McKay Allen:

Hi, everybody. Thanks for being here today. We're excited you've joined us. We're going to get started in about 60 seconds, 60 seconds.

All right everybody, let's get started. Thanks for being here today. I'm your host. My name's McKay Allen. I'm excited to join today and have a discussion with Jim Fuda, who many of you know. We'll introduce Jim more fully in a moment.

Just a couple of housekeeping items before we begin. First, we're going to try to keep this webinar somewhat short. We've all been on those webinars that are like 60 or 90 minutes long and take your whole day. We won't do that. We'll try to stay 30, 35 minutes, somewhere in there and have a good discussion.

The title of today's presentation is Creating Safer Communities. We're going to talk about human trafficking. We're going to talk about ways we can help in that area, and most importantly, things that give us hope for the future relating to that.

And then the other thing that I would encourage you to do is please ask questions. So in the little question area drop down on your GoTo Webinar panel on the right-hand side of your screen, just click on that question area, open it up, and then as you have questions, ask them there. Just type them in and I'll read them to Jim as we go, and then also at the end of the presentation as well. So any questions, comments, anything at all like that, please type into the question area and we'll have a good discussion around this. Now, the way we'll go from this point is I'm going to take probably five minutes and just briefly explain who LiveView Technologies is, if you don't know and if you're not familiar with us, and then we'll start our discussion with Jim.

So with that, let's get started. Who is LiveView? We're a surveillance and technology company that allows you to, without the usage of wires, electricity, internet, set up really quick remote surveillance. So you can have eyes anywhere, backup anywhere for law enforcement professionals. We also work with some of the largest retail companies in the world, largest construction companies in the world. It takes about 30 minutes to set up a unit. There's 96% uptime, and 24/7 monitoring and protection.

And you can see how those units work here on your screen. You can roll them into place. They're trailer units that they can be put on anything. But they're trailer units. They run on solar power. They run on cell service. So there's really no need to have, as I said, power, electricity, or internet. And they can set up and be taken anywhere.

So we have law enforcement agencies, if they have a high crime area, they'll take one of these units and place it there and crime goes down. If they have a situation where there is a large event or a crowd gathering, they'll place these units there to get an eye in the sky. And then of course, they can monitor these units from the LVT platform and have the ability to see what's going on, get alerts, notifications, look at live video as well. So it's a really, really fantastic way to have surveillance anywhere you need it, whenever you need it, and have it set up within 20, 30 minutes. And you don't even need an IT professional to do it. I'm not very smart and I can do it. There's all sorts of customizable camera options. You can plug into the LVT platform, the software within just minutes, and then you can access surveillance intelligence anywhere. As I've said, no external wires or internet cables.

That's a little bit about LiveView, who we are, what we do. And as I said, we work with some of the largest law enforcement agencies, state and government agencies like Departments of Transportation, as well as retail stores, chains you go to every single day all over the world.

With that, Jim, thanks for jumping on with us today. We know you're really busy. We're excited you've taken time to join us on this... What is it? A Wednesday today? So Jim, thanks for jumping on. We really appreciate it. Why don't you take a second for those who don't know you, introduce yourself, give us a little bit about your background, and talk about what you're working on now.

Jim Fuda:

Well, great. Well, I'm a husband, a father, a grandfather, and has been fortunate enough to never really have worked a day in his life because I've thoroughly enjoyed my lifetime career. I started in the military as a draftee, was with the King County Sheriff's Office for 33 years. And my last 15, I spent in special ops. I always say the big boys with toys, and loved that assignment. At 54, I retired with 33 years in and went to work for the Feds, and I worked overseas in Pakistan, Indonesia, in Bosnia.

And now, I joined Crime Stoppers of Puget Sound where I was one of the directors along with the founder of our program, Myrle Carner. And Myrle's retired after almost 50 years in law enforcement this last December, so I'm now the executive director. We didn't hire anybody else yet because we didn't know how the funding was going to go with all the defund talk, and with the pandemic and all that.

So yeah, here we are. It's working on some normal projects that we do is the partnership between the police, the media, and the public. And we turn tips over that the citizens give us anonymously, and we turn that over to the appropriate police jurisdiction, and most times to the appropriate detective for an investigation and hopefully create safer communities.

McKay Allen:

That's great. It's awesome. Does Crime Stoppers mostly deal with human trafficking situations or is it really just any anonymous reporting across the globe that you step in and help with, Jim?

