I decided to post this story this morning to demonstrate of easy it is for a naive young person to become a victim of human trafficing. Arnold Castillo a 22 year old man from Paterson is facing life in prison after he allegedly paid an Uber driver $1000 to pick up a 15 year old girl in Indiana and driver her to his home for sex. He started to communicate with her on line after buying some of her art work from a legitimate website. Then he continued to communicate with her on social media. Eventually he purchased numerous gifts on line and sent them to her. This process of earning a young person's trust through gifts and praise is very common. It's called "grooming." Federal Court documents say Castillo started to "groom" the young woman in February. Then in May he paid an Uber driver $500 to drive to Indiana to pick her up. The driver received another $500 when he dropped her of at Castillo's home.
Investigators were able to use information on social media to trace the girl to Castillo within a day. She was found at his home and returned to her mother. Castillo was arrested and is facing sex traffic charges. Please talk to your kids about who they could be taking to on line. Something like this almost happened to one of my kids several years ago. I caught on before things got too far. Now I have grand children to protect. There are some brazen terrible people out there.
Source: Indianapolis Crime Watch 8
Photo: Getty Images