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June 22, 2023 - Info Warrior - Jason Bermas
59:18
Light Shines On The Darkness Of Child Trafficking With The Sound Of Freedom | MSOM Ep. 771

Watch first over at www.AmpNews.us at 6pm Monday - Friday!!!Show more https://ourrescue.org/sound-of-freedom www.angel.com Show less Watch first over at www.AmpNews.us at 6pm Monday - Friday!!!Show more https://ourrescue.org/sound-of-freedom www.angel.com Show less

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Time Text
Oversized Arena of Trafficking 00:03:38
Welcome to Making Sense of the Madness.
I am Jason Burmes, and today we are going to travel down the dark path of human and child trafficking with Operation Underground Railroad.
This is an episode you won't want to miss.
We'll be back after this.
One of the darker subjects that we are forced to cover here, on making sense of the madness,
is the large arena, the oversized arena, of human and child trafficking.
And not only the unfortunate aspects that happen to those human beings, those children that are trafficked, but the injustice system that continues to protect many of these high-level child abusers and pedophiles.
Perhaps the Jeffrey Epstein case is the most well-known, but even in that case, we could not keep the assailant alive and have him be actually accountable for all of the crimes that he committed.
Delaine Maxwell, his partner, basically got a slap on the wrist and is right now appealing many of the judgments.
We know there were others in that circle, including Sarah Kalin, Leslie Groth, and many more.
We know the names of powerful, high-level people in politics and in entertainment, such as Kevin Spacey, Bill Clinton.
And we know this man's connections to those in the technology fields as well.
But that really is the tip of the iceberg.
I first came into this arena when studying the Franklin scandal.
And it's hard for some people to believe, but cover stories of callboys in the White House were rocking the papers in the early 90s and shed light on this large organization of politicians in D.C. and abroad that were taking part in some of the most egregious behavior imaginable.
And if you think this problem has stopped, you can only go to the Anthony Weiner laptop, in which the FBI had this laptop during the Trump administration, by the way, after the NYPD started looking into it and what?
Saw there were a multitude of crimes on that laptop involving the abuse of children, yet nothing was done.
And when Anthony Weiner was in court over child abuse, it was because of one of his abused victims sharing their Skype conversations, logs, and videos, not from the laptop itself.
That should tell you that the cover-up crew is in full effect when it comes to the upper echelons of the Justice Department.
And yet another high-level example of that that we have all seen comes to the tune of the Hunter Biden laptop, where many of the crimes on that laptop, in my opinion, have yet to be revealed.
Raising Awareness: Saving 288 00:15:28
Well, there are some people fighting back on the lower levels, and that's why this broadcast is going to be so important.
And when I say lower levels, there is no low level when it comes to saving children.
Each child is an immense importance that we do not allow them to be abused.
If they are being abused, to be rescued.
And that's why Operation Underground Railroad, the film, The Sound of Freedom, which premieres in theaters on July 4th, and of course, our rescue, OURrescue.org, is so important.
So, on the other side of this, we're going to be joined by Matt Osborne and later, one of these people that's actually been in the arena for 18 years, saving kids to help us make sense of the madness.
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How many pedophiles you got?
288.
How many kids you found?
It is the fastest-growing international crime network that the world has ever seen.
It has already passed the illegal arms trade, and soon it's gonna pass the drug trade.
You can sell a bag of coke cake one time with a child five to ten times a day.
God's children are not Brazil.
How long have you been doing this?
Call here is now.
How many pedophiles you come?
288.
I can't see that.
For Homeland Security, you know we can't go off rescuing Honduran kids in Colombia.
Which means she'll disappear for good.
Imagine walking into a room right now, seeing an empty bed.
What we do, you quit your job, and you go and rescue those kids.
At this moment, she could be a block down the road, or she could be at Moscow, Bangkok, LA.
She's a major operator.
It's all rebel territory.
No one goes in.
On the army, on the police, not us.
What if this is your daughter?
There's a new marine unit coming.
Go your own.
This job tears you to pieces.
And this is my one chest.
Put those pieces back together.
god tells you what to do an estimated 2 million children are trafficked every year and we can help Sound of Freedom is based on a true story about real-life heroes saving kids from the dark world of child trafficking.
We know this is heartbreaking, and it hurts to look at, but the first step in helping these children is hearing their story.
Not enough people know this problem exists, and even fewer people are willing to do anything about it.
