United States Attorney Richard B. Roper announced today that the Dallas Police Department, the Fort Worth Police Department and Mosaic Family Services, Inc. of Dallas, Texas, will receive a total of $1.35 million in grant funding as part of the federal government’s efforts to enhance programs to combat human trafficking.  The grant funding was announced today by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales in New Orleans, Louisiana, at the 2006 National Conference on Human Trafficking, where representatives from federal, state and local organizations gathered to discuss methods of investigating human trafficking and servitude and how victim services are structured and defined.  Attorney General Gonzales announced a total of nearly $8 million in grant funding, to ten law enforcement agencies and eight victim service organizations for the purpose of identifying and assisting victims of human trafficking and apprehending and prosecuting those engaged in trafficking offenses.

U.S. Attorney Roper said, “I am grateful to the Attorney General for choosing the Dallas-Fort Worth area for this exclusive grant and for the Texas Congressional Delegation's support.  Our strong federal-state law enforcement partnerships with local community groups and the organizational structure we have established, show that we are poised and ready to aggressively deal with human trafficking here in North Texas.”

The Dallas Police Department, Fort Worth Police Department, and Mosaic Family Services, Inc., will each receive $450,000 to be used to create Trafficking Task Forces, building on the current work of more than 32 national task forces already operating as a part of the collaborative effort of various Department of Justice (DOJ) components, the Departments of Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Labor and State, and national and community-based organizations to combat human trafficking.

In addition to the Dallas and Fort Worth Police Departments, which are two of the  ten law enforcement grant funding recipients, other 2006 law enforcement grants were awarded to the City of Clearwater, Clearwater, Florida; Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement, Baton Rouge, Louisiana; City of Independence, Independence, Missouri; Las Vega Metropolitan Police Department, Las Vegas, Nevada; Erie County, Buffalo, New York; Northern Mariana Department of Public Safety, Saipan, Northern Marianas; Bexar County Sheriff’s Office, San Antonio, Texas; and Salt Lake City, Salt Lake City, Utah.  In addition to the law enforcement grants, Mosaic Family Services, Inc. of Dallas was one of eight of the 2006 grant awards for victim services.

Including the new funding announced this morning, the Department of Justice now supports 42 victim-centered law enforcement task forces throughout the United States and in American Samoa and the Northern Marianas.  In the Northern District of Texas, U.S. Attorney Roper has established the North Texas Anti-Trafficking Team (NTATT) made up of approximately 80 representatives of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies and approximately 15 representatives from non-governmental, or victim-service agencies/organizations.  The NTATT, as well as the other task forces throughout the country, are collaborations among United States Attorneys, law enforcement, and victim service agencies focusing on increasing the identification and rescue of trafficking victims through proactive law enforcement, including designing a protocol response to the identification of victim services, provision of services, and investigation and prosecution of human trafficking cases.  

It is estimated that between 600,000 and 800,000 persons are annually transported across international borders to be systematically abused, sexually exploited and brutalized.  As many as 17,500 people may be trafficked into the United States annually, where they are forced into prostitution, sweatshops, and domestic servitude.  Most of these victims are women and children.  Under the direction of the Attorney General, United States Attorneys and DOJ’s Civil Rights Division have taken the lead in prosecuting human trafficking cases at the federal level.

Most notably, recently in the Northern District of Texas, a Korean businessman named Sung Bum Chang was importing and collecting women from South Korea to be trapped in servitude at his night club, “Club Wa,” in Dallas.  Chang paid others to smuggle these women into the United States where they were then required to work at Club Wa under terrible conditions of fear and violence.  The victims said they wanted to come to the United States because of the glamour and money associated with working here.  However, when the women arrived here, Chang instead forced them into labor or restricted their movement and social contacts to the point where their home was more like a prison.  Chang held their passports and monitored their every move with surveillance cameras and the victims were fined for violating strict rules of behavior and endured routine physical beatings.  The victims were made to work six or seven days a week until they paid off their debt of passage into this country to Chang.  Chang also required them to pay him for their food and lodging, adding to the overall debt to him that they already struggled to pay.  Chang is scheduled to be sentenced in federal court in Dallas on October 16, 2006; he faces a maximum statutory sentence of 25 years imprisonment, a $500,000 fine, and restitution.  He will also be required to forfeit luxury vehicles, cash, computers and assorted electronic equipment. 

The Office of Justice Programs (OJP) provides federal leadership in developing the nation’s capacity to prevent and control crime, administer justice and assist victims.  More information about OJP’s work on human trafficking can be found at www.ojp.usdoj.gov.  More information about the efforts of the Civil Right Division to combat human trafficking can be found at http://www.usdoj.gov/whatwedo/whatwedo_ctip.html