Jim Fuda:

Well, there's programs all over the United States and in 37 countries. My program, Crime Stoppers of Puget Sound, we're told we're in the top three of the programs nationwide. We're behind Houston, and Houston is fully funded by the government there, so they have a lot of paid staff and doing well. We've gone in partnership with the Fox affiliate of Washington's Most Wanted, a television show, where we feature criminals that people watch. And they can report crimes to us, like I said, anonymously through an anonymous tip app. We have what's called P3 Tips.

We started using this app technology in November of 2016, and immediately, our tips quadrupled, and our arrests more than doubled. And the reason is that we're in the gaming generation. I joke, I can't get my granddaughter to talk to me on the telephone, but she texts me back in 30 seconds. So it's secure, never been hacked, and people feel comfortable in reporting crime anonymously just that way.

McKay Allen:

That's great. No, that's awesome. What a wonderful career you've had and a wonderful thing you're doing now.

So, Jim, let's dive right into our topic here. We're going to talk a little bit about human trafficking today, and the problem that it presents for law enforcement agencies, and the solutions around it being a community issue. Let's go through this slide a little bit here. So talk to us a little bit about this first bullet point. Obviously, in human trafficking situations, it's disproportionately impacting females. It's 80% of human trafficking victims. And are these primarily from certain areas of the world? Just give us the scope of this problem, Jim.

Jim Fuda:

Yeah. It is not limited to different parts of the world. It's everywhere. It's one of those crimes that you call is hidden in plain sight. It's people around us. How many of you go to a nail salon of a Southeast Asian descent, and you see the owner, and then you go every three, four months and you see a different person, younger one that works there, doesn't speak, they speak to each other in their native language. And it could be definitely a trafficked girl.

And we also see is that in different parts of the country is that the West coast is a port for Asia, and we have more of that on this side. You go to the East Coast and where you're more Ukraine, Eastern Europe, you have more of that culture. And then from the South you have more of the Mexican, Central, South American coming up to that portion before it all seems to intermingle in the middle.

But a lot of what happens now is done on the internet. We're talking about the child sex crimes that are going on, and has gone up over 40%. Since the pandemic kids are home and bored, and so are the perverts and the would-be traffickers, are stalking kids online. The Internet Crimes against Children, which is an international organization, and the Seattle Police Department in our area runs one of those chapters, and they're seeing a huge increase in victims of internet crimes that are happening.

McKay Allen:

So that kind of.... What's the word? Explodes the myth, if you will, that it's strictly from certain areas of the world. This is happening really with any child or adolescent that's online. That seems to be what you're saying, is that if you're online, you're potentially at risk if you're not really closely tracking where your kids are hanging out online, who they're talking with.

And then one of the things we were talking about right before was it's not like it's only exclusively in super sketchy chat rooms or something. These people are trying to locate where kids are naturally and then go there to potentially traffic them and victimize them.

Jim Fuda:

Yeah. There's many websites out there that these perverts use. And what they do is once they hook and meet them, they try to get to the one they're comfortable with, that app, and try to isolate them that way. I have a case of an acquaintance that happened within the last month. The parents called me in tears. Their 12-year-old daughter thought she had met a 14-year-old out of California, no idea who it is at this point. And the twelve-year-old was already sending nude photos to this guy.

The guy could be anywhere in the world. If you are in a part of the world, you can buy a US IP address. I did it when I lived in Banja Luka, Bosnia when I was working for the Feds and because I wanted to watch American television shows and it wouldn't let me stream on a Bosnian IP address. So imagine as the technology keeps growing, the difficulties it takes for the police investigators to keep up with that and let alone find these people that are doing these types of crimes.

McKay Allen:

So how does this usually work? So if child's online or something, the person reaches out, pretends to be another fourteen-year-old. And then how does it usually progress? What is the process there? Because you talk about the tactics. Building trust, then go to private messages, then intimate messages. And then at that point, once the child sends something intimate, do they have at that point enough leverage so they're like, "Hey, don't talk to your parents about this because you've already sent me this. You'll get in big trouble."? Is that a common step by step in terms of how these perverts work?

Jim Fuda:

Absolutely. This acquaintance that I know, that's how they ended up finding out what was happening with their daughter. She was getting more and more isolated. And this guy had threatened to tell the parents, unless she sent more explicit photos. And then go, they use it for their own... I hate to use this sick word, but for their own pleasure. And then it goes on the dark web as well. So once it's out there, it's out there.

