Combatting Human Trafficking

January is National Human Trafficking Prevention Month, and IRS-Criminal Investigations (CI) is partnering with other government agencies to highlight indicators and federal initiatives to combat this crime. According to CI Chief Jim Lee, the agency investigates an average of 20 human trafficking each year.

• IRS-CI in June 2023 helped indict four individuals linked to a prostitution ring, XO Companions. Each defendant was charged with conspiring to transport women in interstate and foreign commerce with intent to prostitute them. The defendants recruited women in Russia and other Eastern European countries to travel to the United States to work as prostitutes for XO Companions. Once in the United States, XO Companions workers traveled throughout the country to meet with clients in major cities.
• Sumalee Intarathong (aka Alice Spencer Warren) in April 2023 was sentenced to time served after her arrest in 2016 in Belgium, where she was incarcerated for her role in an international Thai sex trafficking organization until her extradition to the United States in 2021. Intarathong and other co-conspirators arranged for victims to travel from Thailand to the United States, forcing them to work in brothels. Each trafficked victim was “owned” by Intarathong and her co-conspirators until the victim could repay an exorbitant “bondage debt” of between $40,000 and $60,000.

Not all human trafficking results in sexual slavery and other forced labor. Russia’s war in Ukraine has exacerbated an already acute human-trafficking problem in the region. As desperate refugees flee continued Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure, organized trafficking organizations work to exploit their limited access to food, shelter, and other services by offering them fraudulent job opportunities and subsequently transporting them to foreign countries and forcing them into sex work. However, governments can also be active in human trafficking. The Kremlin has been removing Ukrainian children from hospitals and orphanages and trafficking them to Russia for “russification,” changing their names and their citizenships and forcing them to appear in propaganda videos.

Combating trafficking requires a strong coalition of local and global partners to share resources and information, better equip front-line workers, and track and respond to evolving trafficking trends, according to the US State Department.  By partnering with survivors, who can provide critical insights into methodologies and financial transactions, stakeholders can ensure policies, strategies, and programs are survivor-centered, trauma-informed, and sensitive to the especially acute threat faced by minorities and other underserved populations.