← Parenting in a Tech World
Parenting in a Tech World
James Billig on Law Enforcement, the Blue Taskforce, and Stopping Online Predators
00:54:32
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- [00:01]
A
Today we're joined by James Bileg, chief compliance officer and law enforcement liaison at UACT United Against Child Trafficking. UAC is a nonprofit based in Stuart, Florida, dedicated to protecting children by addressing the growing threats of trafficking, online exploitation, grooming, and sextortion through prevention, focused education, and community engagement. With his background in law enforcement and his passion for educating organizations and communities on. On protecting kids from online predators, James brings a critical perspective to this conversation. He's been instrumental in launching UX Blue Task Force, a team of retired law enforcement officers who train law enforcement and first responders on combating child trafficking. Today, we'll be diving into what law enforcement is seeing on the front lines, how the Blue Task Force is equipping officers to fight these crimes and what parents and communities can. Can do to protect kids. James, thank you so much for being here.
- [01:10]
B
Oh, thank you very much for having me, Tony. I really appreciate it. Before we get started, I have a gift for you.
- [01:15]
A
Oh, my gosh.
- [01:17]
B
There you go.
- [01:18]
A
I love pink. All right, here we go. See? Oh, my own special shirt.
- [01:28]
B
Yes.
- [01:29]
A
Nice. Oh, my gosh. I'm a child trafficking warrior.
- [01:33]
B
For all the wonderful work you guys have done so far in the tech world to combat this problem, thank you.
- [01:40]
A
Thank you so much.
- [01:41]
B
Oh, you're very welcome.
- [01:42]
A
I. I appreciate that. You know, as a. As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, this is not just my career mission, but it's my life mission, you know, to not let that define me or break me, but to rise above and to let people know. It can absolutely happen to anybody.
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B
Sure.
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A
It can happen to children and families where there is a lot of love and support and parental presence. It can happen to anyone.
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B
Yeah. And I think the majority of us who are sitting here at the forefront of, had some experience in this personally, obviously with family members. I always laugh a little bit at the 1 out of 5 number that people like to throw out there. Right where I think we're more 4.4.5 out of 5 with women who have been affected by this and. And also with men. So I think that we need to start to take. Take more of a realistic look at what the true numbers are.
- [02:37]
A
Yeah. Wow. Well, for anyone who doesn't know you act yet, tell us what the organization is and what your role is there.
- [02:47]
B
So our organization started about 10 years ago. Our founder and CEO, Lynn Barletta, began this journey after visiting overseas and seeing just how big this problem has become. She started a foundation here in South Florida, and it has done amazing work so far in not only with creating prevention and working law enforcement to bring these predators to justice, but also in her restoration process. She is an artist at heart and in profession and her therapy through art has, has been spectacular. Helping, you know, 500 children actually help to, to restore them in some way, shape or form and give them therapy. Working with four different locations right now with girls who have been trafficked and helping restore them and, and giving them the mental stability they need to move.
- [03:46]
A
You come from a law enforcement background. What drew you to this work specifically and what made you want to focus on protecting kids from online predators?
- [03:57]
B
Well, during my career, I did have a few things that happened. One in particular was an abduction that I worked back in 2005 where a young girl was lured off the Internet and brought to Miami. And there were multiple people, people who were involved in this. Ironically, we do the work today. We look at the ability of utilizing electronics to reach children. Back then it was an AOL chat room, but the tactics were exactly the same way. They worked exactly the same. And she was brought down to Miami and she was sold throughout Biscayne Bay. And I worked that case in conjunction with the FBI and fortunately we had good international attention through America's Most Wanted and through Nancy Grace. So we did have a lot of, a lot of heat on this. And we were, we were actually able to get her back. I was totally shocked. I did not think we were going to get her back. We did and we won. And, and so that, that, that resonated with me for years. And, and for after I got out of law enforcement, I actually got into the active shooter world and have been in active shooter prevention and mitigation for quite a long time with, with my other company, Blue Line. And two things, ironically, you know, the, the correlation between the things that are happening online with these, with these gaming apps, with Roblox and with these other games. The correlation between active shooter world and in the child exploitation world, the parallels are unbelievable. How they, how they align, that is extremely important. And then, and then also just the same passion of you wanting to protect kids. I never imagined that in all the work that I did in the active shooter world that I would enter into this child exploitation world. Learned about 7, 6, 4 and all, all these, all this different, these different levels of darkness, which I truly believe evolved through the COVID lockdown, I would ever see anything darker than what I saw in the active shooter world. And, and I believe that, that this is actually a battle between good and evil.
- [06:13]
A
It's very surreal to me that the conversations that I've had with multiple people over the past few weeks that are not connected and do not know each other. The same things are coming up. Roblox Good and evil. The parallels, the grooming, like it's, it's bubbling to the surface and it's horrific to confront head on, but it's a necessity. You mentioned the similar tactics first. You mentioned the grooming tactics and then the parallels between exploitation and the active shooter community. Can you talk to either of those? Because I think when parents are talking they're like, what are the tactics? Tell me the tactics.
