Three People Charged in Human Trafficking Investigation Involving Tinder in Brampton

by Paige Petrovsky on January 4, 2019

Three people have been charged following a human trafficking investigation involving Tinder.

According to a press release from Toronto Police, on Saturday, Dec. 1, 2018, members of the Sex Crimes Human Trafficking Enforcement Team started an investigation regarding a human trafficking incident.

It is alleged that a woman met a man, 23, on the Tinder dating website. Police say the man attempted to persuade her into the sex trade. The woman refused but the man continued to harass her.

It is further alleged that a different woman met a man, 19, also on the Tinder dating website. The man, according to the press release, procured her into the sex trade. The man then transported her to a hotel in the Mississauga area.

According to the press release, the man took photos of the woman in various stages of undress, and then posted advertisements for sexual services on the classified ad website Leolist. The man made all of the arrangements for dates of sexual services and forced the woman to turn over all of her earnings in the sex trade to him. He also assaulted her and threatened her family.

It is further alleged that the same 19-year-old man introduced her to a man, 23, and woman, 23. The woman allegedly took photos of her in various stages of undress, and also posted advertisements for sexual services on the classified ad website Leolist. The woman made all of the arrangements for dates of sexual services and forced her to turn over all of her earnings in the sex trade. The victim complied and gave the money to the 19-year-old man or 23-year-old man.

Both men and woman used deception, intimidation and fear to exercise control over the actions and movements of the woman.

Joshua Hamblett, 23, of Brampton, is facing multiple charges including trafficking in persons by recruiting, procuring/recruit person to provide sexual services for consideration, advertising Another Person's Sexual Services, and financial/material benefit from trafficking in persons over 18.

Sashauna Wilkins, 23, of Brampton, is also facing multiple charges including trafficking in persons by recruiting, advertising another person's sexual services, and possession of property obtained by crime under $5,000.

Keagan Prophete, 19, of Brampton, was arrested and is facing multiple charges including trafficking in persons by recruiting, procuring/exercising control, material benefit from sexual services, advertising another person's sexual services, assault, and uttering threats.

Police are concerned there may be more victims.

Police are encouraging all affected individuals to come forward and report Human Trafficking occurrences. 

Anyone with information is asked to contact police at 416-808-7474, Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477), online at www.222tips.com, online on our Facebook Leave a Tip page, or text TOR and your message to CRIMES (274637).

Arizona Capitol Dome Lit Blue for Human Trafficking Prevention Month

Throughout January, the Arizona State Capitol Dome will be lit blue in recognition of Human Trafficking Prevention Month and Arizona’s efforts to combat human trafficking, protect victims’ rights, and bring greater awareness and attention to this horrific crime.

"Thanks to the dedicated efforts and support of partners across our state, Arizona continues to be a national leader in the fight to end human trafficking," said Governor Ducey. "I want to thank the Arizona Human Trafficking Council, Cindy McCain, Arizona’s law enforcement agencies, and community stakeholders for their ongoing, collaborative efforts to identify and support victims, hold perpetrators accountable, and ensure we are providing appropriate resources to all affected by human trafficking. 


Together, we can put an end to this heinous crime.”

Since 2015, the Arizona Human Trafficking Council has led targeted statewide human trafficking prevention and awareness efforts. Under the leadership of Co-chairs Cindy McCain and Gil Orrantia, Director of the Arizona Department of Homeland Security, the Council has worked to raise public awareness towards victims’ services, develop a victims’ service plan, evaluate statewide human trafficking data, and support greater collaboration among stakeholders.

"Thank you to Governor Ducey for his proclamation of January as Human Trafficking Prevention Month and for directing the Arizona Capitol to be lit blue to raise awareness of the horrors of human trafficking,” said Mrs. McCain. “Arizona remains a leader in developing innovative methods to fight human trafficking in all its forms. We have made tremendous progress and I look forward to continuing to work alongside the Governor to prevent human trafficking in Arizona and punish those who perpetrate this horrendous crime.”

To date, the Arizona Human Trafficking Council has provided trainings and awareness presentations to over 31,000 professionals and community members statewide. During 2018, the Council increased outreach efforts to Arizona’s tribal nations, expanded victim access to critical housing and medical services, and connected over 3,000 stakeholders, including tribal communities and students, to resources and training materials.

Click here to learn more about the Arizona Human Trafficking Council.

To report trafficking or get help, please contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline. 

Click here to read the Human Trafficking Prevention Month proclamation.