Our goal is to inspire 2 million people to attend the film's opening weekend to represent the 2 million trafficked children around the world.
To spread the word, Angel Studios set up a pay-it-forward program where you can pay for someone else's ticket who might not otherwise see it.
If the ticket price is stopping you from attending, claim your free ticket.
At angel.com/slash freedom, Sound of Freedom opens the week of July 4th.
Every parent, every adult, and every teenager in America should be there to see it.
If millions of us come together today to see this film, we could propel the movement to help save millions of children around the world.
You can send the message that God's children monger for sale.
A powerful message, a powerful trailer for a powerful film.
And to join us to discuss not only the film, but how you can get involved and you can go get a ticket for the July 4th screening is Matt Osborne.
Matt Osborne joined Operation Underground Railroad in 2014.
He's held a multitude of positions.
So before we get into the film, which looks incredible, by the way, and how people can get involved, how did you get involved?
What made you want to be in this arena?
Well, thank you, Jason.
Really appreciate your show giving this platform this important topic.
I served the U.S. government for 12 years with the CIA and U.S. Department of State.
I served overseas in Spain, Venezuela, and Mexico.
It was while I was in Spain I was asked to write the trafficking in persons report, and my eyes were opened.
I admit, I thought this was pretty woman, Julia Roberts, the way they made that character seem that she decided when, where, with whom, and how she had to perform these sex acts.
When I realized these were pimps, these were traffickers, these were predators preying on women and children, adults, boys, and men, I felt that God was putting something on my heart and I needed to do something about it.
Well, previous to that, in the year 2000, I had met a man named Tim Ballard in graduate school in Monterey, California.
Tim went to start briefly with the CIA and then his career was mostly with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Homeland Security Investigations.
Well, unbeknownst to me at the time, he was working on the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.
He was on something called the Child Sex Tourism Jump Team.
Isn't that a terrible thing to think about?
But it's our men and women in the U.S. government who would jump into action when they got information about a child being exploited.
Well, as the Sound of Freedom movie, and we'll talk about that in a minute, the viewers will see that, that is based on a true story, how Tim loved his government job, but he was so constrained by resources, bureaucracy, other things that did not allow him to go and rescue all of God's children, or at least to try.
He only could work cases if there was a U.S. nexus.
Well, he started putting together a team of former operators with whom he had worked, CIA, Homeland Security Special Forces, undercover operators like Batman, and he started working on me.
Well, I admit he was the brave one who quit Cold Turkey, who left his job, his pension, his government health care, left the golden handcuffs of the U.S. government, as we joke, to join OUR when there wasn't any money in the bank.
I waited about eight months until I saw this plane taking off, and that's where I joined him.
And I've been with OUR ever since, doing a bunch of things to help rescue and rehabilitate kids in the United States and around the world.
Well, I want to take you back to that initial report and where you were as a person before that and what started to open your eyes specifically.
What were you seeing as you made that report that you were taken aback that this wasn't at all what you had thought it was?
When I learned that the average age that a girl mostly, but let's not kid ourselves, boys are also trafficked, men are trafficked.
When I saw the average age that a girl would enter the sex trade is 11 or 12 years old, and I've seen different statistics, I thought about my daughters.
Now, I have two daughters right now who are the ages of 21 and 18.
I don't know how good your cameras are.
If you see the gray hair and my sideburns, that's because my daughters, they give me, I love them, but the stuff they put on social media, the things that they don't realize that there are groomers out there.
Well, I realized that this was happening at their age and younger.
And that's when I thought, is this what I'm supposed to be doing?
Is this what I'm supposed to be dedicating my life to?
And what I loved about Operation Underground Railroad is we are a group of women and men who are action-oriented.
Now, there are great groups out there who are holding conferences and focused on prevention and education.
That's important, raising awareness.
But there were few groups out there who would go into the darkest corners of the world and extract.
And I love on your show earlier, I saw the graphic, be your own hero.
I'm not a hero, but the men and women I work with, they're the heroes.
They're the ones who are going undercover.
And that's what we want to do.
We want to empower law enforcement, not just to give them a fish, but teach them how to fish so that they can then rescue and rehabilitate in their own countries.
And I think that's so important.
So this organization, you said you joined eight months in.
That makes it about 10 years old.
Tell us about the growth of that organization to going into action, starting to extract people to the point now where you guys are putting out Hollywood level productions, not only in the arena of fiction, but as we'll talk about later, also in documentary films and beyond.
We started very small.