- [07:01]
B
Yeah, well, most of the time, and typically in every active shooter case, and I've studied just about every one of them, specifically when it deals with school shootings, our potential shooter or the person who takes action is typically looking for attention. There's normally leakage. So leakage is something that they've put out on the Internet what their intentions are and they're looking for that attention. And in many cases it seems as though they're trying to get somebody to stop them. They just want that attention. And when that doesn't happen, then they carry out the threat. And conversely, on the trafficking side and the exploitation side, we have our victims who are actually recluse alone looking for attention. And these predators, they see it and they see it so quickly they're able to identify it. And then you add in the capabilities of AI and with chatbots and how rapidly and how quickly that these children become outnumbered with utilizing tactics, speaking like them, finding their weaknesses so rapidly. You know, the average is eight minutes to groom a child and it's so quick that parents, no matter how much you equip yourselves, you still need to have that one on one conversation with your child. It's the only way that this works.
- [08:20]
A
What are the key things to communicate in that one on one conversation?
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B
First of all, parents need to be willing to have that conversation when it's uncomfortable for them, not for their child.
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A
Yep.
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B
So you need to be doing it a lot younger, a lot younger than you think.
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A
Right.
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B
As long as they have access to a electronic device, you need to let them know that they will be targeted at some point in time. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. And the two fallacies I believe that parents need to finally rid themselves of is that can't happen to me and it can't happen here. Every single active shooter case that I worked in dealing with victims, I worked very closely with the MSD Parkland families after, after that shooting and also I was on the reenactment team, I reworked that ent entire crime scene reshooting 160 rounds in that building. And that is a community that in a million years you never would imagine that type of thing was going to happen. Very upscaled, very professional community. And all the signs were there to stop it. And that's typically what we see in many of these trafficking cases, exploitation cases. It's all right there, it's all right in front of our faces, just a matter of time. And if your number gets kid, your number gets drawn one, you're the one who gets targeted. So I really would love to see parents take a more proactive approach to this and not be dependent upon the government or local law enforcement or anybody else to save their child. Because that hasn't helped in, in any aspect in the active shooter world or, or now here in this electronic world, they're, they're outnumbered.
- [10:01]
A
Oh my gosh. So you, you have dropped a lot of knowledge already before I even asked this question. But if you can expand from your perspective in law enforcement, what are you seeing right now when it comes to online child exploitation?
- [10:22]
B
Opportunity? I think there's great opportunity for a multitude of different things. For the deviant mind, there's financial opportunity. Now, you see with sextortion, which has become very common, I believe that the amount of deviance that we've seen because of the increase in pornography and how the addiction has grown a great deal, and we have seen that that is really the root of the problem is the addiction from pornography has opened this gateway, I believe. And with any type of addiction you tend to graduate. So you're, you may start off something that is benign. And unfortunately, the people who produce this type of material are looking for something to grab people even more. That's why you see these victims becoming younger and younger and younger. And it's just like anybody who starts the gateway drug, they will escalate to a larger drug to feed that addiction. And I think we've seen a lot of that in this growth. And I think that a lot of it again, perpetuated immensely during the COVID lockdown when there was nothing else to do but to live in a virtual world. So I think that it's now grown to a point where children have become so desensitized. And I guess what scares me the most is that in a lot of cases, these are not 35 year old men who are doing this. Some of these deviants are also teenagers. Especially when you look in the 764 network who are Doing this to other teenagers. And they're not doing it as a lone wolf, they're doing it in groups. So they are like minded in this deviant mindset, which is extremely scary when you stop and you think about it. Something we didn't deal with in the actor shooter world before, but we do now. Like minded people wanting to do this. And now we are also seeing it in this online penetration of these children getting into their minds. And ultimately, and when we just talk about 7 6, the ultimate goal on level 13 is for them to take to their own lives. And they're working very, very hard to get these kids to do this.
- [12:44]
A
So for parents who have not heard of 764 or have heard of it, don't quite understand what it is. Can you give us just a short explanation of what the 764 network is?
- [12:55]
B
Sure. 764 represents the first three numbers of the zip code in Texas where Bradley Caden had began his cult. This cult started back right at the very beginning of COVID He is currently serving an 80 year sentence for, for possessing CSAM. And the problem that we have is that this cult has spun off into multiple different groups. So as one gets shut down, two more will pop up. That's the problem that you of course, that you see with anything that becomes organized. And what their goal is to work in what they call a comm or a community. And that community is out there working in groups to, to locate individuals who are recluse, who are looking for attention. And they do it in all sorts of different ways. It's not just through Roblox or Minecraft or Grand Theft Auto. They're doing this through Pinterest, they're doing this through the calculator on your phone. There's all sorts of different ways where they can create algorithms where they can penetrate in to that child. And they actually can tell by utilizing algorithm. If a mother can hands a child a phone and that child is on a social network, say they're just on Facebook and they're typing, the algorithms can tell that it is a child that is actually using that phone and not a parent that can tell the differences in that. And someone can pick up on that, whether, whether it be virtual AI or human can pick up on that. And then they can start to try and influence that child. Pull them into a private chat room, a vault or a condo, bring them into that private chat. And that's where discord comes in. And once they get into that discord area, that's where the information era racist and it doesn't leave the forensic footprint that law enforcement needs to prosecute. So I understand this is a ton of information, but this is the reality of it and this is the real threat.
- [14:45]
A
100 if our kids are encountering this, we need to be aware.