School bus caravan raises awareness of child sex trafficking

By: Claire Simms, FOX 5 News

Six dozen bright yellow school buses wound their way through the streets of Atlanta Wednesday to raise awareness of the problem of child sex trafficking in Georgia.

"It's a difficult reminder that these statistics represent lives and these lives, our kids are not invisible," said Bob Rogers, president of the nonprofit group Street Grace.

Each of the 72 buses represented 50 children in Georgia who are sold into sex slavery each year for a total of 3,600, according to the organization.

Street Grace and the Georgia Attorney General's Office partnered to put on the awareness event.  They, along with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, have also launched the "Demand an End Georgia Initiative" to help stop child sex trafficking by going after customers.

"By Super Bowl Sunday, February 3rd all buyers and traffickers will know that Georgia does not tolerate those who seek to exploit our state's children," said Attorney General Chris Carr.

Carr said that educating the public about child sex trafficking and the warning signs is a huge part of combating the problem.

For more information on how you can help, visit www.StopTraffick.com. 

UPDATE: Parents confirm body found near Lame Deer is missing 14-year-old girl.

• By TOM LUTEY tlutey@billingsgazette.com

The parents of Henny Scott, Paula Castro and Nathan Stops, confirmed Saturday morning that their 14-year-old daughter's body was found Friday by a search party looking in an area west of Lame Deer on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. 

The FBI says they are investigating the discovery of a body found Friday outside of Lame Deer but declined to provide the identity of the body in a statement emailed Saturday to The Billings Gazette. 

The body was found covered in snow in an area behind a house in the Muddy Creek area west of Lame Deer, said Conrad Fisher, the acting president of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe. 

Around 20 people, many of them volunteers, searched for Scott on Friday. Her body was found at around 5 p.m., Fisher said. 

Scott, 14, was a freshman at Lame Deer High School and would have turned 15 in January, Castro said. She had been missing for several weeks. The Montana Department of Justice issued a Missing and Endangered Person Advisory on Wednesday stating Scott was last seen Dec. 13 at 8 a.m. near Busby and that she might have been headed toward Hardin.

Original Article:

The search continues for a 14-year-old girl last seen in Busby.

Volunteers gathered Friday west of Lame Deer at Muddy Hall to look for Henny Scott, who was last seen at 8 a.m. on Dec. 13.
Scott is Native American, stands 5’1” tall and weighs about 115 pounds. She has brown hair, brown eyes and a mole on the bridge of her nose. She wore a black Columbia jacket, gray Nike hoodie and blue jeans when she was last seen.

At least initially, officials said they suspected Scott might be traveling to Hardin and was possibly injured, though the nature and cause of the injury weren’t revealed.

Details about Scott’s disappearance have been slow to surface. Montana’s Department of Justice confirmed Friday that it issued a “missing or endangered person advisory” on Dec. 26, the day the FBI requested one, which was nearly two weeks after Scott went missing. The Bureau of Indian Affairs had entered Scott into the missing persons database Dec. 13, meaning she was in the system, but her disappearance wasn't broadcast to the media until the day after Christmas. The advisory ended Dec. 27.

Local, non-federal, law enforcement officers weren’t familiar with the specifics of the report Friday. The Big Horn County Undersheriff said he wasn’t aware Scott was thought to be headed to the Crow Indian Reservation, or Hardin.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs office in Crow Agency offered no new information on the disappearance and deferred all questions to the officer in charge, who did not respond. Basic information about Scott, like where she lives, which tribe she belongs to and where she attends school has never been provided.

The volunteer search party Friday was organized by Theresa Small of Northern Cheyenne Disaster and Emergency Services.

Acting Tribal President Conrad Fisher offered administrative leave to any tribal employee who joined the search, encouraging them to sign up.

Original Article

MISSING - Tr'Alicia "Cookie" Howard

Name: Tr'Alicia "Cookie" Howard

Date of birth: Feb. 11, 2002.

Last seen: Nov. 2, 2018 in Houston, Texas.

Circumstances:

Howard has a medium build and was last seen wearing a white shirt with blue jeans, and knee high black boots. She wears black and gray glasses and walks with a limp on her left leg. She is possibly in the company of a 16-year-old boy.

A database hosted by the Texas Department of Public Safety holds information on missing persons whose families desperately want them home.

Anyone who recognizes or knows the location of this missing individual is urged to call DPS Missing Persons Clearinghouse at 512-424-5074.

Social worker left surprise $11M to children's charities

In this Dec. 14, 2013, Alan Naiman poses with his new car, 

an unusual extravagance for him, in Seattle. 

