In the business world, Paul Hutchinson made a name for himself as the co-founder of Bridge Investment Group, leading the company to a $40 Billion valuation under his management. With a strong foundation and vision, Hutchinson’s meticulous approach and commitment to excellence paid off, as he found success in the competitive world of finance. However, it was his dedication to philanthropy that ultimately led him to the fight against child trafficking.
“I truly believe that the success we experienced in our business pursuits were directly tied to the decision (in my early 20s) to donate at least 20% of my money and 20% of my time to charity and making a difference.”
Paul Hutchinson
When we last spoke with Paul, he shared his professional experiences and tips to leading a business to a billion dollar valuation and briefly touched on his philanthropy work. This week, we welcomed Paul back to hear more about his experiences on the frontlines of a war few are talking about.
From an early age, Paul has remained committed to giving back to his community. This conviction led him to serve on over 15 charity boards, the majority of which focused on helping children. Little did he know that his involvement in charity work would eventually lead him to his biggest mission yet.
Hutchinson’s foray into the world of anti-human trafficking efforts began when a friend and colleague informed him about the fastest-growing criminal enterprise that many people were unaware of. After being introduced to a Homeland Security agent who had firsthand knowledge of child trafficking, Paul’s eyes were opened to the dark reality of this heinous crime.
It was during this time that the film “Sound of Freedom” was produced. Inspired by the story of Tim Ballard, a former Homeland Security agent and Founder of Operation Underground Railroad, the movie was brought to life by Eduardo Verastegui. Upon meeting Ballard, Verastegui felt compelled to raise awareness of the child trafficking industry through his film.
Having already funded several rescue missions, Paul received a call one day asking him to help on the ground in Colombia. This experience marked his true immersion into the fight against child trafficking, as he participated in the rescue of over 100 children during his first mission. In subsequent operations, Hutchinson confronted gang members head-on and played a critical role in the largest child rescue mission in another country, where 48 children were rescued.
Today, Hutchinson’s mission is to raise awareness and change the hearts and minds of people around the world to put an end to child trafficking. Although he cannot save every child individually, Hutchinson firmly believes that by working together, society can protect all children from this abhorrent crime.
Paul Hutchinson’s journey from a successful businessman to a dedicated advocate against child trafficking is a testament to the power of philanthropy and the potential for every individual to make a meaningful difference. His story continues to inspire others and contribute to the global effort to eradicate child trafficking.
- Read the Transcript
Serial Entrepreneur EP104 with Paul Hutchinson
[00:00:00]
Hi. We’re waiting for members to start to join. Hold on a second. I got.
We’re gonna have an amazing session today. I’m [00:01:00] so excited and we’re so grateful for everyone who’s already jumping in the room. We have an amazing human being. Um, Paul Hutchinson, who is extraordinarily successful, but he’s even more successful in terms of what he is doing for people, and that is his extremely active.
Fight against child human trafficking. He was a massively successful founder of a billion dollar company. He has taken all that energy, his contacts and money and I mean literally put hisself his life on the line at risk to help these children in other company, uh, companies, other countries to get them free and get out the cause and the awareness about how to stop child trafficking.
So Colin, I see you’re here in the room. [00:02:00] And Ed, ed, thank you so much for joining us Startup Club, Jeffrey. And Mimi, like this is gonna be an amazing session here with Paul. So Colin, why don’t you like, give us a little background and um, I’m gonna take a look down here, Mimi and I, to see if we can find Paul so we can pull him into the stage.
Take it away. Thank you, Michele. What an incredible hour we’re gonna have here. This is a moment in time. It is a special moment on a clubhouse where we are getting a chance to talk to a very successful serial entrepreneur named Paul Hutchinson, who pivoted in his life to a cause to stop human trafficking.
He is a phenomenal individual. His stories are incredible. Can’t wait to have him up here and on stage and talking about that. You’re listening to, believe it or not, you’re also listening to a podcast. This is Serial Entrepreneur [00:03:00] Secrets Revealed, and you can find this podcast in your favorite podcast channel.
Just search for Serial entrepreneur Secrets Revealed, or just serial entrepreneur. It’ll pop right up on any of the CHO podcast networks out there. In addition, if you’re listening to this in podcast, you might not know this is actually a live show on Clubhouse with a live audience. And you can come on Clubhouse, join Startup Club, and uh, actually come on stage and ask our guests.
The last thing I will say is, if you haven’t already done so, check out, uh, our website startup.club. We have a number of, I’ll be hundreds of recordings from, uh, this show and other shows on Startup Club. And we have a mailing list where we announce speakers like Paul Hutchinson and, uh, and, uh, if you don’t, if you’re not on that mailing list, you just don’t know when they’re coming on.
So that’s absolutely critical. I know we’ve had some bugs with this app in the last couple of weeks. I know that the club has team are working very hard to address those bugs. [00:04:00] And, uh, even myself today, I couldn’t open the room. For some reason, Michele was able to open it. I wasn’t able to open the room.
So we’re having a few things go sideways on us, but you know, as a startup, that’s what we do. Right. Uh, I just got a text from Paul. He’s jumping on right now. He’s Sorry, he’s, he says, sorry, I was on the Google link. Uh, again, it’s, it’s, it’s new technology. It’s a new platform and, you know, we’re struggling through it, but I, I get it.
Like all, all startups, that’s what happens from time to time. Uh, if you are in the audience and you like this topic about listening to an individual who created a very successful company, but also, um, is helping to stop human trafficking, we would love for you to share the room if you’re on stage. I’m gonna do that right now.
If you look at the bottom of the, of the, of your app, there’s uh, one button from the left. If you just click on that, click on share on Clubhouse. We wanna boost the audience size here because this is a really phenomenal topic. This is something that I think is gonna impact all of us. Uh, there’s a movie called The [00:05:00] Sound of Freedom, and Paul inspired that movie.
Here’s an individual. I saw the trailer. Michele, have you seen the trailer? Uh, Jeff or Michele or Ed, that, you know, it’s been, it’s pretty amazing. Like, I’m definitely gonna be checking this movie out. Any, any, any, any one of you there, Mimi? I have not. I have not seen it yet, but I will definitely look, look for it.
Well, we gotta, well, we’ll hopefully we’ll post the trail, but it’s called Sound of Freedom. You can google it on the internet. It’s a Hollywood movie coming out and, uh, you know, I was really inspired by him and I, I’m, I’m so excited to have the opportunity to be able to ask some questions of Paul, and I know everybody here is as well.
And if you’re in the audience, uh, and you want, Stefan, I know I’m trying to get you up on here too, I host gonna ask, uh, where, how do I get, okay. Uh, if you’re in the audience you wanna ask a question, uh, please feel free to come on, on stage. Uh, we’d love to have as many people as we can possibly are on stage and again, sharing the room.
All right. So [00:06:00] I was just on the phone, uh, with Paul and he happy he is trying to get in and I think he made it. There he is. Oh my gosh. Paul, what a welcome site. We’re so happy to have you here and I’m super excited all of the members of the club to to hear what you have to say and hear how you know, what we can do on this, you know, global crisis.
