 

encryption system. This information was disseminated throughout the banking 

sector to prevent further losses. Five Estonian defendants have been arrested 

and charged in Estonia. One of those defendants was extradited to the United 

States. Additionally, one defendant in the United States and two defendants residing in Hong Kong were arrested for their involvement in this criminal enterprise. 

• Armenian Power Takedown: In February 2011, federal prosecutors from the 

United States Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, the Southern District of Florida and the Criminal Division announced charges against 

more than 100 members and associates of Eurasian organized crime groups, in 
34 

six indictments, in four cities. The arrests included more than 80 defendants 

from the Armenian Power group, who were charged with a wide variety of violent and fraud-related crimes. The alleged crimes included kidnapping, extortion, assault, witness intimidation, bank fraud, credit card fraud and drug distribution. AP’s membership consists primarily of individuals whose heritage 

goes back to Armenia and other Eastern Bloc countries. AP is an international 

organized crime group that started as a street gang in East Hollywood, California in the 1980s. • Operation Whirling Dervish: In July 2011, the Department announced charges 

resulting from a DEA narco-terrorism undercover operation, charging three defendants with conspiring to provide various forms of support to Hizballah, the 

PKK, and Pejak. Two defendants were arrested in Bucharest, Romania, where 

they were detained pending extradition to the United States; the third was arrested in the Republic of the Maldives. This investigation was supported by Romanian authorities who identified Kurdish PKK members that were selling heroin to support their terrorist organization. It also identified Iranian Pejak elements that were utilizing the drug trade to finance operations and Hizballah 

elements that were attempting to purchase military-grade weaponry. This investigation is continuing. • Eastern European Money Laundering: In June 2011, a joint prosecution between the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Offices in Chicago and Washington, D.C., resulted 

in a Romanian man being sentenced to 48 months imprisonment in the United 

States for his role in an international money-laundering scheme involving the 

creation of fraudulent online auctions. In a similar case handled by the Criminal Division’s Organized Crime and Gang Section, a Bulgarian man was sentenced this September to 64 months imprisonment for his role in an auction 

scheme, which appears to have been orchestrated by a transnational criminal 

group based in Eastern Europe. Another individual, a Romanian citizen, was 

sentenced to 24 months imprisonment for his role in the same conspiracy, also 

in September 2011. According to court documents, in less than one year, the 

scheme netted more than $1.4 million for U.S. victims. 

• Joint U.S.-Italian Mob Takedown: In March 2010 prosecutors in Sicily and the 

U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the Eastern District of New York and the Southern 

District of Florida arrested over twenty individuals on charges of obstruction of 

justice, extortion, concealment of assets, money laundering, drug trafficking, attempted homicide and other crimes arising from their affiliation with Santa 

Maria di Gesu, a Sicilian mafia family. The U.S. defendants subsequently pled 

guilty, with one defendant receiving a sentence of 48 months and another receiving a sentence of 36 months. 

The Department has also achieved successes in the fight against human trafficking using the racketeering laws, as shown by these examples: 

• Ukrainian Human Trafficking Ring: In October 2011, the Department secured 

convictions against two brothers for a racketeering conspiracy in connection 

with a human trafficking scheme that exploited young Ukrainian migrants. The 

defendants smuggled the victims into the U.S. through Mexico. The brothers 

confiscated their immigration documents and forced them through threats, assaults, sexual abuse, and debt bondage to work on cleaning crews in homes, 

stores, and offices without pay. 

• Transnational Human Trafficking Enterprise: In May 2011 an Uzbek national 

was sentenced to 12 years in prison for racketeering conspiracy involving the 

recruitment and exploitation of dozens of workers from Jamaica, the Dominican 

Republic, the Philippines and elsewhere, many of whom were recruited with 

false promises concerning the terms, conditions and nature of their employment 

and then compelled through threats of deportation and financial penalties to 

work in hospitality jobs in at least 14 states. Eight other defendants, including 

Uzbek, Moldovan, and U.S. national, were convicted in connection with the 

scheme. 

As is clear from many of the examples cited above, a key component of our 

transnational organized crime strategy has been forging successful and strategic 

partnerships with foreign law enforcement authorities. The example of Romania is 

instructive. A significant number of so-called ‘‘phishing’’ attacks targeting United 

States citizens originate in Romania and we have worked closely with authorities 

there to identify and prosecute those involved.2 As an important first step, several 

law enforcement agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United 

States Secret Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration, have employees 

stationed in Romania, who work side by side with Romanian law enforcement in an 
35 

effort to target cyber-criminals and other organized crime. The results have been 

significant. Earlier this year, joint United States-Romanian investigations resulted 

in the arrest of over 100 organized crime related cyber-criminals in our two countries. Those arrests involved various schemes involving the fake sales of merchandise, including cars and boats, over the Internet to thousands of victims in the 

United States and elsewhere. 

Another important innovation critical to our efforts has been the development of 

the International Organized Crime Intelligence and Operations Center, or IOC–2, 

here in the Department of Justice. Building on our successful counter-narcotics 

work, IOC–2 brings together nine federal law enforcement agencies in a powerful 

center to share data and intelligence, both domestically and internationally, on organized crime investigations. IOC–2 greatly expands our abilities to spot patterns and 

coordinate investigations against transnational organized crime networks. IOC–2 

also aids our attempts to identify forfeitable assets associated with international 

criminal activities and promote seizure and forfeiture judgments. 

