United States Attorney
Northern District of Texas

1100 Commerce St., 3rd Fl.
Dallas, Texas 75242-1699

Telephone (214) 659-8600
Fax (214) 767-0978

U. S. ATTORNEY WELCOMES MORE THAN 200 LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT REPRESENTATIVES TO HUMAN TRAFFICKING TRAINING CONFERENCE

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Department of Justice,
Presents Keynote Address

At a two-day conference that began this morning at the Arlington Convention Center, U.S. Attorney Richard B. Roper of the Northern District of Texas welcomed more than 200 representatives from local law enforcement and victim service responders to the North Texas Anti-Trafficking Team (NTATT) conference, entitled “Responding to Human Trafficking.” Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, Wan J. Kim, gave the keynote address. The training is sponsored by the NTATT, Dallas Police Department, Fort Worth Police Department, Mosaic Family Services and the Texas Regional Center for Policing Innovation and is designed to provide information about human trafficking issues in the North Central Texas region.

Trafficking in persons is the equivalent of modern-day slavery. It is estimated that 600,000 to 800,000 persons annually are bought, sold and transported across international borders to be used, brutalized, sexually exploited, and forced into a life of servitude. Approximately 20,000 people, mostly women and children, are estimated to be trafficked into the United States per year where they are forced into prostitution, factory sweatshops, and/or domestic servitude. Under the direction of the Attorney General, U.S. Attorneys and the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice have taken the lead in prosecuting human trafficking cases at the federal level.

U.S. Attorney Roper said, “Human trafficking is a hideous crime that if the perpetrators do well, results in victims who are terrified, fear law enforcement and are often never uncovered. That is why it is so important to intensify our campaign against human trafficking by bringing together an array of law enforcement representatives and victim services providers to train and work together to be alert and find these cases, prosecute the offenders and provide humanitarian services and care to the victims.”

1 In October 2006, at the National Conference on Human Trafficking in New Orleans, Louisiana, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales announced a total of nearly $8 million in grant funding to ten law enforcement agencies and eight victim service organizations for the purpose of identifying and assisting victims of human trafficking and apprehending and prosecuting those engaged in trafficking offenses. The Dallas Police Department, Fort Worth Police Department, and Mosaic Family Services, Inc. of Dallas have received a total of $1.35 million, ($450,000 each) of that grant funding as part of the federal government’s broader efforts to enhance programs to combat human trafficking

The Department of Justice now supports 42 victim-centered law enforcement task forces, throughout the United States. In the Northern District of Texas, U.S. Attorney Roper established the NTATT, which is a collaboration of approximately 100 representatives from federal, state and local law enforcement agencies and non-governmental, or victim-service agencies/organizations, that will focus on increasing the identification and rescue of trafficking victims through proactive law enforcement, to include designing a protocol response to the identification of victim services, provision of services, and investigation and prosecution of human trafficking cases.

Most notably, recently in the Northern District of Texas, a Korean businessman named Sung Bum Chang was importing and collecting women from South Korea to be trapped in servitude at his night club, “Club Wa,” in Dallas. Chang paid others to smuggle these women into the United States where they were then required to work at Club Wa under terrible conditions of fear and violence. The victims said they wanted to come to the United States because of the opportunity and money associated with working here. However, when the women arrived, Chang forced them into labor or restricted their movement and social contacts to the point where their home was like a prison. Chang held their passports and monitored their every move with surveillance cameras. The victims were fined for violating strict rules of behavior and endured routine physical beatings. They were made to work six or seven days a week until they paid Chang for their debt of passage into this country. Chang also required them to pay him for their food and lodging, adding to the overall debt to him that they already struggled to pay. Chang pled guilty to one count of forced labor and was sentenced in October 2006 to ten years in prison and ordered to pay $37,000 restitution to the victims of his crime. He was also ordered to forfeit luxury vehicles, cash, computers and assorted electronic equipment.

More information about the efforts of the Civil Right Division to combat human trafficking can be found at http://www.usdoj.gov/whatwedo/whatwedo_ctip.html.

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