McKay Allen:

So they then use that leverage to get the child to meet them? Is that generally the process that you see unfold that really victimizes the kids?

Jim Fuda:

Yeah, it depends. Some of them are just there for the photos. Some of them, if they are nearby, want to want to hook up. Actually, Purdue University did a study, and this was before the Covid, this was in 2018, that said that 1 in 25 children, not just girls, but children, will be approached for sexual activity, 1 in 25, before they reach the age of 17 online. So imagine how that's exploded in today's times.

McKay Allen:

Interesting. Now, I want to hit this last bullet point here before we go to the next discussion around the impact of Covid-19 on all this. Has it gotten worse or better in the last year since the pandemic started?

Jim Fuda:

Much worse. ICAC, the International Crimes Against Children, are estimating that it's up over 40%, and the figure they had was 43%, but who really knows? Even when you talk about overall human trafficking around the world, it goes depending on the estimates from the UNODC, 35 to 48 million people around the world are enslaved, whether that be for prostitution, construction, sweatshops, or the poor 14-year-old kid, the Filipino kid that can't get off a fishing boat for 18 months and works 18 hours a day.

McKay Allen:

Wow. So it's a really significant problem. And then I want to ask you one more question on this. The title of the slide is human trafficking. There's obviously a difference between someone just approaching a child and meeting the child, that's pedophilia or whatever. But actually trafficking and using the individual or the child as a commodity or a currency, that seems to be something that is different as well. How often does it turn into that where you see people being moved around and trafficked as part of a larger business operation? Is that becoming more or less common?

Jim Fuda:

Right. Actually, what happens is that you get the runaways that end up being supposedly taken care of, and they're led into the prostitution life. In fact, you go out on the street. We have a notorious area here for prostitution, and whether they be children or adults, you look around. You'll find somebody watching them from a vehicle, from a motel room, wherever, but they're never left alone, so to speak. That's not, a lot of it, for their own protection. A lot of it is so they're not running away from them. And the money's taken away from them, so they have very little to live on. And so they end up being dependent on these people. And then if you leave, then they threaten your family. I mean you look at, that's a lot of what happens in the states.

But you go to some, let's take say you take a poor uneducated farmer in Thailand and he's got three daughters. And the trafficker comes to them and says, "Look, I'm going to take your daughters to Bangkok. I'm going to educate them. I'm going to get them a job and we're going to send you back some money." And they end up in a brothel. And yeah, some money is being sent back, but the girls can't leave. They're threatened that they'll kill their family. Or the other side of that coin is the poor farmers got three daughters and he's, "Sorry, honey, we need to eat. You need to go with these guys." But the top three countries in the world right now are India, Brazil, and sadly the United States. And a lot of that's population size of course, but that's where the biggest market is according to the UNODC.

McKay Allen:

Interesting. Well, let's talk about solutions here. So how do we fight this? There's a really strong partnership that's required. Now, while we're going through this, Jim, there are some questions that everybody's asking. This is awesome. Some of these, I'll wait until the end to read to Jim, just so you know. Keep asking them and I'll make sure we address them at the end here.

But let's talk about this three sort of arm solution here between the community, law enforcement, and the media especially. Talk to us about how people can report and what these different arms of the solution are.

Jim Fuda:

Right. Well, what we approach, have a strong relationship with law enforcement. And I'm talking about the crime Stoppers programs. And in my area we have a large community footprint. When we are doing parades, people would see us. We were out there. We have a partnership, like I mentioned, with the television show that features criminals or areas where crime is taking place. And then we put that out to the community in hopes that the community, even if they don't want to talk to the police for whatever reason, whether fear or don't want to get involved, is they can report that anonymously through us, through that app. And we get that information to the appropriate jurisdiction. And if your tip leads to an arrest and a charge, you will get up to $1,000. And my organization pays a thousand dollars for bank robberies and for homicides. And then there's a sliding scale for other types of crimes.

But what we did on the international side, is because of this app, and I took those crimes without borders and I picked seven of them, human trafficking, terrorism, illicit trade, arms dealing, drug smuggling, cyber crime, and bank fraud, all corruption based. And went over back to Bosnia with my partner Myrle Carner. And we went back and I had my trusted law enforcement commander bring four countries together. I took two outside the EU, Serbia and Bosnia, and two inside the EU, Croatia and Slovenia. We did one press release and one presentation, and we had 47 tips in a week. People want to talk, they're just afraid of the police and afraid of the corruption. So if you offer a monetary incentive of a thousand dollars for an arrest and a charge of a trafficker in any one of those crimes I mentioned, is a thousand dollars US there will pay a year's rent. So the incentive is there as well.