III. CHALLENGES TO GREATER SUCCESS 

Our work on transnational organized crime enforcement is far from over. While 

the threat is clear, the obstacles to successfully investigating, prosecuting and dismantling these networks are numerous. Transnational organized crime groups and 

the offenses they commit present significant challenges. As a point of comparison, 

it has been well documented that domestic organized crime syndicates employ tactics that create many roadblocks for law enforcement: layers of secrecy, corruption 

of officials, and fear and intimidation that silence witnesses. Despite these challenges, over the years, Congress and the Department of Justice have developed 

methods of attacking domestic organized crime to the point where our record of 

achievements is one of the federal government’s great success stories. Transnational 

organized crime poses an additional dimension of challenges: while the effects are 

felt here in the United States, the perpetrators, witnesses and evidence reside 

abroad, often in jurisdictions unable or unwilling to cooperate with our investigative 

efforts. 

Take a few simple examples. Organized cyber criminals direct cyber intrusions 

from abroad that target United States citizens and steal their identities for the purpose of raiding bank accounts or placing fraudulent credit card purchases. Other organized criminals commit crimes abroad and launder and maintain funds in the 

United States, without ever traveling to our shores, and sometimes through the use 

of U.S. shell corporations. 

In each instance, the investigation and prosecutions of these organizations and 

crimes pose significant challenges. At a minimum, pursuing an investigation abroad 

is often time consuming and delays can be significant and undermine an investigation. Tracking down criminals abroad often requires the cooperation of foreign law 

enforcement agencies and even if we locate our targets, many of the investigative 

tools for gathering evidence are not available to us in an international context. In 

some countries, we cannot employ Title III wiretaps against the perpetrators, nor 

can we, in many cases, send an undercover agent to gather incriminating statements. The country’s law enforcement agencies may not have the level of training 

or the necessary technology to implement the investigative steps, even if they are 

authorized. 

Arresting lower level members of the organization and persuading them to cooperate against higher level bosses is also extremely difficult and may require the approval and cooperation of foreign authorities, as well as navigating various domestic 

immigration and other laws. Other countries have domestic laws which ban the extradition of their own citizens to foreign countries for prosecution. In such instances, 

the only option may be for the foreign government to prosecute the target under 

their domestic laws, and convictions often result in lenient sentences. Still other targeted organized crime groups may have so penetrated the country’s law enforcement 

entities or political leadership that the country will refuse to answer our request for 

assistance. 

These concerns are not hypothetical. The prosecution, or the attempted prosecution, of Semion Mogilevich makes this clear. Mogilevich is a powerful Russian organized crime figure and the head of an international criminal enterprise engaged in 

activities designed to penetrate and corrupt strategic sectors world-wide. He and his 

co-conspirators were indicted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District 

of Pennsylvania in 2003 on racketeering, securities fraud and money laundering 

charges, yet remain at liberty. At the heart of the charged crimes was a sophisticated multi-million dollar scheme responsible for defrauding thousands of investors 

in the United States, Canada and abroad in the stock of a public company that was 

headquartered in the United States. The indictment alleges that, while residing in 
36 

Eastern Europe, Mogilevich funded and controlled a criminal enterprise, comprised 

of individuals and companies in over twenty countries throughout the world, including corrupt accountants and auditors, and numerous United States shell companies 

which were used to conceal their involvement and to launder proceeds from the 

scheme. Despite committing crimes here, Mogilevich remains outside our reach and 

is believed to currently be residing in Moscow, Russia. He is currently on the FBI’s 

Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List. 

The ability of transnational criminal organizations to generate vast sums of 

money is both their strength and a weakness. Criminal organizations are businesses, and like any business profit is their primary motivation. The wealth generated by today’s drug cartels and other international criminal networks enable 

some of the worst criminal elements to operate with impunity while wreaking havoc 

on individuals and institutions around the world. Generating proceeds often is only 

the first step -criminals then launder their proceeds, often using our financial system to move or hide their assets and often with the help of third parties located 

in the United States. Indeed, international criminal organizations increasingly rely 

on these third parties and on the use of domestic shell corporations to mask crimes 

and launder proceeds under the guise of a seemingly legitimate corporate structure. 

We can use our asset forfeiture laws to take the assets away from the criminal organizations and dismantle their financial infrastructures but, as discussed below, the 

existing law needs to be modernized. 

When we turn our attention to the specific problem of human trafficking, we see 

these same challenges. Many of our human trafficking cases involve loosely affiliated networks of individuals engaged in the exploitation of human trafficking victims. These criminals tend to utilize smuggling pipelines and money laundering conduits operated by other criminal groups and whose services the traffickers procure 

for their own purposes. On occasion the human traffickers themselves belong to a 

larger organized crime group, as in the two examples I mentioned above. Either 

way, we face the same challenges in extending our investigation across borders and 

seeking cooperation from law enforcement authorities in other countries as in our 

other types of transnational organized crime cases. 