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B
Absolutely.
- [14:49]
A
The first step is awareness and then ownership and protection. I was on a plane yesterday. I feel like I'm on a plane every day. But there was this probably around 3 year old little boy, I believe his nanny and his dad sitting next to me. And the kid had this iPad. So he had this, this portable screen as well as the camera, the like TV movie screen or whatever of the seat back. His nanny was asleep, his dad was asleep with Billy Madison playing on his screen. Great movie, not for kids. And a kid was just crying and nobody was helping him. And I like wanted to just engage with him, you know, like face to face. Like, hi, I'm a human and I care. I'm not just letting a screen babysit you. The kid was left alone with the iPad for at least two hours of the four hour flight.
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B
Right.
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A
It was heartbreaking. It was heartbreaking. And I'm not saying that to judge because I have been that tired parent that has let us screen babysit my kid. But we can't keep doing that and expect our kids to be okay.
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B
Right? Yeah. And it's, it's unfortunate because this is the generation that, that this is impacted. You know, if you've got a child under the age of 19, they, this has been ingrained into their, into their minds during the cognitive years of their lives. And once that happens, you know, during 12, 13 years old, you, you, you grow so accustomed to it, it stays through the rest of your life. It's like whenever I'm teaching a class or in a form, I always ask people, hey, when you're 13 years old, I bet you can recite every song lyric from your favorite band, right? And it's true because that's the time that you are, your mind is really clicking and you're absorbing the most information. The problem is with allowing children to have that unattended use of electronic devices is that we have seen what sextortion has done and how, how many kids are committing suicide now because of it. And you know, we had a horrible case in West Virginia and so many different cases where these kids had this small window of time where they leave a dinner table, go in their room, they get targeted by, by a group and within two hours the parents had no chance at all. And these children are taking their own lives because they feel there is no other option, right? They don't have any outs. And the reason for that is because there's a generation that we have now of kids that do not understand the finality of death. They have been engaged so much and so much of the virtual world where you hit reset all the time, right? And you don't quite grasp that finality of deafness. The same thing that we see with active shooters is almost like, I'm going to go get this attention and I'm going to go do this thing and then at the end of all that, but I'm going to be famous and everybody's going to know who I am and then we can start things over. It's almost the mentality that you see in the post interviews, that you see the filming of the interviews of detectives where they almost had this mentality of that. And it's crazy when you stop and you think about it, because people from the Gen X generation, we can't grasp it. We can't wrap our heads around it even. And as, as much as you and I are in this world, as much as you've been through personally, we don't get it. And it's very hard for us to empathize with that, with how they feel because they have been just overburdened with so much death and so much destruction and violence just on a constant daily basis that they become desensitized. When you talk to teenage kids about, gee, don't do that, you might die, I mean, my girls are 26 and 21 and my wife is always talking about them, about scary things and don't, oh, you might die. My kids are like, yeah. And, you know, they've been so desensitized to all of it that, that it's very, very difficult to warn them of that. So you have to find different ways in which to warn children. And the biggest thing is when it comes to sextortion about sending a nude photo, is letting them know that if they do that, that they have somewhere to go, somewhere safe to go, that they're not going to be in trouble, that it's not the end of the world and that you'll get through it. I think that's the most important thing to be teaching kids.
- [19:30]
A
I will echo that. Your children need to know that a, please, please don't take nudes or send nudes. But you also realize that the pressure to do that is out there and good kids make bad choices. So if, if God forbid, they make that bad choice, they need to know that they can come to you. You're not going to yell at them, you're not going to punish them, you're going to help them because you would rather them be on this planet and be alive than to die by suicide because of shame. That there's no world in which that is a better option.
- [20:07]
B
Yeah. And it's a hard thing to do because when they're caught in real time, they can't get out of that. And not only that, if they are the victim of the 764 cult and they're sitting in a chat room with 10 other kids and they're getting bombarded with messages over and over and over again, it just, it becomes overwhelming for them, way too overwhelming for them. And so they make a split second decision.
- [20:35]
A
So off camera, you shared a news story with us about a recent child sexual abuse image arrest where investigators describe the situation as indescribable. So without getting into the graphic details and further traumatizing our listeners, can you talk about what law enforcement is encountering and why this work is so urgent?
- [20:58]
B
So in that particular case, yes, without getting into great detail, it was the viewing of a video, abusive video of a seven year old being sexually violated. And what, I think what, what folks need to understand is from a law, law enforcement perspective, we have our detectives that are, that are called ICAC detectives that are Internet crimes against children detectives who were assigned to, to most agencies in the country and they're forced to, to view this material. And it is very, very difficult material to view and unfortunately you have to view it in its entirety in, to develop a case and then also your prosecutor also has to view this material in its entirety and that makes it, it, it makes it difficult to be able to, to cope with that on, you know, long term perspective. And you know, and I was a traffic homicide investigator and, and car crashes are horrific and murders are horrific. But there is a different level of horror that you have to deal with by viewing these images. And this is all really kind of new territory for us. We're in a reactive mode in the law enforcement world when, when it comes to dealing with the tools that we have, our assets that are the detectives and the enforcers of this and what, what it does to them mentally, it's, it can break you. I had to view a lot during my case. We had to break about seven hard drives and there were literally thousands of images in there. And there was one particular image that stuck with me and it was of a four year old girl, my daughter, at the time was four years old, blonde hair, blue eyes, looked like my daughter, and she was being sexually violated. And that. That image stuck with me and has stuck with me for a very, very long time. One thing I want to bring up is one of the great things that. That. That the work that we do at UACT is that Lynn developed a program to help cope with that.