Will we get a lot of bad tips? Sure. Will one trafficker turn in another one? Sure. But that's okay. If there's an arrest and a charge, and we take somebody off the street, and we'll never know where that tip came from. In fact, even some, they're saying, "Well, some of the police might be corrupt, they might be turning it in." And I said, "But there is that checks and balances. We're not just handing out a thousand dollars, we need an arrest and a charge for that." So that's where the check to balance comes in. And we'll never know who that tipster is because it's anonymous to us as well. All they're known by is a numerical identifier and that's it.

McKay Allen:

So if someone wants to report something or prepare to report something in case they see it, the best way is simply to download the P3 Tips app. That's what I'm hearing you say.

Jim Fuda:

Free app, download it. For wherever your jurisdiction is, it will go to that program and get to the appropriate jurisdiction.

McKay Allen:

And tell us real quickly about the red flags. So you mentioned that on here. Just give us maybe three red flags that if you're traveling, if you're out and about and you see this, what are the three or four red flags? Or even dealing with your own kids, or kids that you know, what are the red flags that you should be watching out for both as a parent and just a responsible member of society?

Jim Fuda:

Well, you look at, are there marks or bruises on the person? Are they with an older person? Are they never allowed to speak? The older person speaks for them. It's usually a male that's with them. Or you're in, like I said, the nail salon. You ask the question, the person looks up to the owner and then the owner answers for the person. Little things like that, like I said, these are crimes that are hidden in plain sight that's going on around us every day. And our busy lives, we keep it moving, and that's stuff we don't normally pay attention to because we're not seeing all those flags all put together at one time.

McKay Allen:

Right. We're not seeing the full thing. You guys are then able to see more of the full scope when you deal with a large number of cases. And that's interesting. So download the app. That's the simplest way.

But I love this last bullet point on here before we move on: increasing the speed of reporting decreases the impact of trafficking. The faster these things can be reported, the sooner they can be fixed.

Jim Fuda:

Right. And [inaudible 00:25:06]-

McKay Allen:

Yeah, go ahead. Sorry Jim.

Jim Fuda:

I'd just say it's a worldwide problem and we can all do our part, even if you don't think it means anything. And the cool thing about this app is you can take photos, video, audio, download it, and send that with it. So if you feel comfortable enough to snap a picture or a little bit of video that goes with that, and even if you think it's insignificant, it might be that last piece of the puzzle for the investigator to put together to make an arrest or a rescue.

McKay Allen:

No, that's a really great point. Okay. Positive outcomes, talking about hope for the future here because you painted a picture, that I think you did a really good job of talking about the scale of this, and how dramatic and large the problem is. So let's talk about areas where there is hope for the future relating to human trafficking. Why don't you hit on both of these bullet points, Jim?

Jim Fuda:

Well, I think for one is that we, if we can get this technology out and get the trust of the people to know that they will not be found out, their lies in the problem, the fear of their safety, and especially in some of these other countries where it's happening. And if you can stop, aside from what's taking place in the United States with our local people, if you can hit these crimes at the source or the transit routes, is that you can make a huge impact.

I'll give you an example. I actually have a video of a plane leaving Belgrade airport loaded with arms that's headed to Saudi Arabia to help fight in the cause for democracy. Instead, that plane diverts, goes to Syria and small caches of those firearms goes back through the Balkan route. And everybody remembers the Charlie Hebdo case where the cartoons were drawn, and those guns that murdered those employees came from that same cache. Plus the concert that was in Paris where close to a hundred people were killed, were locked in, and some were even trampled to death trying to get out as they were being murdered, came from that cache. So if we can get those at, like I said, the transit routes or the source before it gets to the western world, we can save a lot of heartache, and a lot of lives, and a lot of misery for people.

McKay Allen:

And then you mentioned a success story here when we were speaking earlier. Can you tell us any success stories that you've seen through reporting in this way that give us a little bit of hope here as we close?