IV. LEGISLATION 

There are important steps we can take to better address extraterritorial threats 

and the increasingly global reach of transnational criminal organizations. The Department of Justice together with our partners have developed a package of legislative proposals to ensure that federal law keeps up with the rapid evolution of organized criminal activity, including human trafficking. We need changes to our existing money laundering, asset forfeiture, narcotics and racketeering laws. Additional 

proposals recognize that in an increasingly global law enforcement environment, 

witness security and protection for foreign witnesses must also be available. One 

proposal in particular, extending criminal jurisdiction to vessels or aircraft owned 

by U.S. citizens or registered in the United States, would bring the U.S. into compliance with the Trafficking in Persons Protocol to the United Nations Convention 

Against Transnational Organized Crime. These proposals are outlined below. 

A. Anti-Money Laundering and Forfeiture Laws 

The TOC Strategy recognizes that criminals who commit their crimes overseas 

often launder and maintain their assets in the United States. Accordingly, a focal 

point of the Strategy is the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) a comprehensive money 

laundering and forfeiture proposal designed to address gaps in our current legal authority. Money laundering and forfeiture laws strike at the very core of 

transnational criminal organizations by preventing them from using our financial 

system to move and hide their money, and by depriving them of the profit and capital needed to operate their enterprises. 

POCA would update and clarify the current list of specified unlawful activities 

that are predicates for money laundering to include all domestic felonies except 

those specifically exempted, state felonies and federal misdemeanors that are included in the existing racketeering predicates, and any foreign crimes that would 

be felonies in the United States. The changes sought would also increase the scope 

and effect of anti-money laundering provisions in promotional money laundering, 

bulk cash smuggling, tax evasion, and money laundering through informal value 

transfer systems, and would clarify the application of the law to commingled funds 

and aggregated transactions. Finally, the proposal also extends wiretap authority 

for money laundering offenses, and it extends the extraterritorial provision for 

money laundering to non-United States citizens where their extraterritorial acts in 

violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956 cause an effect in the United States. These changes 

would fill in numerous gaps and omissions in our decades-old anti-money laundering 
37 

laws and improve the ability to prosecute money launderers and to forfeit criminal 

proceeds and facilitating property. 

POCA also seeks to update our civil forfeiture capabilities. Civil forfeiture is a 

particularly effective tool in this regard as it enables prosecutors to forfeit the proceeds of crime even when criminal prosecutions of those involved are not possible. 

Thus fugitives, drug kingpins, and corrupt foreign officials not present in the United 

States cannot elude the reach of our enforcement entirely. 

POCA would enhance the government’s civil forfeiture authority in a number of 

important ways. It seeks to expand the scope of civil forfeiture authority to include 

‘‘facilitating property,’’ or property that enables crime to occur, for all money laundering predicates and broadens the categories of facilitating property that can be 

civilly forfeited in connection to drug offenses and alien smuggling and harboring. 

To better attack the financial infrastructures of these organizations through more 

effective financial investigations, the proposal provides increased civil forfeiture, administrative, and foreign bank record subpoena authority. It also would enable the 

use of classified information in civil forfeiture cases, which is critical in going after 

transnational criminal organizations that threaten our national security. 

Taken together, the changes will make our investigations and prosecutions 

against the financial operations of transnational organized crime groups much more 

effective. By taking their money, we take away these groups’ reason to exist and 

ability to operate. We are committed to working with Congress to combat the use 

of shell companies to generate and move illicit money by requiring that those who 

form entities in the United States disclose beneficial owner information. 

B. Racketeering Provisions 

Second, the Administration proposes to modernize our most powerful anti-organized crime statutes: the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or 

RICO, and the Violent Crimes in Aid of Racketeering statute, or VICAR. The proposed amendments to the RICO statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1961, et seq., would clarify that 

RICO has extraterritorial application in cases where criminal enterprises operate at 

least in part in the United States, or where they commit any predicate acts in the 

United States, or where the charged pattern includes offenses that apply 

extraterritorially. Criminal organizations have expanded their activities to increase 

their power, influence, and wealth, availing themselves of new opportunities. The 

proposed legislation, therefore, expands the list of racketeering predicate crimes to 

include offenses that are prevalent in an increasingly interconnected world and engaged in by transnational organized crime groups, including economic espionage, 

computer fraud, aggravated identity theft, violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, health care fraud, illegal firearms trafficking, as well as a limited number 

of violations of foreign law. 

Specific to the issue of human trafficking, the proposed changes expand the list 

of RICO predicates to include state crimes of peonage, forced labor, slavery, and 

trafficking in persons, and adds section 1594, relating to attempts and conspiracies 

involving peonage, slavery, and trafficking in persons. 

These proposed changes are important to address a number of recurring issues 

in organized crime prosecutions. In a number of instances, the government has been 

unable to charge the members or associates of a criminal enterprise with RICO because the underlying criminal activities were not listed as predicates. The new 

predicates are intended to fill these gaps. Amendments to the Violent Crimes in Aid 

of Racketeering (VICAR) statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1959, are also recommended, including 

a provision which would provide for extraterritorial application in certain situations 

such as when the underlying statute criminalizing the violent act in question applies extraterritorially or when any part of the violation occurs within the jurisdiction of the United States. 

