Human trafficking is insidious in the way it can happen in plain sight, close to home. This week on WCCO Radio we’re exploring the pernicious crime from the viewpoints of those on the ground combatting both labor and sex trafficking.
First we focus on labor trafficking whose victims can feel they have to endure terrible conditions due to desperation, fear, or poverty.
The man identified as A.M. was 18 years old in 2016 and living with a friend’s family in Maplewood while attending Edison High School.
That man who befriended him while working with a nonprofit, 72-year-old Pat Sukhtipyaroge, helped secure an F-1 student visa for A.M., who came from the Dominican Republic hoping for a strong education and a better life. However, according to the US Attorney’s Office, Sukhtipyaroge fraudulently brought A.M. to the US on a “smoke and mirror promise of the American Dream.”
A.M. soon found himself a victim. According to court documents, A.M. started living and working at Royal Orchid Restaurant in Columbia Heights. He lived in poor conditions and was paid $500 per month for 40 hours a week. Sukhtipyaroge, prosecutors said, even deducted the costs of bringing A.M. to America, a situation law enforcement calls a debt bondage scheme.
“(A.M. was) living in the basement of the restaurant, just a dingy, musty basement with the one lightbulb hanging from the ceiling,” Anoka County Sheriff’s Office Detective Mike Schantzen said. “People (in the restaurant) had seen him all the time and he was involved in the situation for almost two years.”
A.M. stopped going to school, violating his visa. Prosecutors said Sukhtipyaroge abused his power over A.M., who depended on him for food, money and shelter by threatening to call immigration authorities if he didn’t comply.
A.M. told authorities he feared for his family’s lives if he reported Sukhtipyaroge but eventually called a national human trafficking hotline. That’s when the case was picked up by Detective Schantzen.
“With this situation, so many people would see this person on a day-to-day basis and had no clue what’s going on with him,” he said.
Sukhtipyaroge was also charged in Anoka County with criminal sexual conduct. A.M. was diagnosed with PTSD and started seeing a therapist. Sukhtipyaroge was sentenced to 3 ½ years behind bars in February 2019, a sentence that exceeds state guidelines.
Many victims of human trafficking like A.M. can feel trapped. Schantzen said concerns about immigration status could prevent many victims from reporting. Though they can obtain status and remain in the US legally during the proceedings with what’s called continued presence, that barrier, along with that fact that harboring and visa fraud can be difficult to spot and investigate compared to the signs that can indicate sex trafficking, make labor trafficking challenging to stop.
“There’s still some people that are clearly distrustful of law enforcement and the immigration system,” Schantzen said. “They would rather endure their victimization than coming forward and having that fear that they or their family may face some sanctions.”
Schantzen is the sole human trafficking investigator in Anoka County and is a member of the BCA’s Human Trafficking Task Force. Work is often connected with other state and local partner agencies, but investigators are often working on trafficking cases on a part-time basis amongst other cases.
“The amount of investigators needed to really get a handle on this and to be able to properly investigate everything, it’s not there,” Schantzen said. “I think it’s getting tougher and tougher nowadays with people leaving the professor and agencies having a hard time hiring and filling positions. We’ll probably be short for a while, but I think the public and our legislature is seeing the importance of, whether it’s sex trafficking or labor trafficking, hopefully over time we can get our numbers up as far as those who have the training the ability to work these cases.”
Schantzen said the work is difficult in that it can take years for long-suffering victims to see justice and restitution; but in his experience it’s resulted in close, personal connections with survivors.
“Instead of it being a case where maybe you do a couple interviews and send it to the prosecutor, maybe arrest the suspect, a lot of these cases are going on for one year, two years, three years,” he said. “I have a victim I’ve been working with for about three years now and we talk about once a month, every couple weeks and keep him updated, still helping with services -- rental assistance, mental health, things like that. They’re vulnerable. They need help and once you’ve developed that rapport and that relationship with them, a lot of times you’re the person they’re reaching back out to.”
The aim of law enforcement is to target people who exploit workers who may come from impoverished backgrounds, even outside our borders.
“Labor trafficking is a huge human rights violation,” Schantzen said. “These people are being abused, taken advantage of for someone else’s gain. There are situations where there could be physical or sexual violence that could accompany this as well, but really it’s one of these things where you have these people, they’re up here and part of the community. They’re being taken advantage of whether they know that or not.
I think everybody needs to stand up and show that as a community we’re not going to accept this. We’re not going to stand for this type of activity to occur.
"So many people would see this person on a day-to-day basis and had no clue what’s going on with him."