It was essentially Tim Ballard and one other guy in a garage, as we joke.
They're trying to figure out how do we privatize the rescue of children?
How do we empower law enforcement?
We're not a vigilante group.
We only go through the front door or we don't go in at all.
But that first couple of months, Tim would rely on the contacts he already had through his homeland security career in Haiti, in Colombia, in the Dominican Republic.
And that's where we did our first operations.
Tim also was able to collaborate with an undercover operator code named Batman.
Batman would go into the darkest corners and get the intelligence to then turn it over to the U.S. government, but then later on working with Operation Underground Railroad.
Once we did one rescue or two rescues, we would then have to have media come in to film it.
We'd have to go on podcasts like this.
We would have to try to raise awareness and funding to have enough money to go do another operation.
And then it started little by little to grow.
We were very fortunate.
We got on with influencers like Glenn Beck, who helped us raise our first million dollars.
We were able to get some news and publicity that allowed us then to do more operations.
And now, Jason, what we say is the sun never sets on OUR.
The lights are always on somewhere because we have offices in Bangkok, Thailand, in Europe, Central America, South America.
Every day almost, we have rescue operations going.
You mentioned about the documentaries and movies.
We see two real mandates at Operation Underground Railroad.
Rescue and rehabilitate God's Precious Children.
Secondly, raise funding and awareness through stories and storytelling.
And our hero is from the Civil War time, Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin.
She used entertainment, a book, to raise awareness about a social scourge that was going on at that time, the transatlantic slave trade.
We want to use movies and documentaries to raise awareness about a modern day social scourge, child exploitation, and human trafficking.
You know, that's a book that I read in high school and I remember to this day because of its impactful nature.
And it shows you that that can actually not only span generations, but then inspire people to take that and do what you guys have done.
And you guys have put together this Hollywood-level picture with Jim Caviesel, who has been outspoken for children.
Many of them know him for playing Jesus in the Passion of the Christ.
Take us on that journey because obviously it's not easy getting a director, a PA, a budget, a Hollywood star, and then shooting something of this caliber, especially when the storyline is of such a serious nature.
Absolutely.
And real quick, when you said about Harry Beecher's Stowe Uncle Tom's Cabin, you are correct how powerful it was.
I read an account once that when Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War invited her to the White House, he said, so you're the woman who wrote the book who started this war.
So we want to be the group that puts together the Hollywood film, the documentary that starts this war.
And the way it came about was we launched an operation called Triple Take in October of 2014.
Tim Ballard led the operation in Cartagena, Colombia.
I led the second part of that in Armenia, Colombia.
And operator codenamed Batman led the third in Medellin.
So Triple Take, three operations.
CBS Evening News cameras joined Tim in Cartagena, filmed it.
It was on that episode.
And you can YouTube Operation Underground Railroad and CBS Evening News, and you'll see that clip.
Well, Alejandro Monte Verde, a Mexican director, and Eduardo Verasteghi, a Mexican actor, saw that, talked to each other.
They separately saw it and each contacted and said, I think we have our next hero.
I think we have our next film.
And that's how this started.
Well, then they had to find out, well, who's going to play Tim Ballard?
And we looked at all different types of actors.
They would have been fantastic.
But we kept coming back to Jim Caviesel because of what you just mentioned, Jason, outspoken for the children, his passion, no pun intended, for playing these roles.
And Tim, actually, Jim said that this role is his second, the second most important role he's ever played, which can you believe that?
That's a high bar now after playing Jesus Christ in the Passion of the Christ.
So it all came together.
Mira Sorvino, famous actress, plays Tim's wife.
Bill Camp plays undercover operator Batman.
In the movie, it's Vampiro Vampire.
But we have amazing stars who've come together.
And here's one last thing I'll say.
The director and producer of Sound of Freedom made a really great decision to go to a number of Latin American countries, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Honduras, and I may be forgetting one or two.
And they got essentially the most famous actor or actress in each of those countries to play a role in Sound of Freedom.
So now you can imagine how popular we think this movie will be not only in the United States, but throughout Latin America.
That's a brilliant marketing strategy because you do want a film like this to be seen internationally.
Services Trigger Call Gravecare 00:04:13
And you mentioned all of those regions.
And in the clip that we saw during the trailer, you know, it's briefly noted that once a child is trafficked, you really don't know where they're going to be.
It could be in LA.
It could be in Russia.
Can you speak to that?
Yes, this happens in every corner of the world every single day.