C. Witness Protection 

The Administration is also proposing legislation that fosters international cooperation regarding the relocation of witnesses giving testimony in criminal cases, 

and relatives and other persons close to them. Relocation is sometimes the only way 

to protect the security of such persons, and enhancing our ability to cooperate with 

foreign governments in these situations will greatly improve our ability to mount 

multinational operations against high-priority transnational organized crime targets. 

D. Extraterritorial Jurisdiction 

The Administration proposes criminalizing conduct occurring on vessels or aircraft 

owned by the United States or a United States citizen, vessels registered under U.S. 

or state law, and aircraft registered under United States law if such vessels or aircraft are outside the jurisdiction of any particular state. In the absence of such ex-
38 

panded jurisdiction, the United States would, for example, lack federal jurisdiction 

over a sex-trafficking offense committed on board a United States-registered vessel 

or aircraft located between two foreign countries. Our proposal would bring the 

United States into full compliance with the 2000 Transnational Organized Crime 

Convention, and in particular the Trafficking in Persons Protocol. 

E. Narcotics 

The Administration proposes to expand conspiracy liability when controlled substances are destined to the United States from a foreign country. Under our proposal, members of any conspiracy to distribute controlled substances will be subject 

to United States jurisdiction when at least one member of the conspiracy intends 

or knows that the drugs will be unlawfully imported into the United States. We are 

also recommending changes to sentencing policy for violations of the Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act. Such violations currently carry statutory penalties of up to 30 

years’ imprisonment and/or fines up to $5,000,000. Sentencing guidelines for these 

violations, however, do not yet exist. The Administration is recommending a congressional directive to the United States Sentencing Commission, proposed statutory 

language, and a proposed sentencing guideline to yield a sentencing range of 37– 

46 months for a first offender, absent adjustments or departures. 

V. CONCLUSION 

Transnational organized crime and human trafficking present many new challenges for United States law enforcement. The investigations and prosecutions of 

transnational organized criminals groups are among the most difficult and complex 

cases in the Department. Even as we develop our cases and push the envelope of 

what our agents and prosecutors have tried in the past, the criminals continue to 

evolve rapidly, deploying new techniques and strategies to evade our nets and continue their illegal activities. It is important to ensure that federal agents and prosecutors are fully armed with the most comprehensive and up to date legislative and 

investigative tools to carry this fight across the globe and attack the criminals 

where they live. Only in this way can we protect our citizens, corporations, and 

property from those who would take them from us. 
39 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF PIERO BONADEO, DEPUTY REPRESENTATIVE TO THE UNITED

NATIONS OFFICE ON DRUGS AND CRIME, NEW YORK

On behalf of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, my sincere thanks 

to the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe for inviting me to speak. 

The cooperative spirit of the Commission as well as the one of the Organization for 

Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSECE) has often supported the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the United Nations Global Initiative to Fight 

Humane Trafficking. 

Human trafficking is a truly global phenomenon and a crime which affects nearly 

every part of the world, whether as a source, transit or destination country. According to the (UNODC), victims from at least 127 countries have been identified, and 

it is estimated that more than 2.4 million people are being exploited by criminals 

at any given time. 

More than a decade after the adoption of the Protocol to Prevent Suppress and 

Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the 

United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime the largest majority of countries have criminalized most forms of human trafficking in their legislation. Nevertheless, the use of such laws to prosecute and convict traffickers remains limited. In the 2009 Global Report on Trafficking in persons, for instance, two 

out of every five countries covered in the report had never recorded a single conviction for trafficking offenses. 

The demand of trafficking victims, especially those related to sexual exploitation, 

remains high, particularly in Europe. According to the UNODC Organized Crime 

Threat Assessment, the majority of the victims detected in Europe come from the 

Balkans and the former Soviet Union, including countries such as Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, the Russian Federation, and the Republic of Moldova. 

With regard to the victims originated in South America, mostly Brazil, they are 

being sent to destinations such as Spain, Italy, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, 

Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. African victims are mainly in West Africa, although North African victims seem to be increasing. Finally, Asian victims are 

mainly originated in Thailand. Most recently, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Cambodian 

victims are increasing. 

Traffickers remain using deception and coercion as their main instruments to recruit victims. As a recent trend, women seem not to be only involved in recruiting 

other women, but also playing the role of guardians in the countries of destination 

of victims. Another trend is that in the case of Europe, the perpetrators are frequently not nationals of the country where they operate, but often nationals of the 

same country as their victims. 

The International Labour Organization estimated that the minimum number of 

victims trafficked for all purposes in Europe and North America was 279,000 in 

2005. Considering this, UNODC estimated that the number of trafficking victims in 

Europe would be around 140,000 if about on victim in 20 were detected. Following 

this figure and assuming that these victims could produce an estimate of 50 million 

sexual services, at EUR 50 per client, the market would be worth approximately 

US$3 billion. 