But on that note, I wanna hand it back over to Colin so he can kick us off. Thanks so much. Yeah, I, we feel very honored, Paul, that you spend the time, uh, with startups on Clubhouse to share your message. The last time we had a show, um, we had Paul on about a month or two ago, and he talked a lot about his entrepreneurial career and path.
Today we want to hear the stories, though. We really do. This is, it is such a cool story. What you’ve done and the impact that you’ve made in this world and the awareness and to [00:07:00] have a Hollywood movie inspired by your actions is, is absolutely amazing. Before we jump into that though, can you just give us one or two minute background of how you started your career and how you were able to scale a real estate front of, I think today it’s about 40 billion.
I think you left your, um, when it was what, 20 billion, but the fact of the matter is a lot of billions. And, uh, how did you go from, from, from the beginning to, to get that thing to where, to such a successful company?
And Paul, remember the bottom right corner is the, uh, There you go. Oh, there we are, right there. Unmuted myself. Love technology. Thanks, Colin. Um, so yeah, today we’re a little over 48 billion in asset center management. Um, and the key to success was simply bringing on the right partners. We have a fantastic team.
Um, the fund side started with myself and John Pennington. Started [00:08:00] with a company called Bridge Loan Capital, doing short-term asset based lending. Uh, then we, we teamed up with, uh, a property management company that had been in business for 20 plus years and had a fantastic track record and, um, A lot of people when they asked John, how did you guys get so big?
He refers back to a story right in the beginning where he and I were in a little office. We paid $300 a month for this tiny office. Um, if we backed our chairs up at the same time, we would hit each other and it would hit elbows if we turned around and, and we’d have a deal where we needed $25,000 by Friday.
And, uh, and I’d be making phone calls, getting all the people, um, investors to, to come on board with us with this deal. And I turned around after a call and I’d put my little pinky by my, by the side of my, my mouth. And I’d say, John, we’re gonna be a billion dollar fund someday. And he, he, he laughed. He said, Paul, we just need $25,000 by Friday.
But it was that, that visualization of where we could be and what we could [00:09:00] create and building it with integrity from the beginning, building it right with the expectation that we were gonna be big and, and then being open to. What the universe would provide to us in terms of potential partners and people that would come on, that would really take us to that whole next level.
And we could go on like we did before for hours about that, uh, that journey. But that’s really what it was, is seeing it from the beginning and bringing on the right people, setting a clear intention of what we wanted to create. And with that clear intention, being open to the understanding that that, uh, the right people would show up at the right time as we put the effort in.
Okay. You make it sound too easy. There must have been some ups and downs. There must have been a few. We worked, right? Well, we did. We worked our butts off. In fact, I, I can’t tell you how many months we went without a paycheck, where, where we were like, [00:10:00] okay, we’ve got to put the money back in. In fact, a lot of times in bringing on those right partners, guys like Don Hartman, he was now, he was earning.
Over a half a, uh, half a million dollars a year is his base salary. Where he was before, we couldn’t afford somebody like him, but we took our salaries down to nothing and gave him a bunch of equity. And that saved the day for us in terms of building a big company. So yeah, there was a plenty, plenty of challenges, plenty of headaches.
And you know, the 2008. Uh, real estate crisis would have crushed everything except for the fact that we had some of the right team members on that helped us navigate through that. But it sure took us from earning a million dollars a year down to nothing again for a couple years. But we were able to preserve our investors equity and, uh, and, and the next few years after that were the number one performing real estate fund in the country, uh, of our size and and background.
So yeah, it was, it was a rocky road, but, and in reality, and, and this [00:11:00] is what, this will kind of be a lead in call into what we’re talking about here. I, um, I truly believe that the success that we experienced in, in our, our business pursuits were directly tied to the decision I made in my early twenties that I would donate.
At least 20% of my money and 20% of my time to charity to making a significant impact in the lives of other people. And I’ve served or been a part of over, over 15 different, uh, boards of directors of different charities, uh, most of them child related charities. And every single time I wrote a big check or did something where I put a lot of my time and effort into those charitable pursuits, every single time, I would have huge results coming back in my business career.
And you can call it karma, [00:12:00] you can call it god, you can call it the universe, call it whatever you want to. There’s a, there’s a higher power that’s very interested in us doing good. And, and those, uh, those charitable pursuits had a direct impact in the success of my business career. Oh, I love how you link, um, You’re giving back a a along the journey as well, not just after you were successful.
That’s, that’s pretty cool because there is an impact we can all make as startups in this world, in, in, in, in this community and in this world, and, and we can all make a difference. And you are, I think you’re inspiring us all to do that. Let me ask you a question. Why human trafficking? Like, why was that something that just resonated with you and something you decided to really focus on?
Honestly, Colin, I didn’t even know that there was that kind of darkness in the world, uh, before I was introduced to it. I, I, I had made a decision 30 plus years [00:13:00] ago that my charitable money was going to two different places, um, number one, to, to serve those who serve us. If they’re putting their life on the line to keep me alive, then, then that’s a charitable pursuit.
I’m putting my money and time behind. And the other one is the truly innocent, uh, a nine year old child in a position completely outside of any decisions that she made. Is, is in a difficult situation. I served on the Make-A-Wish Board of Directors for seven years. I was the, the incoming chairman for Make-A-Wish.
Um, when, about 10 years ago when I got a phone call. Uh, make-A-Wish In, in, in Utah, not nationwide, but, uh, and, and with Make-A-Wish, a beautiful organization. I mean, these are kids who have, have life-threatening illnesses that you can make a huge impact in, in what they have left of their lives, or even make a massive change in the trajectory of their life by giving them hope with what we are doing there.
Um, but then I got a phone call from Sean Reyes, he’s [00:14:00] our attorney general in Utah now, and he, he and I had been friends for quite a while. I, I, um, uh, I had gone through some training with, uh, the F B I, years ago, the F B I Citizens Academy. He, I was on the board of directors for that when he had gone through, uh, some training there.
Uh, I was 40, under 40 the year before. He was as 40 most influential people under 40 years old that he was young attorney of the years when he got his. So we had been friends for a bit, but he called me up and he said, Paul, I have to talk to you about something that’s super dark. He said it’s the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world, and good people don’t even know that it’s happening.
He said, there’s more today. And I’m not talking about just chilling, abused at home, which is a massive problem. I’m talking sold human beings. There’s more today than all 300 years of the trans-Atlantic slave trade put together. And he said he, he had introduced me to a Homeland security agent. Um, [00:15:00] named Tim.
In fact, the movie, the Sound of Freedom, uh, is based on this quick story that I’m gonna tell you here of how I got involved. And, uh, Jim Kiesel, he plays Jesus passion of the Christ Count Monte Christo. Jim plays the part of, of Tim, the homeland security agent who, uh, who had found these children originally.