I live in Dallas, Texas.
It happens in Texas.
I've been in small towns where it happens.
We see this around.
It's not just in Thailand.
It's not just in Colombia.
And that's one of the reasons that we are putting together documentaries at Operation Underground Railroad.
We have documentaries about our international work.
We have a documentary called It's Happening Right Here about what's happening in the U.S. Trafficking trends are a little bit different, tend to be different overseas, vice in the United States.
However, this again happens.
Why does it happen?
And maybe we'll get a chance on your show today to talk about it.
It really comes down to the demand.
What we want to do is educate as many men as possible that these are victims, not volunteers.
This is prostitution, or sorry, this is trafficking.
It's not prostitution.
And I think too many men, and I use myself, it's embarrassed to say, but if you would have asked an 18-year-old Matt Osborne, a 25-year-old Matt Osborne, maybe even a 30-year-old Matt Osborne about strip clubs, about prostitutes, I think I would have said that's just how they choose to make their living.
That's just how they make their livelihood.
Boy, am I embarrassed that I was so wrong.
And now we want to educate others because, as Jim Caviesel said, we can start a war now.
We can have an army of people who are ready to put an end to this crime.
Well, on the other side of the break, I would love to talk about that, but we're two weeks out from the premiere.
Before we get to the break, how can people see this movie on July 4th?
So you can go to our website, ourrescue.org, ourrescue.org.
Not only is there a link to, you put in your zip code, there it is.
You see it on the screen, to put in a zip code to find out where theaters are available.
You'll learn a little bit about Tim Ballard.
And then you'll learn a little bit about what is true and what was what at Hollywood take a little bit of license, the behind the scenes.
Again, based on a true story, except for the parts that aren't.
Everything is true in terms of it being associated with some part of Operation Underground Railroad Rescues.
Now, maybe a little license is taken that the action happens in Colombia, although a couple of the rescues actually happen in Haiti or the Dominican Republic.
But at ourrescue.org, everyone can have all of the information.
Also, angel.com, as you see that earlier in the trailer you played, talking about tickets, talking about the pay it forward.
If you want to get your own movie ticket and then you want to try and buy tickets for others to get them in theaters, and I love that.
Be a part of stories that amplify light.
This is a dark subject.
It's a tough movie to see.
And you can see there from July 3rd, really, all the way through about the 15th, where we're playing the movie.
There'll be screenings.
But I would say this PG-13, but I've been asked a lot, Jason, by parents, well, how young?
My kid's 12, my kid's 11, my kid's 10.
I would say you know your child better than we do.
I think for a mature 11-year-old, a mature 12-year-old, it would be fine.
There's no serious language in there.
The scenes are tastefully done.
You kind of know what's happening, but there's nothing graphic.
There's nothing gratuitous.
But it is a tough movie.
It's a tough subject matter.
But I think people will come out of it feeling that there's something that I can do and there's something everyone can do to fight this.
Imagine that, putting it in the parents' hands.
When we come back, we're going to talk more about this film and, as he said, the demand for this.
Who's purchasing these children?
Who is the driving force behind this human trafficking epidemic?
It's making sense of the madness.
back after this whether it's a daughter or a son looking for health and next steps for their aging parents or grandparents or if it's just you out there that's confused as to when do you trigger certain type of services that can fit your situation We partner with people all across the nation as to how to help fill in the gaps for our clients.
Making Sense of Madness 00:13:26
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If you're a lion, we get to support Operation Underground Railroad's rescue efforts of people who need it the most, the innocent who have had every ounce of freedom taken from them.
This is the second fundraiser we're doing with Operation Underground Railroad.
And the first one, man, Team Freedom, we blew it out of the water.
We far exceeded our goal.
And I think we can do even better this time because the lions of the world care about freedom.
And because they're lions, not just their own freedom, but the freedom of other people.
But first, let me share with you what first got me started supporting Operation Underground Railroad.
As you might know, I've got a beautiful little boy.
He's two and a half.
And last year, I was looking at his precious blue eyes and, of course, seeing how innocent, helpless, and quite frankly, powerless he is, yet how beautiful he is.
Here is a child of God.
I'm entrusted to be the steward of his soul.
And I realize the innocent children and sex trafficking, they are the same thing.
They are someone else's little boy or someone else's little girl.
And I just thought if my child was, God forbid, ever taken into sex trafficking, I would want the lions of the world to step up and do something because my son deserves it.