Distinguished Commissioners, cooperation is fundamental to combat the exploitation of women, children and men by human traffickers. Let us start with the outcome of our own efforts to gather information from Member States: trafficking in 

persons for forced labour is the second most reported form of exploitation. But, we 

share with all of you a concern that this form of trafficking is less frequently detected and reported that trafficking in persons for sexual exploitation. Labour trafficking, just until recently, was started to be taken into consideration by the world 

community. Prosecution and criminalization for this particular type of trafficking 

also needs to be set in practice. 

We must also challenge the lack of visibility of trafficking in persons for forced 

labour. Too often, forced labour is hidden from public view. This may happen because the instances in which labour trafficking occurs, may not bring a direct physical r psychological damage to the person. A victim of labour trafficking can be 

someone who is made to work long shifts, being paid less than what was promised 

in their contracts, or with less or no benefits than the ones migrant workers are 

usually entitled to. Victims are often convinced by their foreign employers that those 

are the conditions they are legally entitled to, being deceived by them. Therefore, 

they do not often report this situation, unless their working conditions become unbearable. 

UNODC is helping to shine a powerful light on this crime. Working with others 

in particular the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), we 

are developing clear strategies to meet government and civil society concerns. 
40 

In doing so, UNODC brings a unique criminal justice approach. As the guardian 

of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, we have 

a ready made legal framework for international cooperation and the prevention of 

human trafficking. Thanks to the convention, through cooperation, police no longer 

have to stop at frontiers, while criminals cross them freely. 

We should also not forget how human trafficking is related to instability. When 

social and political upheaval exists, as in North Africa at present, our work is even 

more important in such turbulent and disordered regions. 

If we are able to address human trafficking in these conditions, development and 

security are fundamental. For this reason, we should join forces and integrate our 

efforts into the wider agenda of multilateralism on development and stability. In 

this context UNODC is working with the policy committee to mainstream 

transnational organized crime into the wider agenda of the UN. 

Trafficking in human beings is one of the most lucrative forms of organized crime, 

estimated to generated 32 billion US dollar in gross proceeds each year. Criminal 

assets arising from this grave violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms 

may be invested in legitimate and criminal activities, challenging economic security, 

fueling corruption and undermining the rule of law. 

OSCE and UNODC have joint their forces for leveraging their efforts to fight 

human trafficking through clamping down on money laundering. In the framework 

of the Alliance against Trafficking in Persons OSCE, participating States and Partners for Cooperation are harmonizing their actions and using the same decisionmaking aids. UNODC wholeheartedly endorses this approach and is proud to have 

joined the Alliance. 

An added issue behind the legal aspects of human trafficking is a lack of knowledge and understanding at the global level. In those cases in which prosecutions 

have been undertaken, very little is currently known about them internationally. 

This often leaves open questions as to how practitioners use the respective laws and 

what, if any, the characteristics of successful prosecutions are. 

In a bid to answer these questions, UNODC has developed a database of Human 

Trafficking case law to provide immediate, public access to officially documented instances of this crime. The database contains details on the nationalities of victims 

and perpetrators, trafficking routes, verdicts and other information related to prosecuted cases around the world. As such, it provides not only statistics on the number of prosecutions and convictions, but also the real-life stories of trafficked persons 

as documented by the courts. 

The database is aimed at assisting judges, prosecutors, policymakers, media researchers and other interested parties by making available details of real cases with 

examples of how the respective national laws in the place can be used to prosecute 

human trafficking. 

At the time of the launch of the database, more than 150 selected cases from over 

30 countries and two regional courts had been uploaded, with an additional 100 

cases from over a dozen states to be added in the coming months. 

A little over a year ago the General Assembly passed by consensus the UN Global 

Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons. Promoted universal ratification of 

the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the 

Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women 

and Children, as well as other relevant international instruments that address trafficking in persons, and reinforced the implementation of existing instruments 

against trafficking in persons and building on the relevant sub regional, regional 

and cross-regional mechanisms and initiatives. 

In particular, Article 32 of the plan calls upon member states to Provide assistance and services for the physical psychological and social recovery and rehabilitation of trafficked persons. 

An important operationalization of the Global plan of action, and another mechanism promoting the right to an effective remedy for victims of trafficking is the ‘‘UN 

Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and 

Children’’ launched last November pursuant to Article 38 of the global plan of action. The fund managed by UNODC, provides humanitarian, legal and financial aid 

victims of the trafficking in persons through established channels of assistance, such 

as governments, Non Governmental Organizations and International Organizations. 

The Fund operates with the advice of a five member board of trustees appointed 

by the Secretary General. Last week, the Fund released its first trances of funding 

for frontline organizations working with trafficking survivors, with close to $300,000 

being disbursed under a Small Grants Facility to organizations that are at the forefront of providing services to victims. 

The 12 selected projects for the first year of the Small Grants Facility cover all 

major regions of the world. Funded projects are set to be rolled out in Albania, Cam-
41 

bodia, Costa Rica, the Czech Republic, France, India, Israel, Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria, 

Moldova and the US. 

With projects running from ten months to three years, the funding assists in several areas, with the ultimate aim of empowering trafficking victims to regain their 

lives. These services include legal support to allow victims to seek justice against 

those who enslave them; facilities to register their identities and to return home; 

and much needed counselling, training and support to ensure they are in a position 

to rebuild their lives. 