And Eduardo Verge, he’s the Purdue, the billion dollar fund manager who quit his job to go rescue children. And so, you know, I wasn’t a huge part in that movie. It was, it was, you know, a decent role of my, my, my participation. But I was the one that was called to help to fund the rescue of these children in Columbia.
And more important than helping to fund it, he, he called me up and he said, Paul, I think that there’s up to a hundred children in this area surrounding this city, uh, tied to the same trafficking ring. He said, we could rescue all of them, but I need your help in a big way. And I said, well, how [00:16:00] much do you need?
And he said, I need you. Can you be in Columbia in two days? And that changed everything, is me physically being there, undercover, seeing these children being sold. He knew I had a little, uh, some things in my background that make me somewhat safe in a dangerous place. I have some certain skills, but, but more important than that, he needed somebody who could effectively negotiate a multimillion dollar real estate transaction with the cartel, with the, with the traffickers down there.
So that’s how I got involved. Wow. I mean, it, it’s, you know, we got to hear some of the stories and, you know, those in the audience. I, if I could share a little bit, Paul, I, I hope you don’t mind and feel free to correct me if I’m saying something that’s not accurate, but, You know, Paul is a guy. I’m gonna say that he actually put his life on the line.
He went in, they needed people to pose in these [00:17:00] sting operations out of the country to help catch the bad people. Okay. So you, you, you’re really speaking from the heart, and I know you really put yourself at risk and I looked at your, you know, website and I want you in a minute here to talk about how we can help.
But, um, you know, could, could you just tell us a little, like, what does it look like, child or human trafficking? Um, I, I can tell you, I know that this is a huge issue in the US in the world. I constantly, when I’m in an airport, I hear about it like, I think there’s a real need to help educate people on what it looks like, how to identify it, and what the ramifications are.
And oh my gosh, what do we even do when we, when we notice something like I, we wanna hear some real stories and we wanna know as members of Clubhouse and Startup [00:18:00] Club, what can we do? Thank you, Paul. Thank you. Well, I’ll, I’ll give you one thing you can do to keep your kids safe. Be super cautious about what’s happening on social media.
Um, one of, I’ve, I’ve now led or been involved in over 70 undercover rescue missions in 15 countries, and through our foundation, the Child Liberation Foundation and others that we have helped to start or fund over 5,000 victims have been rescued and returned to their, their families within the last 10 years since I started.
And, um, I, I just went public just two months ago. I’m, I’m done doing art undercover and we’ll talk about that later because I believe we can rescue millions of children with what I’m, I’m teaching here rather than just pulling 20 children out at a time. But the story I wanted to tell you was in, in, uh, in, uh, Latin America.
It was in a beach town. A beautiful place that a [00:19:00] lot of, uh, Americans will go with their families and tour around on vacations and whatnot. And we had got some information from the federal agents of this country that there was some trafficking, uh, that they expected would be highlighted around New Years.
And so went down there, uh, two or three weeks before, started going deep cover, making relationships with the different traffickers in the area, telling them that I had a, a wealthy, uh, boss that I was working for that wanted to, to have a, a, a party with a bunch of children. This, which was typical, this is what’s so sad and so sick, is that these, um, these traffickers are looking for these guys.
The reason I was recruited is that the, the, the demand in second and third world countries for this horrible act comes from wealthy, uh, or connected. Um, Business owners or politicians or others in first world countries. And so that’s, it’s a big ego going down, doing [00:20:00] horrible things. And so that’s why I fit the profile to do the undercover work with, with these missions.
And so I was down there, I set it all up with the connected with a bunch of the traffickers and. Uh, one of them vi his name was Victor. Very bad man. He was, he was offering us children as young as seven years old. Uh, he had, he had this plan that, uh, look, you, if you pay me an extra $10,000, I’ll hold a little seven year old virgin for you and you can come down anytime you want to fly down here.
And just horrible, horrible man. And, um, now, because it was over New Year’s, I was dating, uh, a girl at the time and she was, she was like, Paul, I really wanna be with you over New Year’s. I’m like, crap, I’m gonna be freaking undercover. You can’t. So I says, listen, we’ll go down. We’ll get you guys a nice little place in a, in a secluded, gated area down in this beach town.
You guys can hang out there and enjoy New Year’s, and I’ll at least be in the area and come back and say hi and whatever. So she, she brought her cousin with [00:21:00] her and, um, Her cousin, like two days after they got there, they were posting online all over the place saying, Hey, you know, we’re here. And her cousin was, was much younger.
She actually had just turned 18, but she looked like she was 14. Her, her cousin looked super young and um, and she was posting, Hey, we’re, we’re here in, in, uh, this beach town, enjoying whatever else. Well, she then shows me her phone and she goes, look at this. This guy wants to take us out on his boat. He’s a guide in the area and he, he wants to take us.
And, and she showed me his picture. It was Victor, it was the trafficker who, one of the traffickers that was bringing these children, this is how he was getting some foreigners to come in. And he had been doing it for years where, where he would find, uh, girls that didn’t look like they were there with their parents or whatever else, and he would, he would, uh, reach out to them.
And that’s the kind of kids that he was bringing into these, these. Trafficking networks. And so, [00:22:00] so be super careful when you’re, realize there’s a lot of predators out there that are looking through the social media of your kids. And if they’re public and if they’re posting, Hey, I’m in this country, on this beach town, it looks like they’re alone.
They could very easily be a target. So that’s one thing you can do to keep your kids safe. Now, I will say this, the statistical probability of somebody that’s here on Clubhouse, having their child being kidnapped and sold is pretty low. These kids are normally coming from super broken families from the foster program that’s broken from, uh, poor, poor areas in the countries that were doing the rescues.
Um, but there have been a number of them that have been American children that have been abducted and brought into this as well. Incredible. Like again, uh, Paul, you, you make it sound so easy. Oh, I just flew down. I went undercover and, uh, I did this and I did that. Okay. W there must have been some times when you were [00:23:00] nervous.
Here you’re dealing with the cartel, you’re tell us a story. Yeah, I’ll tell. And, and I know a few of them already. I’ll, I’ll you, but, you know. Alright. Tell us a story where you think it wasn’t going right in how you pivoted. There’s couple, there’s a couple that weren’t going right at all, three or four of them that were super scary.
Um, so, so, uh, one of these, um, we, uh, have to change the countries in the names so I don’t get shot. Um, but, uh, we, we, we got some phone call. I, I got a phone call from, uh, the federal agents in, in a Latin American country saying, Hey Paul, um, there’s some, uh, I believe that there’s some really bad trafficking going on in this certain area.
Uh, can you guys come down? So we went in and, um, and within two hours I was, I was talking to some guys on the streets. So now in the beginning,[00:24:00]
I think we lost him. Can you guys hear? No, no. I can’t hide. He might have gotten a phone call. No. Yeah. Yeah. Paul, um, you went on mute and we lost you there for a second. Just when you get to the juicy part. I know. Blow that. I know. Interesting part. Sorry. I know. Shouldn’t say this is juicy cause the whole topic’s horrible, but perhaps the traffickers did not want us to hear what Paul was about to say.