- [23:09]
A
Thank you.
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B
And she. She put me through an exercise, and, you know, being former law enforcement, I'm the biggest skeptic in the world.
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A
Right, right, right. Question everything.
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B
Yeah. So, yeah, everything's got to be questioned a million times. And what she actually had me do was, was draw the image of. Of what I saw. And she said, I'm going to want you to draw this picture. And I said, I'm not drawing that picture. She said, would you just give it a shot? And I did, and I drew that picture, and she had me take it, and no one else looked at it. And I folded it up and I put it in a box, and we went out behind our building, and she had me actually dig a hole and bury the box in there. And we kicked it down and kicked it down deep. And then she had me come in, and this is crazy. She had me come in, and she. Stumbling through some books, and she wants me to draw a new image. And the idea behind it is to replace that image with something that brings me peace. And she's thumbing through, thumbing through, thumbing through. And she pulls this out, and she lays it down, and it's a picture of a butterfly. Now, that wouldn't seem abnormal to anybody else but my daughter Jackie, who. This girl looked just like. Our favorite book is Butterfly Kisses. I read it to her every single night. My daughter Jackie gives me butterflies every year for Christmas. And I looked up at Lynn and I said, hang on a minute. How did you pick this picture? And she said, I don't know. God told me to stop here at this picture and hand it to you. I said, what else is in that book? And she showed me, and she said, there's deer and there's. There's birds. There's all these other things. And she stopped at the butterfly, and I say, okay, this is divine intervention. So she. She gave it to me, and I drew the butterfly, and I obviously still have the picture. And it says, my daughter is a beautiful butterfly, and she's free. And the crazy thing about it is every time, like right now, as I think back and I'm thinking of that photo, that butterfly picture overlays that photo of that little poor innocent girl who I'll never know her name. I'll never know if she's alive or not. But as I look back on that every time, like right now, and I'm thinking it's disappearing more and more every day. The exercise works. And the cool thing about it is much like the work that Victor Marks is doing with law enforcement, with helping them, we've offered this help to our local law enforcement officers in our area, and we want to help as many as we can. And doing so in a clandestine environment that they can come and do it on their own free will and then nobody has to know about it. And that's something that I think that we need to do as a nation to be able to keep these guys who are so good at what they do, keep them running and operational, that they can stay out there and stay in the fight. They need help too.
- [26:03]
A
They absolutely do. And I'm so grateful so for you sharing that with us and for Lynn and art therapy is also something that is very near and dear to my heart. Let's talk about the Blue Task Force. What is it and why did UAC decide to create this training initiative for law enforcement?
- [26:23]
B
The reason why I came up with this concept and presented it to Lyn is first and foremost, when it comes to these types of crimes, when to it comes it comes to sex crimes, crimes against children, there's very minimal training that's done during the police academy. So there's not a whole lot of time. There's a lot of information needs to be covered during that, during that six, eight or ten month period that you're in the academy. And so not a whole lot is really accomplished there. And so you end up going through your field training officer program and maybe you'll come across one or two cases. But if you're really not researching it on your own and doing your own training, you're not really familiar with it. And that people should understand is this is just the true reality. If you're a police officer and you go out and you roll up on a case or a call that you're not really comfortable handling, you're probably not going to do a whole lot about it. You're going to take an information report and you're going to push it off to a detective to look at.
- [27:18]
A
Wow.
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B
My feeling is this. They are our boots on the ground. They are the tip of the spear. They are the ones who are making contact every single day, whether it be a traffic stop or a call for service. My thought Process was let's educate them on this. Let's give them the tools they need to identify things. And as they're going in there doing a traffic stop and they're, you know, writing a sick, Writing a, writing a seatbelt ticket, they're looking beyond that. They're looking at that child in the backseat and they're looking for those signs. They're looking to see that, you know, is that child. Are they in the backseat with no toys? Do they have any food back there? Does one child look different than the others? Are they not making eye contact or is there another child who is, is speaking for them? Is the adult speaking for them when they're asked a question? It's a 90 minute training block that we started. And the good thing about training is once you get it, you're well educated. The bad thing about training is that if you're not constantly retraining, you lose the muscle memory.
- [28:21]
A
Yeah.
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B
So the idea behind our program is not only do you get the 90 minute block, but every single month we are sending a 15 to 30 minute updated video with the latest trends, a local case, and mostly our wins. What do we do to win here? What did this officer do? What did he see? How did he win? How do we save a life? Because you know as well as I do, you're probably going to get one opportunity.
- [28:44]
A
Yeah.
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B
You being on that airplane with that child with the iPad, who's crying.
- [28:47]
A
Yeah.
- [28:48]
B
You don't know what the situation is. And these children probably only get one chance, only from an outsider to save their life. And so my thought process was, let's get these guys tooled up as best we can. Let's perfect this in the 19th Judicial in South Florida, let's expand it throughout the state of Florida, and then let's make this a national program that can be repeatable 100%.