To date about 1 million dollars has been pledged to this trust fund. 

The realization of the right to an effective remedy hinges upon a variety of interrelated factors. Accurate identification of trafficked persons is a pre-requisite for 

trafficked persons to be able to exercise the right to an effective remedy. More prosecution is needed not only to remove offenders from further criminality, but to also 

allow for the confiscation of assets so that such resources can be enforcers in identifying, tracing, freezing and confiscating assets, as well as drafting legislation to 

allow such assets to be used for compensation, is therefore also key to an effective 

right to a remedy. 

And pursuant to article 60 of the Global Plan of Action, in late 2012 UNODC will 

issue its first biennial report on patterns and flows of trafficking in persons at the 

national, regional and international levels in comprehensive manner, sharing best 

practices and lessons learned from various initiatives and mechanisms. This 

strengthening of information collection and reporting is also part of a comprehensive 

and holistic response aimed at the right to an effective remedy. 

Distinguished Commissioners, Sixty three years ago, the General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In doing so they proclaimed that all 

humans are born free, that no one shall be held in slavery or servitude, and that 

slavery and the slave shall be prohibited in all their forms. 

Yet today, millions of people, the majority of them children and women, are victims of human modern day slavery. As we go about our work to end this scourge, 

may we be guided by the wisdom of the survivors as to what type of redress is most 

meaningful, and to be able to find creative ways to make this happen. We have 

come very far in the past 10 years; thanks to the support of MS and civil society 

we have an important protocol, and a promising global plan, as well as increased 

awareness. However, the traffickers are a clever and adaptable bunch - - in the end 

it is a battle of the wills: theirs or ours. Until we seriously address the root causes 

of trafficking such as [art 9] poverty, underdevelopment and lack of equal opportunity, traffickers will always have the upper hand. 

Thank you. 
42 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MS. MARTINA E. VANDENBERG, PRO BONO COUNSEL, THE

FREEDOM NETWORK USA 

Chairman Smith, Chairman Cardin, and Helsinki Commission Members, 

Thank you for inviting me to testify before you today. It is an honor to have this 

opportunity to speak to you about the problem of human trafficking and 

transnational organized crime. I would particularly like to thank Congressman 

Smith for his dedication to the fight against all forms of human trafficking, including trafficking for forced labor and involuntary servitude. 

Over the years, under Chairman Smith’s leadership, the Helsinki Commission has 

steadfastly fought to ensure that we never lose sight of the victims of human trafficking. It is that perspective that I hope to bring to your attention this morning. 

I serve as pro bono counsel to the Freedom Network (USA), a coalition of thirtyone nongovernmental organizations and individuals providing services to—and advocating for the rights of—trafficking survivors in the United States. The Freedom 

Network was founded in 2001, immediately following the enactment of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA). Our members have served the majority of individuals certified by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) 

as victims of a severe form of trafficking in persons. We use a rights-based framework in providing those services. The Freedom Network’s advocacy draws directly 

from the experiences of trafficking survivors we have worked with in the field. 

Organized crime brings to mind stereotypical gangsters, heavily armed and laden 

with cash. Human trafficking certainly encompasses traditional organized crime. 

But more often, human trafficking is conducted by ‘‘disorganized crime:’’ small 

groups operating independently. The United Nations Convention Against 

Transnational Organized Crime defines an ‘‘organized criminal group’’ as a ‘‘structured group of three or more persons, existing for a period of time and acting in 

concert with the aim of committing one or more serious crimes or offences..’’ Using 

this definition, consider the following cases: 

• Mondragon: In 2006, Oscar Mondragon pleaded guilty to conspiring with his 

two brothers to lure young women from Central America to the United States 

with promises of good jobs. When the women arrived, Mondragon and his coconspirators held the women in forced labor in Houston-area bars and cantinas 

selling high-priced drinks to male customers. 

• Carreto: In 2008, a diminutive grandmother pled guilty to sex trafficking for her 

role in a family-run gang based in Tenancingo, Mexico. According to the indictment, two of Ms. Carreto’s sons and an associate used ‘‘physical violence, sexual 

assault, threats of harm, deception, false promises and coercion’’ to force the 

women into prostitution in the United States. 

• Calimlim: Two physicians in Wisconsin were convicted in 2006 of trafficking a 

young woman and holding her in their home for nineteen years as a domestic 

servant. The physicians threatened the victim with deportation and imprisonment if she disobeyed their orders. After the criminal convictions, pro bono attorneys filed a civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) 

action against the physicians and their three adult children. 

• Askarkhodjaev: Askarkhodjaev: An Uzbek citizen, Abrorkhodja Askarkhodjaev, 

was sentenced to 12 years in prison in the first forced labor trafficking case 

charged as part of a criminal RICO conspiracy. Akarkhodjaev and his co-conspirators trafficked foreign laborers holding various visa statuses into the 

United States through three corporations for forced labor in hotels. According 

to the 90-page indictment, the traffickers charged their victims between $3,000 

to $5,000 to obtain temporary employment visas known as H–2Bs. The victims 

and their families borrowed heavily to pay these fees. 