Yeah, exactly. Paul, uh, if you’re, if you’re there, I mean, look, let’s just, you know, we’ll give him a chance to come back here. But you know, those who are on the stage here, just reflecting what he, okay, here’s a very successful entrepreneur gets on a plane and does 150 or so undercover missions for the US government.
Puts himself out there and he’s up against the cartel. And I know, you know, you don’t know the story, but he came out, uh, very recently about his role and, and whatnot and [00:25:00] he’s trying to really help educate the world about this human trafficking and what’s going on. I thought it was interesting that he noted that this is really a, almost like a third world problem and a first world problem.
I can’t even imagine somebody who would do what he’s doing. And we obviously, we’ve heard of Weinstein, we’ve heard of others, right? But anyone on stage who wants to sort of comment on what we’ve heard, so what we’ve heard so far, uh, be happy to go popcorn style here.
I missed part of the room cuz I just came in, but it just sounds like such a fascinating conversation because I mean, I mean, I, I would love to hear more cuz I just came in the room. But it just seems like such an amazing story and, you know, to have experienced that and gone through, um, what, um, what, you know, journey, what his journey has been for Paul.
So I’d love to hear more, but I can’t comment too much cuz I don’t know the whole story yet. Yeah, it’s like a startups, we always put [00:26:00] ourselves out there, right? Just a risk to whether our product will sell or not sell. Here’s a guy who put himself out there and risked his life to help others. And, uh, it’s, it’s such an inspiration and I know I’m definitely gonna be watching Sound of Freedom.
I think that’s an very interesting movie. It’s, it’s something that, um, I’ll, I’ll take my kids too as well and just really understand. And by the way, the trailer is pretty amazing. It’s not like, uh, it looks very, very interesting and very intense. I don’t know if it really conveys the experiences that he went under.
Um, and I know he was about to tell us some good stories there too. Uh, maybe we can, uh, Mimi, if you’ve been able to call Paul. Or maybe he’s, maybe his phone ran out of power. That’s a theory, right? Yes. I’ll try calling him. All right. That would be good. Anyone else on stage? Yeah, go ahead Jeff. Yeah, no, I think what, what you pointed out several times to Paul is pretty amazing in that how calmly he recounts these things and how he talks about situations that clearly [00:27:00] were, were high risk situations.
Calm as a cucumber as the saying goes. And you know, as startups, you know, when we deal with found, founding a company and we deal with our own company, you know, we sound far more stressed over, you know, raising money and financial decisions and hiring people. Then Paul sounds about these life-threatening, uh, dangerous missions.
So pretty remarkable. Paul, how cool and collected you. Well, so, so this is where it got scary. I couldn’t get ahold of, of Scarface. Sorry, I cut out there for two seconds. So, so this, one of the traffickers, we couldn’t get ahold of him. He had this huge scar running from his, his ear all the way down to his neck.
He was selling eight, nine year old kids. And, and, uh, I told the two federal officers, I said, listen, stay here in the hotel room. I’m gonna go, I’ve gotta go out into the dark area. I’ve gotta, I’ve gotta reconnect with him. He has to go down. So we go out there and I’m talking to these taxi drivers that, that I knew, had some connections with the traffickers.
And I said, [00:28:00] listen, tell him Pablo’s in town. Uh, I’ll give you a hundred dollars if he calls me, just let him know he that I’m in town. So we’re sitting there at the boardwalk area waiting for him, and out of the blue, 10 police officers full automatic weapons on the ground. On the ground, on the ground. And we’re like, shit, we’re laying down there on the ground.
Now here’s the deal, I, I don’t know if they’re good cops. I don’t know if they’re bad cops. And at this point I had done three months worth of undercover. I’d been down there eight times, found 48 children. I would rather spend three days in a Mexican prison than to lose those 48 children. And so, so we’re, we’re laying there on the ground and they’re handcuffing us really hard.
And then they, they, they pick us up and they put us in the back of one of these police pickup trucks. You know, it has the, the benches on the side where the police officers are holding their automatic weapons, police officer in the front, police officer in the back, and they start driving and I’m thinking, okay, they’re gonna take us to the jail at the prison.
And the federal officers who was in my hotel room, [00:29:00] they’ll come and say, Hey, this is a federal case, and they’ll get us out. Well, they don’t take us to the jail, they take us. Out of the city into the desert. This is where really bad things happen, right? And, and at this point, I’m actually more scared for the cops than I am for me.
And, and here’s, here’s why. Have you ever, have you ever heard of Krama? Yes. You heard of crop? Okay, so, so regular martial arts, like, like karate and, and jiujitsu. I, I, not to totally make fun of ’em, but a lot of those ones are, are bow or sensei three points when you kick him in the leg. Kra maga is brick to their head.
Go home to your family. It’s his rally. Special forces hand to hand combat training. It’s the most lethal on earth. I’ve been training for decades and more important than that, there’s a guy by the name of Joseph who’s been my trainer. He’s one of. The top 10 trainers in the world. He, he, he goes back to Israel and trains the trainers once a year.
I believe he’s the only non israe [00:30:00] that’s qualified to go train the trainers. He’s bat a to the bone. Well, Joseph happened to be with me on that mission, and so when they threw us all on the ground, now he had had three tequilas at dinner that night, so he was a little bit tipsy. So when, when the, when the officers throw us on the ground and start handcuffing us with their fully automatic weapons, Joseph’s like, I’m gonna f and kill ’em.
I’m like, bro, you can’t kill ’em. They’re, they’re, we don’t know if they’re good cops. He goes, they’re bad cops. I know they’re bad cops. Then when they put us in the back of the pickup truck and they start taking us out of the city, he’s getting more upset by the second he says, going down. I said, Joseph, let me talk to them.
Let me talk to them. So when they, when they pull off into the desert, they get out. One of them’s got, they’ve got their batons, their guns, they’re pulling us out of the truck. This is where ba, this is the scariest crap. And one of them says to me, he says, you’re looking for Scarface. I said, yeah. He said, I arrested him myself for selling children, and you’re going to be with him and you’re gonna tell me everything and he’s got his [00:31:00] baton out.
And, and, and I said, I’m really glad you said that. Now I can tell you who we really are. I said, I have two federal officers at my hotel room. He goes, bullshit. I said, no. Gimme my phone. We’ll call him right now. He says, you’re not getting your phone. You’re gonna tell me everything. He’s got his baton out.
Joseph’s behind me going, it’s going down. I said, bro, just stop. They’re good cops, right? And so, so finally I said, guys, before anything happens, somebody has to go in. And I had a, a hidden pocket inside my undercover pants with a little zipper that had a card in there, laminated card that was signed. It had my picture on it.
It was signed by the head of the federal police and the president that said, basically in in Spanish, it says that if they don’t give me their guns and their cars or their resources, they could go to jail. It’s the best get outta jail free card I could possibly have. And the, the officer looks at that and he, he takes it to the chief of police that was in the front car.