- [29:15]
A
So if you had to describe what the blue task force is in like a sentence or two, how, what would you say?
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B
It is a very proactive training for row patrol officers to identify threats, identify victims, most importantly, identify predators to bring them to justice, and also have the ability to bring a potential victim to restoration, having those tools to do so.
- [29:48]
A
Awesome. You said road patrol.
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B
Yeah. We're mostly concerned with the people who have the most touches out there.
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A
Right. They're out. They're out in the field.
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B
They're the ones who are answering the calls, the ones doing the traffic stops. And it's force multiplier. That's what we're trying to do, is what we do with Our task forces, we just recently trained code enforcement officers who are out there, you know, looking for blight and things like that in neighborhoods. They're making constant contact with the community.
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A
Right.
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B
They are the boots in the ground. They are the eyes. They are the ones who have the greatest likelihood of being able to see something and stop it. You know, there are sayings that have been thrown around forever and ever and ever. I get so tired of hearing them. But see something, say something is one that is a constant.
- [30:27]
A
Dude, we cannot say that enough or do it enough.
- [30:31]
B
No, it's a good one. We gotta hang on to that one.
- [30:33]
A
100 actually. So we're, we're doing a lot in the community, like in real life. And one of the things I want to do is rent ice cream chucks in like as many neighborhoods I can and print slogans on popsicle sticks. So when the kids eat the ice cream, they see it. And maybe we print, see something, say something on the popsicle sticks. Like just little things, you know, like, did you have Bazooka Joe gum with you?
- [31:00]
B
Absolutely.
- [31:01]
A
Right. And like the comics, they stick with you. So anyway, we'll put a pin in that. Let's go back to you and the blue task force training. What does that look like? What are officers learning?
- [31:15]
B
So we go over the state statutes, most importantly. So in other words, I have 50 different training blocks I have to create. Right? We got 50 different states. Everybody's laws are different.
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A
Oh, gosh, that's a lot.
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B
It is a lot. And actually I'm trying to keep things regional too, so it even becomes more of a challenge. But that's okay, we'll get there. It is donation dollars that have gotten us here so far.
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A
Okay, good. Yeah, we'll make sure to post a link where people can donate.
- [31:38]
B
Ye, yeah. You know, we've had some, some very gracious donors that have started the program for us down there, enough so that they've. They've donated enough for us to get the 19th Judicial, which is four counties and roughly 11 agencies, trained every single police officer for one year. That's incredible. Works out to be about four bucks a month per cop through for every single agency throughout for the entire year, which is amazing. So we go, we review those statute, really trying to give them an understanding because most people don't understand what's between human trafficking, what's the difference between child trafficking, what are the things that we look for? With that we take special emphasis and we look at 764. The reason why we really look at 764, obviously, is because it's such a massive threat. As you know, this is the largest threat in the world, the largest threat in the United States. And in my home state of Florida, we are the third largest, fastest growing crime in the country. So we're growing rapidly. The reason why we really put special emphasis on this Internet crime issue is. Nick. Nick. Reported between 2024 and 2025 is 6330% increase in the amount of reported Internet crimes against children. Now, that's reported through reported. James and I've been doing crime analysis for 30 years. And in crime analysis, if you look at something like burglary, most burglaries are reported. These types of crimes aren't reported. So what is our actual multiplier on it? Probably 10 to 15 times more than that, easily. I mean, we've got literally hundreds of thousands of cases that aren't being reported. And we know that.
- [33:24]
A
I know.
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B
And so the importance of not only making them aware of this, also here's kind of the staggering thing. In training law enforcement agencies and even training our state's attorney's office, when I asked the question, does anybody know what 764 is? I got a handful of people out of hundreds of enforcers. People aren't aware of it. And so if you're investigating juvenile crimes, do you understand why your juvenile is acting a certain way? Why is this juvenile become so recluse? Why they're in their bedroom all the time? Why are their grades dropping? Why are they no longer playing sports? Are they one a victim of sextortion right now? Are they being targeted by a group? Are they constantly having to pay money on a daily basis to try and keep whatever photo they sent under wraps? Or here's the scarier side. Are they part of this culture? Are they engaged in this behavior? Are they doing this to other children
- [34:23]
A
either against their will or willingly?
- [34:26]
B
Exactly. And so those are the things that we have to train on. So when you are investigating juveniles, you have to ask the question, you know what, what is their motivation behind be behind either being the victim or actually being a suspect in something. So it's understanding that and actually understanding that the deviances out there that actually does exist.
- [34:47]
A
Could this be made open to the public? Meaning like, I, I want to, I want to go through this training and I'm willing to pay for it. And could the public subsidize the training for the law enforcement officials by paying for it?
- [35:02]
B
So here's what our ultimate goal is. We are developing an app right now, okay? And inside that app, not only are we creating a, a reporting app.
- [35:14]
A
Okay.
- [35:14]
B
That if you're seeing suspicious behavior, you can report it.
- [35:17]
A
Okay.
- [35:17]
B
We are putting our checks and balances in there. So we, we do not create a cry wolf scenario to where.
- [35:22]
A
Right.
