Well think again. Human trafficking happens much closer to home than you would imagine. Greenville, South Carolina was home to a human trafficking bust right off of White Horse Road in the fall of 2007. In fact, trafficking can happen at places as common as small family-owned restaurants, hotels, construction companies, street peddlers, and carnivals.
In the most local case, discovered in a trailer park off of White Horse Road, the police discovered and rescued a group of women between the ages of 18-24 years old who had been forced into prostitution. One trailer was a guard station with cameras, while the second trailer was used as a brothel. Authorities suspect that more than 100 women from Latin America have been in trafficking circulation around the Southeast, throughout Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina.
Maria Latrado, German Garcia, Fricman Ramirez, Carlos Castillo-Rodriguez, Aztlan Jaimes-Santana and Rolando Hernandez-Hernandez, the traffickers arrested in Greenville, kept small groups of women in each city for 6-8 days and then moved them to their next destination. It appears that trafficker held the threat of deployment, abuse, and financial dependency over the women’s heads. The women have been placed in shelter, but do face deployment.
Unfortunately, local cases do not end with this one. Charlotte, NC has become a trafficking hub of sorts due to its central location between the major cities of Atlanta and D.C. As a result, the discovery of such cases has sparked concern and action to reform in Greenville in the past two years.
More Greenville Trafficking Cases
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