As these examples illustrate, this is organized crime 2.0. It is global. It preys on 

the vulnerability of migrants seeking a better life in the United States. In many 

cases, it relies on labor recruiters and middlemen to bring victims into the United 

States legally. It can be violent, but is not necessarily so. Debt bondage and threats 

of deportation are often enough to immobilize victims. But there is one feature the 

traditional gangsters and the new organized criminals share: they are laden with 

cash. 

In the words of Florrie Burke, a Freedom Network leader and one of the leading 

experts on human trafficking in the United States, ‘‘We are seeing more family-run 

operations and small-criminal networks. It is not the old definition of organized 

crime. But it is just as dangerous.’’ 

With these cases in mind, I’d like to focus on three main areas: 

1. The need for victim and witness protection; 

2. The role of corruption in human trafficking; and 
43 

3. The role of restitution in the fight against human trafficking. 

At the end of my remarks, I will suggest some recommendations and remedies 

that may help in our joint mission: the eradication of human trafficking. 

Victim and Witness Protection 

In the United States, and throughout the OSCE region, victims look to non-governmental organizations and civil society for support. Trafficked men, women, and 

children arrive on the Freedom Network members’ doorsteps in very different ways. 

Some escape from their traffickers and find the NGOs. Others are identified in raids 

by law enforcement and referred to service providers. Still others find help through 

Good Samaritans or faith-based communities. But no matter how they find these organizations, the victims have several things in common. First, they are highly traumatized. Second, they are utterly terrified. And third, they are concerned about family members, particularly children, back in their country of origin. 

The Freedom Network has advocated forcefully over the past eight months for improvements in protections for victims of human trafficking. The key building block 

for protection in the United States is continued presence, a temporary form of immigration relief available only through federal law enforcement. Continued presence 

(CP) permits victims of trafficking to remain in the United States during a criminal 

investigation, without fear of deportation. CP also allows the victims to obtain a 

work permit and minimal benefits. The concept, embedded in the TVPA, is that victims able to stabilize their lives and their status will be able to cooperate in a criminal investigation. 

But the numbers of victims receiving continued presence has plummeted. According to the State Department Trafficking in Persons Report for June 2011, 299 victims received this very basic form of protection in 2009. In 2010, only 186 did. 

The failure to protect victims of human trafficking—in part so that they may 

serve as witnesses in criminal cases against their traffickers—is one explanation for 

the abysmally low number of prosecutions in the United States and around the 

world. 

How low is that number? In 2010, there were just 103 federal prosecutions of 181 

defendants, with 141 convictions in the United States. In the entire world, there 

were just 6,017 prosecutions and 3,619 convictions. And in Europe, there were 2,803 

prosecutions, resulting in just 1,850 convictions. 

Victims who do not feel safe will not come forward to testify against their traffickers. Victims with family members remaining in the country of origin, particularly children, are often too terrified to cooperate. In some forced labor cases, relatives may work for the traffickers back in the home country, placing them at risk. 

In the Carreto case, the forced prostitution case highlighted above, the traffickers 

held the victims’ children hostage back in Mexico. According to Suzanne Tomatore, 

an attorney and co-chair of the Freedom Network, Russian traffickers operating in 

New York routinely terrified their victims by bragging about links to organized 

crime back in Russia. Family members at home would not be safe unless the victims 

continued working in strip clubs, surrendering all of their earnings. 

These cases speak poignantly to the need to protect not just the victims in the 

United States, but also their family members abroad. Family members should be 

paroled into the United States. The categories for derivative status—that is family 

members of victims receiving T-derivative visas—should be expanded. And prosecutors in U.S. Attorneys offices need additional training. The AUSAs must not only 

understand human trafficking, they must also appreciate the risks that victims take 

in coming forward. In a recent case, an Assistant U.S. Attorney responded to a victim who had expressed fear of her trafficker. The AUSA told the victim, who spoke 

only limited English, that she should ‘‘Call 911.’’ Victims must be treated with sensitivity and care by law enforcement. Only then will we see victims willing to come 

forward to prosecute the perpetrators. 

Corruption and Human Trafficking 

Corruption is fundamental to traffickers’ success. I have testified before the Commission in the past about concrete cases of corruption I documented in post-conflict 

Bosnia & Herzegovina. There, as reported in the Human Rights Watch publication, 

Hopes Betrayed: Trafficking of Women and Girls to Post-Conflict Bosnia & 

Herzegovina for Forced Prostitution, corrupt police officers participated directly in 

trafficking. Some local police officers moonlighted as guards in brothels holding trafficked women and girls from the former Soviet Union. Traffickers provided pay-offs 

to local police in the form of cash and free sexual services in exchange for protection 

from raids. 

At every step along the trafficking chain, there is an opportunity for bribery. In 

one case reported by La Strada, a well-respected anti-trafficking network in the 
44 

OSCE region, a trafficker transported women by train across a border within the 

former Soviet Union. The trafficker held the passports for all of his victims, paying 

a customs agent a bribe for each woman traveling without a passport. 

Does corruption matter in the United States? True, we do have the rule of law. 