- [35:22]
B
We're pushing information to law enforcement that is, you know, someone's going through a bad divorce and they want to report their husband 10,000 times. Now you have to be vetted to be able to use the app. So we, we want to, we want to try and mitigate that. More importantly, though, we are going to have our video portals in there. Yes. We are developing training programs for real estate agents. We're developing them for parent task forces.
- [35:44]
A
Good.
- [35:45]
B
They're all different. There is a level of sensitivity of information that law enforcement gets that's. That has to stay confidential.
- [35:55]
A
Okay.
- [35:56]
B
Because we're discussing tactics, recent cases. I work very closely with Homeland Security down in Florida. And so we're talking about real sensitive information. We're trying to get out to these guys as quickly as we can to help them to look for these trends,
- [36:09]
A
but also not tip off the bat bad people.
- [36:11]
B
We don't. Because the deviants are there. Right. And you know as well as I do that police officers and teachers and state representatives and congressmen and, and whoever else don't become deviants. Deviants become those people in power so they can put themselves in those positions so they can fulfill their needs. And that's really one of those fallacies that. Another fallacy that we need to put aside is that, you know, these deviants do exist and they will spend the time and the effort to put themselves in those positions. So everywhere. See, I said so they can have the freedom to do these things because they're in a trusted position.
- [36:49]
A
Right?
- [36:50]
B
So those are the things we need to remember. So, yes, to answer your question, we are doing everything we can not only to train just law enforcement. We want to train everybody. We want to make everybody aware of what the real threats are. It's the only way we can do this. The only way this works, works is a child by child approach, a grassroots approach that you start locally and you cloverleaf out. It's the only time. It's the only way really anything like this has ever worked. Think about the way that sexual deviants have been able to be successful. It's been by a child at a time, right? Where is our advantage? Where do we have the advantage? The advantages. We're not sick like they are. Okay? They have a need and a desire that they need to Fill to fulfill. What we need to do is exploit that weakness when it comes to trying to stop them. And how we do that is we tool people up with training. You have to find the balance between training and technology. So when we look at, yes, we want to be out there training them on what to do, but we also want to provide them with a tool like bark. Yeah, we want to provide them with the technology. And as you guys keep getting better and better at what you do now, we've taken a multi layered approach because there is no silver bullet to stopping this. There is no legislation. There's. There's no rule. There's no nothing. I've had to live this in the active shooter world. Oh, if they would just do this or they would just do that, it would stop active shooters. No, it's called depth and defense. And the only way that you beat anything is by creating multiple layers of safety and with whatever it is that you're trying to protect. I use this analogy all the time when I'm training, and I use the 9 11. Depth and defense is the one thing that we have been truly successful at. As we're sitting here talking about traveling so much.
- [38:43]
A
Yeah.
- [38:43]
B
Since 9 11, how many cockpits have been breached?
- [38:46]
A
Zero.
- [38:47]
B
Zero. We have a 100 success rate. And think about how many things have changed. Think about what we're going through right now with all these things. Now, TSA is down, Right. But because we've created such a robust depth and defense program, we have other layers that can kick in and to make sure that we do not kill our baseline of protection. Right. And that baseline of protection is making sure that cockpit does not get taken over. So we built those safety layers out from that cockpit into the fuselage, into the jetway, into the terminal, into the check area, all the way. Bring it all the way out into the virtual world. And that's the mentality that we need to take when we're approaching this. This problem that we're dealing with now.
- [39:29]
A
Multiple layers is the same advice we give parents when they're like, how do I keep my kids safer online? You know, it starts with the relationship you have with them, the constant, sometimes uncomfortable, candid conversations with them younger than you might think, more frequently than you might think. Then the next layer is the Internet, right? How does the Internet even get into your home and get to your devices? Look at the router. Look at. Look at all of that. Then let's look at the devices, right. How many connected pieces of tech can your child access? Whether it's unsafe Smartphones or school issue tech, tech you have in a drawer, et cetera. And let's look at the apps. What apps are they able to use? Whether on connected tech, smart TVs, et cetera. So multiple layers of defense to help protect kids. You mentioned creating an app. I don't know. Have you seen this app? Simply Report.
- [40:20]
B
Yes.
- [40:21]
A
Okay. Awesome. Brittany Dunn and Christy Wells, friends of Bark, friends of the show, have been on the show and yeah, didn't. If y' all didn't know each other, you should.
- [40:33]
B
So absolutely. Our, our main goal is to partner, just like with you. Yes. Everything is.
- [40:39]
A
Listen, there's so many different people working on the same thing.
- [40:41]
B
They are. It's like anytime you go to a convention when, you know, when we went to the just convention and there was a hundred booths of people doing the same thing.
- [40:52]
A
Yeah.
- [40:53]
B
It's like we are all siloed here.
- [40:56]
A
Right.
- [40:56]
B
We're all doing the same thing in our communities. No one's working together. We've got to stop that. We've all got to work together on this. There's no take my ball and go home mentality anymore. No, we've all got to work together on how we combat this. We got to identify the threat. We have to take the threat out. It's that simple.
- [41:11]
A
So if I as a parent want to join the parent task force right now, can I do that? And if not, when will that be live and everybody who's listening, that's like, I want to do something right now and I want to work with uact. Where do they go? What do they do?