He comes back shaking, unhandcuffed us faster than we were handcuffed, and all 10 of them losito losito, we’re [00:32:00] so sorry, we’re so sorry. I said, no, this is how you should treat people who are buying children in your country. I said, but. Here’s the deal. I don’t know who to trust. So if anybody in your entire department says anything to anybody that I just showed you, that card, your entire department’s under investigation.
Do you understand? He goes, yes, sir. Yes sir. We’re so sorry. We’re so sorry. So four days later, largest child rescue mission in that country’s history with 48 children. But that was pretty nice situation for a minute there. Yeah, we gotta see those. We gotta see those handshakes there on the, on the icons.
That’s absolutely amazing. Uh, look, you, again, you told us this story. You’ve been coming out publicly recently. How do you tell that story to your family? How did your family deal with what you were doing here? Am I, am I allowed to ask that question? I know I’m going into a dangerous territory here, I think.
No, it’s, it’s good. And here, [00:33:00] well, here’s the thing. You know, so, so a, a girl that I was dating, um, at the time of one of my missions, Um, just started dating her. And she, um, she said, Paul, I I, I had done the pre-op stuff. I had found some of the children and I came back home. We, the sting was in another week when we were gonna have the big party and all the kids bringing ’em all together and, and rescue all these children.
And she said, Paul, she said, I, uh, I really, I really like where our relationship’s going, and I, I really don’t want you to go, this is really dangerous. She said she had two little boys. She had a 10 year old and 11 year old. Little, little boys. And, um, they were playing with a, a little girl from the neighborhood in the other room, in the living room.
And I said, hold on a minute. And I, and the little girl was named Jessica. I said, Jessica, come in here for a minute. And she came in and I, I said to her, I said, how old are you? She goes, oh, I’m 10. I’m almost 11. I said, and, and what do you do for fun? She goes, well, I like to ride my bike. And I [00:34:00] like to, uh, sing and I like to dance.
I said, that’s wonderful. I said, and what do you want to be when you grow up? And she said, oh, maybe be a dancer or maybe be a nurse. I said, that’s beautiful. I said, why don’t you go play in the other room? She went back to the other room and I turned to my girlfriend at the time and I said, listen, the children that those trafficker showed me yesterday were her age.
And if I don’t go back down undercover to do that sting, they’re going to be sold to somebody else. And can you imagine the life they’re going to live? They deserve to enjoy riding their bike. They en deserve to enjoy singing. They deserve to want to grow up to be a nurse or a dancer. I said, I have to do this.
In fact, the very first rescue, my business partner called me [00:35:00] right before I was going down and he said, Paul, he said, have you, have you thought through this? He said, this is really dangerous. He said, you, you’re set. He said, you could, you could sell out today by an island. Be happy the rest of your life. I said, John, would I really be happy if I bought an island, if I bought a yacht, if I bought a plane, whatever, would I really be happy?
I said, tell me this. If we were, if I was doing something else dangerous tomorrow, if I was, if I was climbing Everest, you and I would have the same conversation, wouldn’t we? He goes, yeah, we, we probably would. I said, and when I’m 95 years old and I’m looking back on my life and I say, I, I climbed this mountain and I helped build this multi-billion dollar company and I helped rescue this many children.
Which one matters, which of them matters at all? [00:36:00] I said, if I have the skillsets necessary to pull these kids out of hell and get ’em back to their families, I need to be there. Wow. You know, I just want to reset the room a little here. We have Paul Hutchinson. He is a billion dollar founder and an extreme, I’ll say activist if I can, Paul and preventing.
Child human trafficking. Um, this guy goes on the front line. He has fought, he has put his life in danger and he also works very diligently to raise money and gives his own money. So Paul, again, you know, we just can’t thank you enough for all the work you’re doing to bring this to the forefront. And I just wanna, you know, cite a few things that I have seen and then I wanna go to our amazing members that have waited very patiently, um, to ask you questions.[00:37:00]
So, one thing you know, and I didn’t know this Paul, until a couple of years ago actually, when my sister, who is a doctor, told me about compulsory training that doctors are going under and constantly learning about is one of the number one problems in the US and worldwide is human trafficking. Like, who would’ve thought to me, I always thought of it as like capturing somebody for a slave.
It is much more than that. And I’m just reading from a government, you know, US government website. So if traffickers might use the following methods to lure victims into trafficking situations, romantics relationships, like Paul said, not putting down social media, but we have to really guard our children and our loved ones, right?
So false promises of well paying jobs, right? That’s slavery, it’s modern slavery, [00:38:00] manipulation, and violence. So we all need to be on lookout for these things. And Paul, let’s take a few questions from our um, members and then we really wanna hear from you, you know, what do we do to prevent this? I know you gave the scenario of protecting our, you know, children against, Praying folks on social media, but I know there is massive awareness campaigns going on, and if we spot it, we need to call, et cetera.
There’s key places I’ve heard, like airports messages. I’ve also heard about this around, you know, big sports events. There’s particular events, in particular signs that we would love for you to educate us a little bit on, as well as tell us how we can, um, you know, perhaps donate to the efforts that, that you lead.
But let’s kick it off first. Um, you know, I’m gonna go to the first person on the stage here, however, [00:39:00] um, in the spirit of Clubhouse, if you wanna talk, just flash your mic at us. I don’t wanna put anybody on the spot, but, um, Stefan, you’re, you’re the first person. And then I see a couple of people flashing.
All right. So Stefan, if you wanna go, you can go. Otherwise I’m gonna go to one of our members that are flashing the mics. All right. So Samantha, were you flashing? If you are, just go on. Sure, absolutely. Um, I’m probably being too transparent here, but I actually, uh, went through something similar. Um, I, uh, you know what Paul had mentioned, people or children that go through certain things are usually a target.
So I ran away from home when I was 14 years old because it was an abusive household, you know, so it’s like [00:40:00] children are really vulnerable, but they go after the people that are the most vulnerable. I’m sorry, I’m getting more emotional than I thought I would, so I’ll just pass it to the next person.
Thank you for sharing that, Sam. Welcome Anne. My God. All right. Yeah, Paul, go ahead. Sorry. Yeah, I can touch on that for sharing. Um, I am gonna just touch this now, but, uh, this is how we fix problem globally. It’s not just paying attention to the signs of when somebody is acting trafficked, but I I understand that one
10 million children breaking, breaking up. Yeah, that’s a team. [00:41:00] Oh,
can you hear me now? Yeah, that’s a little better, Paul. Okay, sorry. I’m actually in Mexico right now looking at places for a healing retreat, so, um, I will, I will try to stay in a good cell phone coverage range. Can you hear me okay now? Yeah, you’re clear, crystal clear. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Thank you. So, so again, 10 million children is unacceptable.
Beyond comprehension is what it is, yet that’s a teeny, tiny number compared to where the problem is coming from. And here’s what it is. Literally one out of every four women on the planet, were a victim of sexual abuse as a child. 40% of all women at some time in their life. And with men, it’s a little [00:42:00] bit smaller number, it’s 20%, one out of every five, yet a fourth of them.