And realizing other people's sons and daughters, they deserve it.
That's why I decided I have to get involved supporting the Operation Underground Railroad rescue efforts.
There's charities I've supported along the way still do and they're important, but the work that Operation Underground Railroad is doing, it is the most important cause that's ever touched my heart.
And Operation Underground Railroad has a proven track record of success when it comes to protecting the innocent.
So far, they've rescued over 6,000 survivors of sex trafficking and put in jail over 4,000 perpetrators.
So not only do they set up operational efforts to locate rings and find the criminals and find out where this is happening, but then they perform the rescue missions where their team, they go into harm's way, putting their lives on the line to save the lives and give the freedom back to the innocent.
And then they don't stop there.
All importantly, they also provide aftercare for the victims because as you can imagine, there's physical and psychological harm that these innocent have incurred and they help the victims rebuild their lives.
Now, these victims, they would otherwise have no hope.
They would be in the worst situations we can possibly imagine and they would be completely hopeless.
But fortunately, there's hope because Operation Underground Railroad exists.
They're putting their lives on the line to save the innocent, but they couldn't do it without supporters like you and I, without the lions of the world who say freedom matters.
And it doesn't just matter for me, but because I'm selfless, I have a big heart.
I realize protecting the innocent, their freedom, and giving their freedom back to them, that matters.
We are back.
It's making sense of the madness.
We are joined by Matt Osborne of rrescue.org, OURrescue.org.
That's where you can make your donation or get your tickets to the sound of freedom.
Let's talk about this demand.
Now, obviously, the sex trade may be the oldest trade in history.
That's the joke.
But the perception out there is not a realistic one.
You know, you mentioned the Holly Weird, you know, Julia Roberts pretty woman perception, and there's some grittier stuff out there, but mostly it's an empowerment thing for women when presented by the media.
This is my choice.
That is not the case, correct, Matt?
That's absolutely right.
And again, we've at Operation Underground Railroad, we focus on rescuing children.
We didn't want to get into debate of adults and legalization of sex work or not.
However, a majority of the victims we've rescued now over our 10-year history, over 7,000 working with law enforcement, have been adults.
A lot of them have been children as well.
But here are a couple of things we say.
We say that no man just wakes up one day at the age of 35, 45, 55, and says, Today, I'm going to dial up a prostitute.
I'm going to get an online escort.
It's a journey of a thousand steps that leads a man to think that it's okay for him to buy another human being.
Well, when you look back, what leads a man to that?
It's the over-sexualization of our culture, objectification of women, rampant pornography addiction.
And then it's this, and I know you'd agree with this, this whole sort of fudging the lines of who's a man, who's a woman, are you a human, are you a cat?
And at one point, are they going to say, are you a 12-year-old?
Or if you identify as a 30-year-old, then that's okay.
And I know that sounds extreme, but think of what 10 years ago, if someone would have fast-forwarded to today's society, they would have said 10 years ago, this never could have happened.
So it's all this confluence of factors that come together.
And what I would say finally is when everyone's like, well, yeah, but if someone wants to work as a stripper or someone wants to work as a prostitute, that's their right.
Well, of course, that's their right.
But as law enforcement tells us, you don't have to go too far back in their history to see something bad that's happened to them, some sort of abuse, some sort of neglect, some sort of issue that's led them to think that their only choice is to work in the sex industry.
And I think of my two daughters now, 21 years old and 18 years old, when they were four, five, six years old, putting on moms, you know, fake pearls in a purse and high heels.
How many did either them or how many girls would say, when I grow up, I want to be a prostitute?
And that's something that I think we need to educate men on in terms of the demand.
If the demand would go away, there wouldn't be a supply of trafficking victims, would there?
And I think it's key that you point out that many of these people that get into this trade are abused as children.
So again, if you're put into this trade as a child, what chance do you have as an adult later on?
You also talked about the normalization of pedophilia.
They want to be known as minor attracted persons now.
And one of the most frustrating things in this arena to me that I've seen over my entire lifetime when this did start getting play within the Catholic Church.
And you saw, wow, there are high-level pedophiles within religious institutions.
And then it would come out about politicians.
They get slaps on the wrist.
You know, these people don't do real jail time where if they had actually raped an adult, they would have probably done more time.
Yet they can repeatedly abuse a child.
And some of these people either get light prison sentences or no prison sentences at all, Matt.
Yeah, exactly.
And, you know, you mentioned earlier the Jeffrey Epstein and Glene Maxwell.