Corruption is far less prevalent than in many other OSCE countries. But it is not 

non-existent. Take, for example, the case of an ICE agent from Florida. He pled 

guilty to soliciting kickbacks from a confidential informant working on a trafficking 

investigation. The ICE agent also demanded and received $12,000 from an individual in Ecuador smuggling migrants into the United States. In 2006, federal authorities indicted two NYPD officers for accepting bribes from traffickers operating 

a string of brothels on the Eastern seaboard. The traffickers, who forced women 

from Korea into prostitution, paid an undercover detective investigating these 

crimes more than $125,000 in cash. 

Corruption and organized crime have a symbiotic relationship. But corruption is 

one of the most under-reported elements of human trafficking. And for victims, one 

of the most fundamental. 

Whether the bribes occur here or abroad, corruption plays a fundamental role in 

the lives of trafficking victims in the United States. It is the backdrop. Many of the 

trafficking victims the Freedom Network members have encountered over the years 

come from countries where corruption is rampant. These victims bring an expectation of corruption. They believe that the police have been bribed. Many are convinced that the judge can be bought. Their traffickers have told them time and time 

again that once captured by U.S. law enforcement, they will be detained, prosecuted, 

and deported. For many of our clients, a ‘‘rescue’’ by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents is not a rescue. It is the culmination of all the horror stories 

told by traffickers. It is - in the victims’ eyes - an arrest. Victims from countries 

where justice is bought and sold see little hope for escape. And the traffickers stoke 

and exploit these fears. Corruption silences victims. It guarantees impunity. 

Restitution and Human Trafficking 

Under U.S. law, restitution for trafficking victims is mandatory. 18 U.S.C. § 1593. 

That is the law. The reality looks quite different. In the experience of the Freedom 

Network members, restitution orders are almost never collected. In some cases, the 

seized assets go to government coffers. In other cases, the U.S. Attorney’s Office 

does not follow up on the restitution order aggressively. Restitution orders must be 

enforced. In the first instance, it is the federal government’s responsibility to do so. 

Why does restitution matter? First, seizing criminals’ assets deters crime. Trafficking is lucrative. Enforced restitution orders render it slightly less so. Second, 

trafficking victims are owed these funds. Restitution orders cover back wages and 

earnings stolen from them. 

There is an enormous difference in the lives of trafficking survivors who receive 

their restitution orders and those who do not. Those who do can move out of economic crisis and secure a toe hold into normal life. Those who do not often continue 

to struggle, trapped in low wage jobs and exploited by unscrupulous employers. 

Mandatory restitution offers the promise that victims can move on with their 

lives. But mandatory restitution is broken in the United States. Several years ago, 

Senator Durbin sent questions to the Department of Justice requesting data on the 

amount of restitution collected for victims, compared to the amount of restitution 

ordered. The Department of Justice responded that the government did not track 

these statistics. That is a mistake. Prosecutors should be trained: a case does not 

end with a criminal conviction. It ends with payment in full of the criminal restitution order. The Department of Justice should track the amounts of restitution collected and incorporate this into the performance evaluation metrics for federal prosecutors. 

But that is not enough. The small number of victims who do receive restitution 

checks are horrified to learn that their back wages and restitution payments are 

taxable as federal income tax in the year received. That means that a victim who 

collects ten years’ worth of salary in one year will have to pay taxes in the highest 

income tax bracket. It is the traffickers - not the victims - who have committed tax 

fraud and evasion. Just as the Feds nailed Al Capone on tax evasion, traffickers 

should be forced to pay these taxes. Restitution orders must be increased to cover 

the taxes. Alternatively, trafficking victims should be given a tax waiver, much like 

that provided to Holocaust survivors who recover for crimes committed against them 

during World War II. 

Restitution orders serve another purpose. With assets, trafficking victims can 

bring their family members to the United States. They can afford safe housing and 

transportation. And they can relocate for their own protection. There is no higher 

use for organized crime’s ill-gotten gains. 
45 

Recommendations: 

1.Increase the use of continued presence to protect victims of human trafficking; 

2.Parole relatives of trafficking victims into the United States to permit victims 

to cooperate with law enforcement fully - and without fear of retaliation against 

family members in the country of origin; 

3.Increase the categories available for T-derivative visa status to permit trafficking victims to relocate close family members to the United States; 

4.Ensure that trafficking victims are not held in immigration detention; 

5.Improve the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to screen individuals 

to identify trafficking victims; 

6.Increase the attention in the State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report to the role of corruption in human trafficking. This should include trafficking by state officials, with a particular focus on diplomats trafficking domestic workers for forced labor; 

7.Train law enforcement authorities in the United States: 1) to anticipate trafficking victims’ unwillingness to cooperate after a ‘‘rescue’’; and 2) to understand 

the role of corruption in countries of origin; 

8.Include fraud in foreign labor contracting as a RICO predicate act; 

9.Train prosecutors to engage in enforcement of restitution orders; 

10.Reward prosecutors for cases where restitution orders are paid through positive performance review metrics; 

11.Make restitution orders tax-free in the United States; and 

12.Request a Government Accountability Office study on collection of criminal 

restitution orders in human trafficking cases. 

These recommendations return our focus to where it should be: on the human 

rights of trafficking victims. Again, I thank you for this opportunity to speak with 

you. I would be happy to answer any questions. 

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