Jim Fuda:

Well, I'm going to tell you a bittersweet one, that when I was building my relationships to get the program started in Serbia, is I met with a group there that actually rescues children. This woman told us the story of two Syrian Christian girls that were sold at age 14 only because they were Christian, brought through the Balkan route into Western Europe where they were abused multiple times a day for a couple of years. And they got word a week prior to me meeting with this woman that they were in Bosnia, headed to Serbia. They decided to wait to rescue them because they heard they were coming into Serbia, and decided to wait because of the border problems and crossings, and that kind of thing, bringing children back. So they decided to wait.

And that particular morning they had rescued those two girls. And the woman started to get choked up. And I said, "But that's a good thing, right?". And she says there was a third girl that was broken off in Bosnia, brought to Kosovo where she was strapped to a table. They harvested her organs, basically murdered her on a table for her organs, for the highest bidder on the black market. These are the kinds of atrocities that are happening every day and need to be stopped. And if we have that simple tool, and that's what it is as a tool that can be utilized for the good of mankind, let's do it.

McKay Allen:

Well, and it's a really important work. And this app and just the Crime Stoppers organization is helping in this. So what if we took about three or four questions, Jim, would that be okay?

‍Jim Fuda:

Sure.

McKay Allen:

All right, so let's see. So I'll just read these verbatim and you can address them.

"How can someone download the app?". That's probably, I assume just on the Google Play Store for Android devices as well as on the Apple Store for Apple devices. Is that right?

Jim Fuda:

Go to P3 Tips.

McKay Allen:

Great. And if they don't have the app or they don't, can't download it for whatever reason, is there a phone number that they can use that's like a national number? Or what should they do in that situation?

Jim Fuda:

Yeah, there's 1-800-222-tips. Or you can go, there's a website where they can download it on that as well. Actually, my program, you just hit submit a tip and it goes right into the P3 Tips. So we get it that way as well.

‍McKay Allen:

That's great

‍Jim Fuda:

So, crimestoppers.com.

McKay Allen:

And you mentioned of course before, we're getting some questions about cash rewards for tips and things like that. And you mentioned that earlier. Just reiterate that if you would, just how that works, and how much people get for tips. What are the stipulations? I assume it needs to lead to some sort of an arrest. How does that work?

Jim Fuda:

Right, if your tip, and the detective is the one that decides, if that tip led to the arrest and a charge, not a conviction, just a charge. Why not convictions, is because some take years to... We won't let somebody obviously wait that long. So an arrest and a charge, we pay a thousand dollars for bank robberies and for homicides. And then there's a sliding scale for other crimes, or succession of crimes, or however that works. And I'm not going to go into that at this point, but there's a sliding scale for other crimes as well.

McKay Allen:

Okay. Now one more question. If a community wants to start a crime stopper program and they don't have one already, is there a process to go through to start that? What does that look like?

Jim Fuda:

Have them contact me. I'll get them all the right information. And I'm just james.fuda@crimestoppers.com.

McKay Allen:

Jim, this was awesome. What a great job you did about explaining the problem and explaining potential solutions to this problem, because it is something, especially with the pandemic that, as you mentioned, has gotten worse.

If you have questions, you see Jim's contact information on the screen there. You see his email address, phone number, as well as various websites. Also, if you are interested in LiveView, if surveillance, remote surveillance, wherever you need it, whenever you need it, is something that would benefit you and your agency, reach out to us, sales@liveviewtech.com. You can also see our phone number there, 801-221-9408. And thenlvt.com is our website.

And as I mentioned, these are some of the solutions that we offer, really robust hardware and software solution that provides an eye in the sky and real backup, if you will, for your agency and your officers.

Jim, any final thoughts before we conclude today and any final things you would like to leave the audience with before we end the webinar?

Jim Fuda:

Well, like I said, we're a 501(c)(3). If anyone feels compelled to keep up the fight, please feel free to donate. Or if you have anybody you think I should talk to, I'll talk to anybody that'll listen to me on this stuff. I'm that passionate about it, and it's work that needs to be done, and we're moving it forward, so contact me anytime.

McKay Allen:

Awesome. Jim, thank you for taking the time. We know you're really busy. It's a great privilege to have you on the webinar today. And again, everybody, please reach out to Jim directly. If you're interested in LiveView, please reach out to us directly there, and we'd love to talk with you, and see if this is a solution we can help you and your agency with.

Thanks again, everybody, have a fantastic day. Have a great week. We hope things are going well for you and yours. So thanks again everyone. Bye-bye.