Over 200 million men in this world. We’re a victim of that sexual violence under the age of 10 years old. So here’s what’s happening. For a long time, I thought, okay, pulling 20 children out of hell. Yes, I’m making a powerful impact in the lives of those children. But because not enough was being done to fix the demand, it created a vacuum and another 20 children being sucked into the deepest recesses of hell over and over again.
If my goal was to eradicate child trafficking 10 years ago when there was roughly 8 million children, then I’m not doing a very good job because there’s over 10 million today. And so I took a step back and said, where is it coming from? And for a while I thought, okay, maybe it’s, you know, pornography addiction.
These guys get addicted to, you know, pornography, and then they look at child pornography and et cetera. Yes, that’s part of it. But even [00:43:00] that is a symptom. The root causes this. We have generational trauma, and it’s not just sexual trauma. It’s verbal abuse. It’s physical abuse. It’s people that are living in an abusive type situation as a child.
And that is more than one fourth of all the households on earth have that kind of a situation going on in their home. And some people, God bless them, they grow up, they shed that trauma, they work through it, and they, they have a, a, a, they’re a good mom and a good wife and a good husband, et cetera, but others, Unfortunately they grow up and they hold it inside with really low self-esteem and it affects their ability to, to build their company and live their life.
And others unfortunately grow up to become contact offenders themselves. And passing on that generational trauma is affecting billions. Of people, billions of children. And so I have been into the deepest recesses of hell. I [00:44:00] have seen that depravity, and I’ve also worked with these victims in helping them overcome that.
So my goal moving forward is actually to go public, share these stories and share tools that people can use to help victims of their own families recover completely so that they never pass on that trauma in verbal abuse, physical abuse, or even sexual abuse to others. So that’s, that’s what my big picture plan is in.
In fact, I just bought the domain, uh, liberate humanity liberate-humanity.com and.org. Um, we’re going to put together all the resources necessary to really help people liberate that 10 year old inside of themselves, not just the 10 year old in Honduras being held by a trafficker.
Wow. I mean, it’s such a deep subject and as you say, I’m, [00:45:00] you know, it kind of blows the mind, right? How generational and how it is affects so many different people, all ages, classes, et cetera. But I, I wanna get on, we only have a short time here with Paul. Um, who wants to go next? Please just flash your mic.
All right. Dimple and then hurt will come to you right after that. I know you’ve been patient and I appreciate it, dimple. Yeah. Thank you so much. So my question for Paul is, have you thought about, um, turning this into like a Netflix series or show? Because it seems like such an amazing story to share publicly on a national network.
Yes, I’ve had a, I’ve had a number of people that have come and, and wanted to share those. I mean, with the 70 missions I’ve done, there’s enough content for years of, of that. In fact, that’s why we decided to do the movie, the Sound of Freedom as a, as [00:46:00] a launch. We have a lot of, of, uh, video, uh, from some of our early undercover missions, et cetera.
I will say this though, I’m just gonna throw this out there. Um, you’re not going to solve, Poverty by showing pictures of impoverish people to the affluent. Yes, the affluent need to write checks to create a foundation and an opportunity for people to get out of poverty. But the best thing you can do is change the minds and the hearts of the people in poverty and show them the picture of affluence that they can have, help them believe in themselves.
So, back to this problem, I, yes. There’s a lot more awareness happening now than there was 10 years ago when I started. There’s, uh, we’ve, we’ve worked with big companies choice. They dunno, they have, that’s like women going in [00:47:00] the, sorry, Michele, you’re on mute there. We gotta get you on mute. So sorry. Keep going.
So, Oh yeah. So, so, so yes, awareness is important so we can all be aware. However, the fact that the problem is significantly bigger today than it was 10 years ago when we started doing some of the, um, um, some of the awareness campaigns tells me that it may not be making the difference that we want. In fact, on the contrary, let me just throw this out there.
What if, what if there’s some sick guy who’s addicted to pornography in a really hardcore way and he’s, he needs something harder to have that same fix. And for him harder is, uh, you know, rape videos or whatever. And then it’s, uh, and then he sees. All this stuff about child trafficking and he didn’t even know that would be attractive to people.
But then he’s like, Hmm, that’s super [00:48:00] interesting. So he starts looking at pornography a little bit younger, a little bit younger, a little bit younger, and then pretty soon he’s fantasizing about something he wouldn’t have even thought was attractive five years ago. And then he’s acting out on these horrific fantasies.
So, so the question is, is just creating massive awareness gonna fix the problem? Or do we need to look deeper and say, where is it coming from? Where is that guy that is addicted to the hardcore pornography and going down that road of child porn? What, what is the root problem here? Is it the fact that he was probably raped as a child himself?
Can we get him the help that he needs before he becomes a contact defender? That’s what I am putting a lot of time and money into. Is healing humanity rather than just showing a bunch of videos of, of the undercover work that we’ve done. I’ll touch on that a little bit to catch the attention, but it’s, it’s, [00:49:00] it’s helping people heal that 10 year old inside of themselves that’s going to rescue millions of children.
Wow. Wow. That’s so impactful. Um, Paul, really, so much great insight. So hurt. You’ve been very patient. Please let us know your question for Paul. Hey Paul. What’s up man? Um, first of all, I gotta say you, you’re an inspiration on both sides cuz with the, uh, the, uh, real estate company, um, what’s it called? Um, bridge, investment Bridge.
You, you kick butt, you kick button bridge. Way to go. Um, the other thing though is I was a transition team leader, I mean member and the military. And I got introduced to childhood trafficking back in 2004 in Indonesia. When the tsunami hit, they were picking up children left and right cuz there weren’t any parents.
And so from two, from [00:50:00] that time, 2004, all the way up to where when I went to Iraq, I also saw it when I was in Iraq between 2008 and 2009 when I came home. To America. That was during Obama’s time and I saw it because I live in Houston and I saw it everywhere in Houston. And what my thing is, and I was gonna ask you a different question until you said what you said, what I think a large majority that’s happening within the culture, uh, especially within America, is that we no longer talk about cuz you’re, you’re older than me.
We remember how we used to talk about religion and politics and religion and politics opened up the door to a whole lot of uncomfortable conversations to have. Right now we won’t have uncomfortable conversations anymore. So in order, I feel that in order for us to really get on top of this is that we have to really take the culture [00:51:00] to a point where we start talking about uncomfortable topics.
And so what do you think about that? Her porter out. I 100% agree. This is, so many people will say, um, you know, I don’t, I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna hear that. I don’t want to hear that. You know, back at the time of the, uh, the, the slave trade in America, um, there were, there were people who didn’t believe in the slave trade yet.
They would see their neighbors treating their slaves with the, the most ruthless tactics. And they didn’t say anything. They didn’t stand up. And, and, and I asked a guy, there was a, there was a guy a couple years ago, he said, oh, Paul, I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna hear about this stuff. I said, tell me this. I said, if you lived back in the, in the 17 hundreds, early 18 hundreds, and your, your, um, your neighbor was doing these kind of [00:52:00] things to, uh, to another human being, I said, would you, would you step well?
