The Wyoming Highway Patrol says that they were able to arrest a suspect on a serious felony charge due to an officer’s recent “Truckers Against Trafficking” (TAT) training.
The arrest occurred on June 18, 2020, following a truck inspection at the Colorado Port of Entry in Fort Collins.
During the inspection, Officer Jeanay Angel, who had recently completed a TAT training course, noticed several indicators of human trafficking.
The truck driver allowed Angel to speak with a female traveling in the truck and learned that the woman was younger than him by nearly 30 years.
“In addition to the age difference between the passenger and driver. I parked the truck, because the girl appeared to be no visible relation to the driver and the tattoo on her neck, from a distance, looked like a barcode … like you typically find on food,” Angel told TAT.
The woman told Angel that she was an out of work model who was depressed and had no money.
When asked by Angel if she needed help, the woman refused to give a straight answer.
Angel ran both the driver and the passenger’s identification through the the Colorado law enforcement database and let them pass through the Port of Entry when the check came back without issue.
Angel believed that “none of it felt or sounded right,” and checked the identifications in a national law enforcement database. She discovered that the driver had an outstanding warrant from Oklahoma for child sexual abuse.
Angel contacted the Wyoming Highway Patrol.
Wyoming troopers were able to locate the truck west of Cheyenne.
After confirming that the driver was wanted in Oklahoma, troopers arrested him without incident.
The woman said that the truck driver had not harmed her. She was provided with information on human trafficking and given a hotel for the night in Cheyenne.
“This is one more story that was able to end well due to multiple agencies working together to make sure victims of human trafficking are rescued, and offenders are held accountable,” the Wyoming Highway Patrol said.
Truckers Against Trafficking is a non-profit based out of Colorado that empowers truckers to take action to combat human trafficking.