David Tyree joins Dr. Sandie Morgan as the two discuss how financial crime investigations can disrupt human trafficking by following the money trail and identifying the financial networks that support trafficking operations.

David Tyree

David Tyree has over 25 years of experience as a DEA Agent and financial crime investigator. He has led major investigations into money laundering and drug trafficking and is a recognized expert in financial crime investigations. He trains law enforcement officers on detecting money laundering and asset forfeiture. Recently, he participated in the Follow the Money Roundtable with Valid8 at Vanguard University.

Key Points

Financial investigations provide a new way to combat human trafficking by identifying and disrupting illicit financial networks.
Traffickers exploit financial tools like Venmo, Cash App, and Zelle to move money, making it critical for law enforcement to track these transactions.
Financial crime investigations allow law enforcement to build strong cases that do not rely solely on victim testimony, reducing re-traumatization.
Traffickers often control victims financially, making it difficult for them to escape without outside intervention.
Asset forfeiture is a powerful tool that law enforcement can use to take away traffickers’ financial resources and prevent them from reconstituting their operations.
Banks and financial institutions play a crucial role in identifying suspicious activity, such as rapid money transfers, and working with law enforcement to stop trafficking networks.
Understanding financial literacy is key to preventing individuals from becoming vulnerable to trafficking and exploitation.
Law enforcement needs to build trust with victims by offering support rather than immediately pressuring them to testify.
Successful investigations require collaboration between financial institutions, law enforcement, and victim service organizations.
The ability to follow the money provides a tangible way to prosecute traffickers and provide financial restitution to victims.
Financial restitution is often the most meaningful form of justice for survivors, as it helps them rebuild their lives.
Educating financial institutions and law enforcement about trafficking-related financial patterns can significantly improve prevention and intervention efforts.

Resources

Transcript

[00:00:00] Sandie: Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking Podcast. My name is Dr. Sandie Morgan, and this is the show where we equip you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference. Infighting Human Trafficking here at the Global Center for Women and Justice at Vanguard University. This is episode number 341 with David Tyree following the money, How Financial Crime Investigations Disrupt Human Trafficking. David Tyree has over 25 years of experience as a D.E.A. Agent and financial crime investigator.

[00:00:43] He has led major investigations into money laundering and drug trafficking and is a recognized expert in financial crime investigation, crime and trains law enforcement officers on detecting money laundering and asset forfeiture. Recently, he participated in the Follow the Money Roundtable with Valid8 right here at Vanguard University.

[00:01:11] David, welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast.

[00:01:15] David Tyree: Thank you. I’m so honored to be a part of this. I’m so impressed that you have 341 episodes. And I bet we can agree, wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t have to do podcasts about this? Could we, if we could actually end this epidemic, it would just be fascinating and we could go do something different.

[00:01:33] Sandie: I love that you are bringing a little different perspective to our community. We have listeners in 171 countries. And the, I, a lot of the conversation has been about identifying victims, providing victim support, training law enforcement on victim centered care, trauma informed, all of these aspects that are so necessary. But there are people with skill sets that we haven’t really included in our conversation. And I think today, that’s going to be part of what you help us understand about how financial investigations connect to human trafficking. So let’s just start off, because I know people want to get to know you, how did you choose to pursue financial aspects of human trafficking investigation?

[00:02:34] David Tyree: Well, that’s that’s a great question. And I would just start with some background. So I was with the Drug Enforcement Administration as a special agent for, yeah, 25 years. I started in New Mexico. So in Albuquerque, where this is back in the nineties, late nineties, and there was human trafficking back then.

[00:02:52] We probably didn’t know what it was but one of my functions as an agent was to do hotel, motel, and train interdiction.

[00:03:03] Sandie: Wait a minute, wait a minute. Interdiction. That’s like a word. I don’t really think I could define.

[00:03:08] David Tyree: Oh, sure. interdiction means to stop, to intercede,

[00:03:13] Sandie: Oh, you just have to, use big words? Is that.

[00:03:16] David Tyree: I just, that’s what they called us. We were an interdiction unit. I didn’t really know what it meant. I just, uh, did what they told me.

[00:03:22] Sandie: Okay, so continue that story.

[00:03:25] David Tyree: Interdiction. is a law enforcement term that refers to sort of stopping, like interceding, and there’s different forms of interdiction.

[00:03:34] You might read in the paper about a large traffic stop, drug seizure in the middle of some interstate somewhere. That’s usually referred to in law enforcement circles as an interdiction. They stopped the ability of this narcotics trafficker to transit to their final destination or money going in the opposite direction.

[00:03:54] So in my initial endeavors, we were responding to tips. We were looking for last minute one way cash travel, and it often involved hotels and it often involved prostitution, which arguably, you know, where was it? Human trafficking? Where was a prostitution? We were looking at the same indicators.

[00:04:18] And so early on in my career, I started having contact with victims that were being trafficked or prostituted against their will. And I’m 23, 24 years old, and it opened up my eyes quickly to something that struck me that someone was making a profit off of the exploitation of these people, which falls in line with narcotics trafficking as well, right?

[00:04:43] There’s people that are making a profit off essentially addiction, which is sad to me, and something I experienced personally growing up in my family, seeing some folks in my family that were struggling with addiction and, have since made it into recovery, which is great. And they would say to me, David, you got to follow the money.

[00:05:03] Someone’s making a profit off of my misery. So I then, after about five years, transferred to Portland, Oregon, and I was put with the drugs and vice team, uh, with the Portland Police Bureau, an incredible group of investigators. Again, we were doing the same thing, targeting, drug trafficking organizations.

[00:05:21] And it always brought us with the vice team into these hotel motel. Knock and talk investigations where we kept seeing the same thing, there’d be two or three women, in one room they were going to another room. We were not exactly sure what we were looking at and it was very challenging to get them to identify as victims.

[00:05:44] Dr. Morgan, I’m going to tell you that, and that’s been the hardest part,

[00:05:48] Sandie: and that, that’s one of the things people often have this idea that victims are waiting to be rescued, waving their arms, saying, here I am, come and get me. And then when you say they don’t identify as victims, how do we help them? And further down the line, when we get to the point where we want to prosecute the predators most of our criminal justice system is based on witness testimony and you bring a new component because we need to be able to prosecute these cases without re traumatizing victims.

[00:06:32] David Tyree: Well, and so easy for me to talk about solution, and we’ll get to the money movement, but I will tell you this, and we’ll go into the deep end of the pool. And this is not an original thought, by the way, but I know, from training experience and lived experiences, there are three circles of, essentially, they intersect.

[00:06:53] These three circles would be motivations. So there’s power, there’s achievement and there’s association. And these three circles sometimes intersect, oftentimes they don’t, but to the human trafficked victim, when you try and put them in on...