Why have we not seen from Glene Maxwell Jeffrey Epstein's little black book?
That would have been the easiest, wouldn't it, for her to just put everything out, plea bargain?
To me, and I have no, no, I have no insight, just my thoughts based on experience.
That must mean that that threat over her head of what they could do to her, her family, or loved ones, something is worse than her right now sitting in jail.
That means the protection networks are so vast.
And to me, it just boggles my mind.
But this is what we need to do: we need to get out and we need to say that this happens in every corner of the world.
It happens.
The rich and powerful are involved all the way down to your average Joe.
We need to start talking about this.
And that's what I'm really excited about: the sound of freedom coming out so that we can highlight the work of Operation Underground Railroad.
And hopefully, we can bring more people to the cause.
I would invite your listeners and viewers in your vast audience to think about what connections do you have to law enforcement.
Maybe you are law enforcement.
Maybe you have connections with prosecutors, politicians.
Check us out.
We provide all of the funding, training, tools, technology.
It doesn't cost you anything.
We don't come in and say, Hey, here's what you need to do.
You tell us what you need to do.
Everywhere from New York to LA to Peoria, Illinois, and everywhere in between, we're just here to help be a force multiplier in the fight against child exploitation and human trafficking.
You know, that goes back to being your own hero and acting locally or getting involved with an organization like yours nationally doing something.
You know, you mentioned Ghelane Maxwell and the fact that she didn't blow the whistle on everybody.
And I would argue that your assessment is correct, not only because of that, but forget about the black book.
You know, I've interviewed Nick Bryant many times now.
He's the one that got the initial black book out there for Gawker.
If you look at the evidence they actually presented in her case, they had a row of binders this long with each binder blacked out.
They had literally in the New York homes stacks of hard drives and burned DVDs that were labeled.
So obviously, we're dealing with, unfortunately, within our intelligence and justice system at the uppermost levels, an injustice system, a cover-up crew.
What are your thoughts on that from being on the inside?
You know, it's just so hard because, again, I love the government and I worked for George W. Bush.
I worked for Barack Obama and those two administrations.
For me, it was not political.
But even early on, I could see that there were things that weren't to be ever see the light of day.
And I will share one story I don't share very often, but when Operation Underground Railroad first started out in 2014, early 2015, you know, there are only about three or four of us.
So I joke that I was the operations, the aftercare, the marketing, the development, the human resources, all the departments wrapped into one.
I also answered our phones every day in our emails.
Jason, I kid you not.
In early 2015, I got an email saying you should check out this guy, Jeffrey Epstein.
I didn't think much of it.
I Googled him.
Okay, financier, who is this guy?
I did ask some of my contacts in Homeland Security, FBI, CIA, hey, what is this guy?
You know, should I look into him?
I kid you not, three days later, I got a call, nothing in writing, a call saying, Matt, I'm going to share this with you because you're my friend and former colleague.
Leave this alone, drop it, don't pursue it.
And of course, me, dumb, I now wish I would.
I'm like, okay, but can you believe that?
Eight years ago, before this stuff's coming out, that now just blows my mind and blew my mind when this all became public.
You know, it definitely does show a pattern, but I want to shift gears because, you know, Epstein's been talked about a lot.
And to me, that is a high-level network, not just of child trafficking, but a slew of other things, some of the underplayed things that I believe Epstein was involved in, not only human trafficking, but obviously some type of eugenics.
His interview with Bannon, he talks about his islands of Dr. Moreau in the very brief instance we've seen that.
You see him with Prince Andrew, who was the UK's arms dealer.
You have connections to Adnon Khashoggi.
That ball of yarn has yet to be unraveled, in my opinion.
But documentary films really are a key to unraveling these things.
And there's a clip of Mike Ballard that has now gone mega super viral via the redacted show talking about a four-part documentary series in which Mel Gibson is involved.
What can you tell us about that?
So, we're still looking at different details of how that's going to be put out, but it's going to be called Hidden War.
And Tim Ballard has really led this fight to talk about how the war we all could see and can see was Putin's invasion of Ukraine and all the things there on either side of that.
We see that was the visible war.
The hidden war is what is being done to children when there's any type of natural or man-made disaster.
So, a natural disaster like the Haiti earthquake in January of 2010 that left tens of thousands, if not more, of children vulnerable to traffickers.
That kind of got Operation Underground Railroad start a few years later when we went looking for a dual-citizen Haitian American.