Yeah, I’d step up, I’d say something. I said, no, you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t even wanna hear about it. You would stick your head in the sand and pretend like it wasn’t happening, because that’s what you’re doing today. I said, I said, we need to be as vigilant today about any form, any form of slavery as we have ever been.
If we’re standing up for human rights, we damn well better be standing up for children’s rights globally here. In fact. Um, and, and so I, I 100% agree with, with, uh, with what you’re saying, we, we have to have those, those hard conversations. And it’s not just the hard conversations about. Slavery itself about, about child trafficking itself.
It’s what is it about human nature that thinks in any way, shape, or form that that’s okay? What is it that made people think that was okay a hundred years ago, a few hundred years ago with the slave trade? [00:53:00] What is it that makes us think that somehow because of anything that we’ve done in our life or the color of our skin or anything that we’re any better than any other person, once we can start seeing each other as complete and total equals that, that the reality hurt you and I are, are more than just connected family.
We’re truly both. Truly connected, connected to each other, connected to the universe, connected to the world. And when we see that divine light within ourselves and within each other and learn how to respect each other in that way, we would never go down the road of objectifying women when we’re addicted to pornography, would never go down the road of, of thinking that slavery in any form was okay.
And that’s the cultural things that we need to figure out how to change. And it’s thousands of years of [00:54:00] deception that has come from political leaders, religious leaders, and others that make us think in any way, shape, or form that another human being is less than another period. It cannot happen. So that’s, that’s the beginning of the road in helping us heal is those conversations.
Yes. Thanks ma’am. And I think something that one of you said is, You know, it starts with the person who is the abuser or the trafficker. There’s something seriously wrong in devoid. And, um, I, I, if I understand you right, Paul, you’re like, how do we stop that from the very beginning, from the root source?
How do we heal humanity? So, uh, it’s an amazing mission. And, um, all right. Thank you Paul again. Michele, you’re cutting out there. If we could jump down to the next speaker. Uh, if you flash your mic again,
could [00:55:00] be me cutting out. Sorry. Yeah, I think it’s you, but, you know, I could be wrong, but I think Dr. Laura. Laura, uh, yes. Thank you so much for allowing me to speak.
Um, I think there’s so many pointing points that are being made right now, and, and I just wanna speak to the most common, uh, most recent, uh, comment that was made is that how are we supposed to reprogram thousands of years of what has been trained for us? I mean, we can even just speak about Charles Darwin that, uh, to repro re to recreate the species.
And I’m not saying I am not in any way. Uh, two years ago on Clubhouse, we held a summit, um, affiliated with Tony Robbins. And, um, we were able to save just a 12 year old, not just, [00:56:00] and I say that with the extreme significance of regret, a 12 year old girl during the summit who was a friend’s daughter of one of the speakers, On human trafficking, domestic violence, and child abuse.
And I gotta say, I can’t agree more with what Paul has indicated, sir, that, you know, it’s, it’s, um, my doctoral dissertation was on men and masculinity. And I just wanna make this point is that there are so many more men that I know have who disclosed to me personally, not publicly. That’s what happened to them.
Um, and the, um, perpetrator was female and male obviously. And there’s so much stigma with men as well. And I’m not to, to negate [00:57:00] the significance of what happens with women or females. Uh, um, in addition to that. And I just wanna support that. And as a licensed professional counselor, There is so much disclosed that’s never indicated in the public.
So, um, Paul, I just wrote a message to you in the back chat and we’re having a summit on May 15th through the 16th again here in Clubhouse and YouTube. And, um, I just would love for you to speak and if there’s anyone who has a story to share, just let me know. Um, you can contact me in the back chat. I appreciate you at a thankfully re um, gonna release the mic.
Wonderful. Thank you for sharing. And, um, I would absolutely love to be a part of any summits or anything going on And, uh, here’s the sad thing. The average age of somebody who remembers or admits that they were [00:58:00] trafficked or they, or they were abused as a child. The average age is 52 years old. So if something happened to these men when they were children, 52 years, they’ve, they’ve got, they’ve raised their children, they’ve built their careers holding onto this trauma.
And so that’s, uh, that’s something, yes, there’s so many more women who have had these kind of issues who have been abused. However, if we can help the men, then we solve the majority of the generational trauma because they’re most likely the ones that are gonna pass it on. And so if we can help them heal, if we can help them get the help that they need along with the women, then we can ensure that that’s not passed on to the next generation.
Wow. That’s so brave of you, Paul. You know, we really appreciate it and you know, we know statistically there are a lot of people that have suffered, um, you know, abuse as child, [00:59:00] adults or otherwise. So I wanna make sure that we have time for the last few folks that are on the stage here. Um, we so respect and are appreciative of your time.
Paul here with us and we’re about at the end of an hour. But before we move on to the last three people that are on the stage, Paul, just, just like, you know, I don’t know about the other folks, but I, I would like to help through you. Like, how would I do that? Do you need money? Do you need our time? And where exactly would we go?
So we have a foundation called the Child Liberation Foundation, c l F. You can go to liberate a child.org or liberate children.org or just look up Child Liberation Foundation online. Um, and, uh, you can, I I, I was undercover for the last 10 years, so I had zero social [01:00:00] media whatsoever, but I am, I have felt very inspired and very called to go public with these messages to help people heal.
So I just opened up a social media, literally. Two months ago, I did my first podcast two months ago. Shared over a hundred thousand times, uh, since then, and a bunch of other podcasts. If anybody has connections with any stages, any podcasts, any large audiences that I could share, that would be huge. Um, you can donate.
We have a lot of people that are donating a dollar a month or $10 a month to help help save kids with the Child Liberation Foundation. We are, uh, we’re creating another foundation, uh, tied around, uh, just liberate humanity as a whole and, and we’re building healing retreats. That’s why we’re here in Mexico right now, is we’re looking at some locations for some healing retreats where adults can come.
I can bring in a group of 20 men at a time who had child sexual abuse, who have been dealing with, [01:01:00] with, um, Um, therapists for the last 20 years with no real breakthroughs, and I can take them in a total transformational healing experience over four or five days, fully immersive and, and get massive results, 20 years worth of therapy in four or five days.
And so those are things that we’re expanding all over. In fact, uh, if somebody, instead of wanting to donate, wanted to actually invest. I, I can build all of these on my own, but I’m, I’m putting together a, uh, uh, kind of a crowdfunding type of opportunity where people with as little as 25 or $50,000 could invest in one of these healing retreats with, uh, I can easily pay 25% per year or more, uh, r ROI on this investment.
I, I average 22.3% net net return for our investors within Bridge, and that was just senior housing and, and apartment complexes with the healing world. This is something that, that you, [01:02:00] it’s an impact investment, but it pays just as well or better than other real estate type investments when it’s run.
Right. So those are things that we’re working on. You’re, you can reach out to me, you can, if, if you don’t wanna type in Paul Hutchinson official, that’s what my, my Facebook and, and LinkedIn and all that stuff is right now. You can just type, go to Google and type in www dot Soul Healer oh oh seven. Dot com and it’ll point you right now into, into my social media and other things.
