FAYETTEVILLE -- Sex traffickers now bring in minors who never get to go to school after they get to Northwest Arkansas in efforts to fill the illicit trade's demand here, according to a presentation given to regional landlords Wednesday.
"Something we've seen exploding since January are undocumented minors who are not going to school," Special Agent Brenan DeSpain of the FBI told the noon meeting of the Northwest Arkansas Landlords Association on Wednesday.
DeSpain leads the Arkansas Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force. He and Joshua Robinson, a deputy prosecuting attorney for Benton County, met with the landlords at Sterling Bank's community room in Fayetteville to tell them how to help curb the trafficking.
"They don't speak English, and some from Mexico don't even speak Spanish but a Mayan dialect" or some other relatively obscure language, DeSpain said of the minors being brought to the region.
Meanwhile, local solicitation of minors goes on unabated, they said. In one recent example, a high school student in the region was lured in and then recruited three friends into sex trafficking, DeSpain and Robinson said. Also, mothers trafficking their kids for drugs is very common, they said.
Landlords should watch for repeated short-term rentals of the same location by the same client, particularly if the client lives in the area, the speakers said.
"If somebody's renting a space a couple of times a week and his driver's license says he lives in Fayetteville," then call authorities, DeSpain said. The law enforcement agency with local jurisdiction is the best to call first, the speakers said, but they also provided the landlords with other contact information.
Other red flags include hotel keys, rolls of cash and multiple cellphones in rooms, the speakers said.
"We asked people who had been trafficked what's the most common thing we missed," DeSpain said. "They said being stopped for a traffic violation at 2 or 3 in the morning. When a 14-year-old is out at that time being driven by someone 10 years older, that should have been something we picked up on."
Robinson and DeSpain also spoke to the group about adults being exploited for labor. Warning signs there include people working long and unusual hours, always traveling in groups by being picked up and not being allowed to speak for themselves.
At least one property manager and another business owner who runs a cleaning business asked to meet with DeSpain after Wednesday's event. Neither wanted their names published, but both said they had suspicions to report. One expressed surprise items appearing suspicious were left in an upscale private home in Rogers.
"Where else would you go to make a lot of money?" DeSpain said during the meeting. The traffickers "see themselves as entrepreneurs." They go where the best-paying clients are.
Kachia Phillips is a board member of the Hub of Hope nonprofit group helping those trafficked to get out and to raise community awareness of the problem. She was trafficked for 22 years in Northwest Arkansas, Phillips told the group.
"Only about 25% of my calls were at hotels," she said. Most were at homes and short-term rentals, she said. The trafficking peaks during any event bringing large crowds, particularly the Walmart shareholder's meeting, she said.
The wealth in the area attracts sex traffickers along with the relative safety of the community, DeSpain said. He asked a pimp why he moved to Northwest Arkansas, DeSpain said.
"Because you can make money here and not get shot at," the pimp said, according to DeSpain. There is enough wealth for rivals to make money without fighting for territory, DeSpain said.
Contact information
Fayetteville FBI office (DeSpains office): 479-443-3181
Hub of Hope help line for those trafficked: 405-582-0759