Now, you have a man-made crisis, a man-made war here with this Putin in Ukraine.
Well, now there are tens of thousands, if not more, of children vulnerable.
So, Operation Underground Railroad, the Nazarene Fund, Area Recovery, three different groups went over to help orphans and people at vulnerability or sorry, vulnerable people in mid-2022.
Well, we ended up finding a trafficking ring trafficking Ukrainians through the Netherlands, trafficking individuals through Mexico and Ecuador.
And that's what this four-part series is: tracing how this all happens.
In the episodes, too, we talk a little bit about what we mentioned earlier: the fudging of the lines between genders, the fact that pedophiles now want to be called minor attracted persons and everywhere in between.
And we're trying to find the right time to put that out.
But again, this idea is documentaries.
Nothing is fake here.
It's everything is actually as it happens.
But we want to educate.
Tracing Transformations 00:02:47
I know this sounds weird, too, but we want to entertain, right?
So you'll see some undercover operations.
You'll see hot going in.
You can still.
Yep, yep, absolutely.
And so this is why we're trying to use this documentary here to bring everything together.
Well, I'm certainly excited for that.
And I, as a documentary filmmaker, understand why you want that entertainment and captivation aspect so it can go viral, so it can reach people, so that people can understand the gravity of this.
Now, on the other side, we're going to bring in somebody that wants to keep their identity a secret, goes by the name Batman, but is heavily involved with the boots on the ground extractions of these children.
He's got a story to tell, started with the cartels back in the day.
And we're going to talk about that on the other side.
It's Making Sense of the Madness.
What should people know about that whole blow up with Project Veritas?
I read a few people wrong, and that's my fault, but I learned from that.
And I think I'll be a more effective messenger as a result of that.
That'll free me up to do the next chapter, the next stage of my evolution, which is OMG, which is decentralizing journalism.
And sometimes things happen for a reason.
That's my goal.
That's my mission.
And I didn't ask for that mission.
I never thought that would be my mission.
It just has become my mission.
And I'm excited about it.
We are back.
It's making sense of the madness.
Sound of freedom is the film.
Rrescue.
O-U-R-Rescue.org is the website where you can find everything about it and more.
We're joined by Matt Osborne, but coming in to bring us another perspective is somebody who's had boots on the ground.
He goes by the name Batman.
Let's bring him on in and briefly describe this transition for laundering money for the cartels into a profound experience in 2005 and then starting to rescue children, sir.
From Cartels to Rescue 00:09:02
Do we have you?
I think you might be muted, sir.
Yeah, I'm breaking in and out.
Gotcha.
But we're hearing you now.
Yes, sir.
Okay.
I missed what you just said.
Sorry, Jason.
I was just going to ask you, how do you go from somebody who's laundering money for the cartels to having this spiritual experience in 2005 to getting involved in rescuing children boots on the ground?
Yeah, that was the transformation.
I was involved in laundering money for drug cartels throughout Latin America for 10 or 12 years.
And yeah, I had an encounter with Christ and changed my life.
I had been one of the main places I was working with the money was Tijuana.
And I literally, God sent me back to Tijuana.
I got connected to an orphanage there and all these little boys and girls.
And I didn't know who they were.
And then over a sequence of about a month, it came out that they were the sons and daughters of the women that work in the red light zone.
Tijuana's red zone is maybe 100 yards and there are 10,000 women that work there.
And those little kids, specifically the girls, the girls who were much more open, started sharing their stories about being raped, about being sold.
And, you know, I was just overwhelmed.
And that's what lit the fire.
So when you talk about laundering money for a cartel, what does that entail exactly?
Well, things have changed.
Back in the day, they had massive amounts of cash that were in the U.S.
And with their goal, you didn't have a $10,000 banking law.
So what they would do is they'd want that cash moved into U.S. banking.
And the way we would do it is use different DBAs, corporations, S-Corps, LLCs.
And the whole goal there is to get their money into a bank account.
You can't walk into, well, you can't, definitely can't anymore.
You can't walk into a Ferrari dealership and pay a million dollars in cash.
The money into accounts, legal, clean bank accounts, so that they can transact.
I see.
So my question for you, Matt, is did you ever see an overlap with this type of behavior in the cartel and human and trafficking arena?
Because obviously the cartels have to be at the forefront of this, Matt.
So it was an interesting dynamic that I saw, at least in Mexico City.
So I resigned from the government in Mexico City to join Operation Underground Railroad.