But those are all things that we can do together. If you wanna help the kids go to Child Liberation Foundation, if you wanna actually invest and help the adults heal, then uh, the healing retreats and stuff we’re doing from through Liberto, Doris, which is the liberators in Spanish, uh, we’re setting up those throughout Latin America as well.
Well, that’s fantastic and thank you for sharing that. I know we have, Colin and I have been discussing this. We have some ideas too to help further, um, your work. But before we wrap up the hour, [01:03:00] um, I see two more people on the stage that have not had the opportunity to talk. Um, Alia and Dr. Mina, do either of you like to talk, just go off your mic and please ask Paul your question.
Go ahead, Amelia. You first.
You go first and then let’s go to Dr. Mina if you like. Thank you so much. Uh, Paul, I didn’t catch the beginning of this room, but I did hear you in Dr. Finance’s room, which was sadly, I think the only time that the interview was not recorded, it just had just gone into a house. Um, I am waiting for starlink.
I’m in Ecuador, I’m waiting for starlink, and then I will be launching my podcast and I would dearly, dearly like to interview you. My podcast [01:04:00] is called Sparking the Change, and it’s all about people who are sparking the change they want to see in the world. And if any ever anybody has done that, it is you.
Um, and also I would love to, um, you know, as you will know more than anybody else, that, uh, south America is a hotbed of, of child trafficking. And, uh, I’d love to speak to you on retreat venues. Thank you. I would love that. Yeah. Re just reach out to me on the back channel. I would absolutely love to connect with you and be on your podcast.
Anybody who has connections with podcasts or whatever, I’m, I’m, it’s all about getting the word out and connecting with people and, and, and sharing messages of light and hope and, and, uh, and what we can do to help change.
So I’ll just jump in quickly cuz I, I don’t wanna keep anyone. I am a district [01:05:00] leader in a school district in Southern California, Beaumont Unified. And I formally worked in a district in the high desert, which is considered one of the highest trafficking areas in California. Passes right through the high desert to Vegas.
And one of the things that we started to do was to bring in the middle school students to, uh, an event similarly, typically a STEM event, about sci tech, engineering, and math. And then the keynote would talk to the students about trafficking so that they would have information about it. Now, I, I think that’s too old.
We should talk to them at younger ages. We do get ahold of the parents. But what would be your advice for teachers? School leaders and district leaders to get ahead of this because we’re so focused on the academics and yes, we’re introducing trauma and that doesn’t sit well with a lot of states in the United [01:06:00] States right now.
What would be your advice to help them mitigate this at our level? Well, I will, I will say this. That’s a great question, but, um, so many of the, the, like I, we, we spoke about very, in the very beginning of this, of this stage, um, The majority of children that we rescue in these, these trafficking organizations, the majority of those children did not come from healthy homes.
They came from broken homes. They were runaways. They, they, they had some abuse at home. We, we just did one in, in Ecuador. This little girl had been, uh, her, her, uh, her mother died when she was eight. Her father was a horrible alcoholic. And, and, uh, she got sent to, to live with her and an uncle. Uh, by the time she was 10, her uncle started raping her.
She was, she showed all the signs at school that challenges were happening at home. She [01:07:00] didn’t have any friends really, so low self-esteem. She was the perfect target for these traffickers. And, and in a very short period of time, these traffickers started befriending her because she, she was, they know what to look for.
Unfortunately, they can spot ’em. Way better than than many of us as administrators and teachers and, and helpers, and the good guys can. And so they, they could spot her very quickly that there was issues happening at home. And so one of them ref, uh, befriended her. And, uh, he was much older, of course, and she was just a young girl.
And, and then from there, um, he convinced her, Hey, uh, you know, you can be my girlfriend. Come and live with me. And, and, uh, so she ran away from home with this trafficker, and immediately he bought her a plane ticket to Peru and flew her to Peru, bought her a bunch of sexy clothes and said, okay, here’s what you’re gonna do.
And you have to bring in a thousand [01:08:00] dollars a day. And that was upwards of, of 10 to 20, uh, uh, Johns per day that she had to sleep with as a preteen. And this continued for a few years and they would beat her up if she didn’t bring in at least a thousand dollars a day. Now the problem is where does she go if, if she did run away from that situation, she can’t go home and is so sad that the resources aren’t there to help these kids in so many situations.
And so if she had, if, if a teacher had recognized those problems when she was 10, 11 years old in her school, then there could have been some intervention happening before the traffickers picked her up. Now, fortunately, we took down that ring, uh, rescued her, um, and a whole bunch of the other kids that were tied to that same ring.
But, but that could have been resolved earlier if somebody knew what to look for. The same way [01:09:00] the traffickers are looking for those children in those compromised homes. We should be looking for the same. Paul. Thank you Paul, uh, and the community again for coming together and talking about such a significant issue.
I think this is the first time this episode number 105 of Serial Entrepreneur Secrets revealed. It’s the first time I actually teared up twice. Uh, thank you again, Samantha, for, for sharing that as well. I mean, I think it was twice during the session. I was literally had tears in my eyes. And, uh, if you missed it, you can catch it on your favorite podcast channel, uh, serial Entrepreneur Secrets Revealed, and also on replay on Clubhouse.
I know there’s a few bugs. We’re working them out, but we’re getting through that. Uh, by the way, uh, thank you for the website. Uh, if you can tell us the website just before we close, last minute here. I just went to it, um, and, uh, became a gold member at uh, Liberate children.org, is that right? Liberate Children [01:10:00] dot That’s correct.
Org. That’s correct. That’s correct. Yeah. Yeah. I became a global member. I’m so happy that you did that. And you’re also an inspiration to all startups because a number of us wanna find ways to give back. I know that in, in my group of companies, I have one in Ukraine and we’ve lost employees to the war.
And uh, we started a 5 0 1 called Help for Ukraine Club. It hasn’t been approved yet. We’re wait, still waiting for the, the final, uh, approval. But you’ve inspired me and I know you’ve in inspired a lot of startups here at On Clubhouse to think about how can we give back? How can we use our entrepreneurial skills to help change the world?
Cuz like you said, Paul, when you’re 95 years old and you look back, the difference that you made in those children that really made a difference in the world and that’s what matters. Thank you very much everyone for listening to the show, and I’m definitely following. Paul. If you’re not following Paul, please do so.
Thank you. So thanks Colin so much and uh, as Paul said, look for the signs. [01:11:00] Start at the root and don’t be afraid to speak up on behalf of the world’s children. I know that might sound cliche, but it really does make a difference. Someone who’s suffered from this a bit, it really does make a difference for adults to listen and to be observant.
No kidding. I don’t care if it’s your best friend or an uncle or an aunt. You must listen to children and really with a keen, observant eye to protect them. Thank you so much, Paul, from the very bottom of our heart, from all the members, and we look forward to your increased success in helping you more.
Have a wonderful weekend, everyone. Thank you so much.