- [41:30]
B
The easiest way to contact us is through our email. It's info-act.org info-act.org yes.
- [41:42]
A
Okay.
- [41:43]
B
And following our Facebook page, I know you've seen some of them. I do. Trying to do daily UACT updates on particular cases that have taken place to try and educate parents on what the threats are that are out there, things that have really happened and what you can do to combat that. And so as we start to grow this, you know, having people involved in what our parenting task force is doing, utilizing social, social media is vitally important. Our intent is to grow this obviously over 50 states.
- [42:15]
A
Yeah.
- [42:15]
B
And I believe that, that, that we're up to the task and we can, we can fulfill that mission.
- [42:21]
A
Okay.
- [42:21]
B
Even if people are doing like minded things like we are and doing this, even if they take the concept that we're doing right now and repeat it, I don't care. I am all for force multipliers and us getting out There and beating the bad guys.
- [42:34]
A
Oh, my gosh. I say the same. I'm like, like, I don't care if you use bark or something else. Just use something. Do something, something. Oh, my gosh. Right? It's like we're twins.
- [42:45]
B
Yes. You know, I, I, I can't emphasize it enough. It's, you know, where I train in self defense, I train in firearms. And we, we have a saying in, in, in the military and in law enforcement is get off the X. It's when, when you're standing there and you know, God put hairs in the back of our necks for a reason. Listen, when they raise, you need to move. And if it doesn't seem right, do something. Because there's nothing worse than, than speaking to a parent who's lost a child. And they are always saying, I wish I could have done more. But what's even worse is when, you know, I listen to interviews with parents or speak with parents. They're like, I did everything I thought I was supposed to do. Right. I was on top of my child. I was looking at their phone. I was, I knew it was going on, and they still ended up taking their own lives or this still ended up happening. That's a shame. So the biggest thing is to look beyond maybe what you think is all you need to do. I gotta say this. If your kid has Discord on their phone, get it off.
- [43:50]
A
Amen.
- [43:51]
B
I don't care if the people from Discord come after me. I could care less. I don't care if the people from Roblox come after me. I could care less. Go right ahead and come after me.
- [43:59]
A
Because you're not wrong.
- [44:00]
B
Yeah. Because what they're doing is unethical. And what they're doing is they have created a breeding ground for this. Why does your child need to communicate in a chat room that erases content? Why is that needed? If you're paying for your child's cell phone, they're under your plan. Don't allow them to have it. If you're allowing them to have it, you are opening up the gateway for the deviants to attack them. Your phone is an amazing thing. It is a gateway to the world. It is also the world's gateway to your child. So if they create opportunity for them, they will take opportunity. People just have to be smarter about it and be more vigilant.
- [44:45]
A
I agree. Is this your Facebook page?
- [44:48]
B
Yes.
- [44:49]
A
Okay. I'm going to share with. Should I show it to you? This camera? This camera or this camera? Mike. That one. Okay. You act people you take action, I am going to follow now and you should all do the same. We'll drop a link to do that. I'm so eager to stay up to date on what you're doing. The educational content that you're putting out there, supporting the people who are brave enough to be on the front lines and be those first responders. From a law enforcement perspective, what can parents do right now to better protect their kids?
- [45:31]
B
First of all, I would download the bark app on your phone.
- [45:34]
A
Did not pay him to say that.
- [45:35]
B
Didn't pay me to say that.
- [45:36]
A
Thank you.
- [45:37]
B
I'm sorry. Anything that works on the back end of a phone is effective.
- [45:42]
A
Or buy the bark phone instead of
- [45:44]
B
bark phone and you've got it. We have discount code too, but I'm sure they can get cheaper through you. But you know, any, anything that's working on the back end that a child can't. Can't. Well, I should say it's more difficult for them to hack to get through. To get to deviant content is a great asset.
- [46:04]
A
So go with safer tech for your kids. Use tech that's meant to protect kids.
- [46:08]
B
Absolutely. Speak to your kids younger than. It's comfortable for you.
- [46:11]
A
Right.
- [46:12]
B
Speak. If your kids have an electronic device, have any access to, to the Internet, you need to have a conversation with them. It will eventually happen to them. They will get contacted by somebody who's going to want something from them. And unfortunately, the ultimate want and the ultimate need by a group out there is for them to take their own lives. So if you start there and work your way backwards, you're going to be in a much better place. Understanding the threat. It's an interesting quote by Leon Panetta that that was made when he was hunting down bin Laden. He said, we cannot successfully navigate taking out a threat unless we can accept the fact that evil exists. And this evil is out there right now. It does exist. They're after children. There's not a question about it. So accept it, please. Just accept it and get out of the mindset that it can't happen to
- [47:08]
A
you and fight it.
- [47:09]
B
Yeah. You have to be proactive. You have to be vigilant. If you're not, you're just going to fall victim to it and you're just going to be another one of these shocked parents who gets interviewed saying, I just never imagined it was going to happen to my child. We have an opportunity here. At least we can identify what the threat is. At least we know how they communicate. Right. And at least we can recognize that they have A weakness. They have a need to do deviant things. So if we take that, use that weakness against them, we can beat them.