Photo provided by Shashi Karan (Shashi Karan via AP)

SEATTLE (AP) - Alan Naiman was known for an unabashed thriftiness that veered into comical, but even those closest to him had no inkling of the fortune that he quietly amassed and the last act that he had long planned.

The Washington state social worker died of cancer this year at age 63, leaving most of a surprising $11 million estate to children's charities that help the poor, sick, disabled and abandoned. The amount baffled the beneficiaries and his best friends, who are lauding Naiman as the anniversary of his death approaches in January.

That's because the Seattle man patched up his shoes with duct tape, sought deals at the grocery store deli at closing time and took his best friends out to lunch at fast-food joints.

Naiman, who died unmarried and childless, loved kids but also was intensely private, scrimping, investing and working extra jobs to stockpile money that he rarely spent on himself after seeing how unfair life could be for the most vulnerable children, his friends say.

They believe a lifelong devotion to his older brother who had a developmental disability influenced Naiman, though he rarely spoke of it. The brother died in 2013, the same year Naiman splurged on a sports car - a modestly priced Scion FR-S.

"Growing up as a kid with an older, disabled brother kind of colored the way he looked at things," close friend Susan Madsen said.

A former banker, Naiman worked the past two decades at the state Department of Social and Health Services, handling after-hours calls. He earned $67,234 and also took on side gigs, sometimes working as many as three jobs. He saved and invested enough to make several millions of dollars and also inherited millions more from his parents, said Shashi Karan, a friend from his banking days.

Thrilled when he finally qualified for senior discounts, Naiman bought his clothes from the grocery store. He loved cars, but for the most of his life, drove beat-up vehicles and seemed to enjoy the solitude and savings of solo road trips, friends say.

After Naiman's death, Karan realized how little he knew of the other aspects of his longtime friend's life.

"I don't know if he was lonely. I think he was a loner," Karan said.

Many of the organizations benefiting from Naiman's gifts said they didn't know him, though they had crossed paths.

He left $2.5 million to the Pediatric Interim Care Center, a private organization in Washington state that cares for babies born to mothers who abused drugs and helps the children wean off their dependence. The group used some of what was its largest donation ever to pay off a mortgage and buy a new vehicle to transport the 200 babies it accepts from hospitals each year.

Naiman had called the center about a newborn while working for the state more than a decade ago, and its founder, Barbara Drennen, showed up in the middle of the night to get the baby.

"We would never dream that something like this would happen to us. I wish very much that I could have met him. I would have loved to have had him see the babies he's protecting," Drennen said.

Naiman gave $900,000 to the Treehouse foster care organization, telling them that he was a foster parent years ago and had brought kids in his care to the group's popular warehouse, where wards of the state can chose toys and necessities for free.

Treehouse is using Naiman's money to expand its college and career counseling statewide.

"The frugality that he lived through, that he committed to in his life, was for this," said Jessica Ross, Treehouse's chief development officer. "It's really a gift to all of us to see that pure demonstration of philanthropy and love."

Original Article

Father who worked as Santa arrested after bodies of 2 kids found in yard

Three other family members have also been charged

Wednesday, December 26th 2018, 10:51 AM EST

GUYTON, Ga. — A Georgia father and three other family members have been arrested and charged in connection with the deaths of two children who were found buried in the man’s backyard.

Siblings Mary Crocker and Elwyn Crocker Jr. were both discovered Dec. 20 after someone called authorities with concerns about the wellbeing of Mary, according to the Effingham County Sheriff’s Office.

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The 14-year-old had not been seen in weeks and her older brother had not been seen since November 2016 when he was 14 years old, Time reported. Neither teen had ever been reported missing.

Their father, Elwyn Crocker, along with the children’s stepmother, Candice Crocker, step-grandmother, Kim Wright, and her boyfriend, Roy Anthony Prater, were charged with concealing a death and cruelty to children.

“I’ve been doing this 41 years, and a while ago I almost broke down in tears,” Jimmy McDuffie, Effingham County sheriff, said during a press conference. “It’s that bad. I cannot understand how you do children like this. It’s horrible.”

Crocker reportedly led authorities to the children’s graves. He worked as a Santa Claus at Walmart until recently, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Neighbors told WTOC-TV the children seemed to mostly stay inside the home. Mary was often seen doing yard work.

“Other kids said at school they could tell stuff was wrong with her hands. They were red,” said Gary Bennett. “Kids would see her and ask what was wrong, and she wouldn’t ever say anything. She wouldn’t open up to anybody.”

A third child who lived at the home and has special needs was taken into custody.

Original Article