- [47:38]
A
James, I'm so fired up because of this discussion and a lot of things that are happening simultaneously right now. What are some of the trends or patterns you're tracking right now that parents should know about
- [47:54]
B
the increase of young male victims that they're. We are seeing now? There's been a major uptick in, in males becoming victims. Here's something that I want people to think about. I had this conversation with Homeland Security several months ago as this was sort of happening in real time. We've managed to shut down the southern border and there's a massive supply and demand, obviously. Right.
- [48:23]
A
Of children.
- [48:24]
B
Of children with the United States being the number one buyer. So you stop and you think that all these children were entering tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of children were coming and they were feeding this demand that we, that takes place here in this country and they're being sold. And the average life of a child who's being sold that way, you know as well as I do they can be sold 15, 20 times a day. Some of these children can make a million dollars a year. So the fact that that supply chain has been cut off, that means that the shelf life of one of these victims is going to be less. So start looking internally here inside the United States of missing children. Are missing children returning home. I think that we're going to find when the FBI Uniform Crime Reports come out for 2026, we are going to see a major increase in the amount of children who ran away and did not return home. Because I believe that the opportunity has now presented itself that these traffickers need to stay in business. They need to keep the demand is there. They need to keep the supply chain up. So they are going to start looking wherever they can find victims. I believe that we're starting to see more of an influx coming into the state of Florida because it's easier to transport humans through the islands from overseas through Jamaica, through Haiti, through the doctor into Florida by boat than it is to get them across the border in Texas. We have a thousand miles coastline, so we have so many boats that come and go. It's easy to bring, bring these, these girls in. So look internally about, you know, with these kids who are runaways and you know, most importantly, you know, if you have an opportunity and you're out there, you're, you're. And you're paying attention to this topic, it's on your mind now I can Say, one of the good things that's come out of this, this whole Epstein mess, is that people are becoming aware of it.
- [50:26]
A
Right.
- [50:26]
B
You, you have to, you have to agree with me. The conversations have become more and more frequent. We've got more and more lawmakers out there who are pushing for this stuff.
- [50:36]
A
Right.
- [50:36]
B
And I've been a firm believer that, you know, we have to do things legally, we have to do things locally, we have to do things, you know, face to face. And they're starting to pass more legislation now preventing a lot of these things happen electronically. This isn't going to happen overnight. It's going to take a long time for this to happen. But this is such a multi pronged threat that you need to take action. Right. When you see something.
- [51:02]
A
Yeah. Every single hour that we don't take action, another child, multiple children are harmed, experiencing the most horrific things possible. We cannot wait.
- [51:13]
B
No, there's, there's just no more time for this. And it's not going to get better by somebody else doing something.
- [51:19]
A
No.
- [51:20]
B
People need to be vigilant on their own and go out and take action. I know there's a lot of us who are Gen Xers, who our kids are growing up and we just don't want to, we don't want to leave our country this way. This is not the way that we grew up. We, we had good times when we were kids at 13 or 14 years old. I hate seeing this right now. I don't want to leave my country this way. I want to do everything I can to make this a safer place and stop this deviance from happening.
- [51:50]
A
James Billig, chief compliance officer of United Against Child Trafficking or U Act. CEO of Blue Line Safety, retired law enforcement official and threat mitigation expert. You offer such a wealth of knowledge and you are such an inspiring human doing work that is literally saving lives. How can we best follow you? Is it, is it LinkedIn? Is it Instagram? Where are you out there where people who are like, I need more of this.
- [52:22]
B
I would, I would just come to our UAT Facebook page.
- [52:25]
A
Okay.
- [52:25]
B
You know, we're on all social media, Instagram, TikTok. Fortunately I have, my daughter now has stepped up and is running a TikTok page.
- [52:32]
A
Oh my God, that's awesome.
- [52:33]
B
So YouTube and you know, all of our social media, we're working very, very hard to try and get that, that common message out as much as we possibly can. Our goal is to educate, finding that balance of education and enforcement technology and training. It's always trying to find that balance is what we need. So if you follow us there, we'll do the best we can to give you the information. And then, of course, at the info, I don't care how many emails we get, we'll answer them. You can always ask a question and I'm on that info link also. Our whole team is. We'll do everything we can to answer you as quickly as we possibly can.
- [53:10]
A
Wherever you're watching this, you should be able to not just watch and feel sad and shocked and scared and mad, but you can take action. So do so today. As James said, evil exists. That's not a question, but what are we going to do about it? And I'm in the camp of let's fight it.
- [53:30]
B
Absolutely. Yeah.
- [53:32]
A
James, thank you so much for being here today. Is there anything that we did not cover that you think we need to before we wrap?
- [53:40]
B
No, I just have faith that we're going to win this war. We are going to win this battle. This is a battle that can be won.
- [53:45]
A
Yes.
- [53:46]
B
And we can do it in our lifetimes. And so that's our goal. Let's just all band together and understand that evil does exist and we can work very hard, keep the faith, and we can overcome it.
- [54:01]
A
Thank you for that message of hope.
- [54:03]
B
Well, thank you for having me. And I hope you wear your shirt with pride. Hopefully you wear it one show and you are a warrior. You guys have done some amazing work. And please keep it up, keep it up, keep up the fight, and together we'll all win.
- [54:19]
A
Amen. Thank you so much, James.
- [54:21]
B
Thanks so much.