And before I joined, excuse me, before I joined OUR, I was a little bit nervous.
And so I talked to Tim Ballard.
I talked to a few other people in the DEA and other free letter agencies.
Am I going to be getting myself in over my head?
They said it was really interesting.
The cartels themselves, at least the ones they were seeing in Mexico, weren't trafficking the really young kids.
They were trafficking adults.
They were trafficking girls 18 and over, which is terrible, but they didn't mess a lot with the kids.
However, they're very much intertwined in this business of human trafficking.
Then later on, this is about 2014.
And then subsequent years, we did see more of the cartels getting involved in the trafficking.
We've now started going up against some of the cartels in Mexico and elsewhere.
But by and large, Operation Underground Railroad still goes for some of the less sophisticated trafficking organizations in different places catering to Americans and Westerners.
But what's incredible about Batman, I'm so grateful for him and the opportunity to have worked with him over the past few years, is he would go into the deepest of the darkness, into the belly of the beast here to confront these cartels and ultimately rescue the children.
Well, perhaps we can get into that right now, Batman.
Tell us that an initial rescue that you were involved in and some of the subsequent ones that have really opened your eyes to how tragic and vast this thing is.
Yeah, you got to understand that the cartels have protocols, just like everybody else.
So when I got in, it was 2005.
And to talk specific about Tijuana, back then that was CAF, Arliano Felix cartel.
And they were not involved in traffic that time, but they controlled the plaza.
So you had all these different segmented, mostly coming out of the Pueblo area that were moving children across the border to get there, to get across the border.
They had to come through Tijuana.
So what they do, it's called Cobre de Piso.
So they pay a fee to pass the girls through Tijuana to the cartel.
And that was pretty much how the cartels rolled back in the day when there was still, it's hard to say it, but I mean, they actually, there were some morals when it came to women and children.
You didn't really have to worry about the police engaging if you had a pedophile because the cartels would kill you.
If you were having sex with a child, it wasn't going to be the police that showed up.
It would be the cartel.
And they would kill you.
So when I first made my turn and I got the call to do the first rescues, I had recruited some of the, they're called sacarios, which means hitmen.
I had recruited a group of cartel hitmen.
And basically we operated the same way that we did everything else.
I mean, we stolen police cars, go in dressed up as Mexican federales, and we would literally have to kick the door down.
Now, you're talking 2005.
The world, law enforcement has come a long way since then.
But back then, the police were the cartel.
And so there was nobody, there was nobody in Mexico working these cases.
They didn't pass trafficking laws.
I was actually part of that team that got that written and implemented.
That happened in like 2013, 2014.
Prior to that, there was no law against human trafficking, child trafficking in Mexico.
So that's how it started.
Well, how have things shifted?
Because, you know, you mentioned that time period.
And one of my favorite documentaries out there is Cartel Land.
And that really illustrates this story of how somebody who was being oppressed by the cartel, you know, gains this movement.
They go after the cartel.
And then at the end of the day, they kind of integrate with the cartel and law enforcement.
Is that just how it works down in South America?
Yeah.
Talking about, we're in a new world now.
This open border has the cartels are so flush with cash right now.
And, you know, it's not all human trafficking.
It's much more human smuggling.
No one is crossing that border without paying at least $10,000.
Nobody.
So you've got kids coming across into Texas, Arizona, and smaller amounts in California.
Those children are then placed either in CPS custody or in a shelter.
Now, anybody can come in and take custody.
It's almost like a lottery.
At one point a year and a half ago before we moved back to the States, I contacted Texas DPS and I said, listen, we're going to open a safe house for these kids in the U.S. What do we need to do?
And the woman on the phone did not know me, did not know my organization, did not have any idea who I was.
She said, how many can you take immediately?
And that was a bit of a shock for me.
As far as the system, through, I got connected to Tim through working with, started out with CIA, started in DEA and a couple other people out of the consulate in Sawana before I got kicked up to Tim.
And as Matt stated, he was one of three guys in all of DHS at that time that had the ability to work overseas on sex tourism, sexual exploitation cases.
So a lot of what the U.S. government and I would say proxied by the U.S. government, other governments have now taken this thing more seriously.
When OUR, when I went in under OUR or went in through another channel, we are signed up as special agents in country.
We're not informants.
We are literally signed up by the Attorney General of whatever country we're going into as federal agents under the country.
So having that cooperation and having law enforcement available has changed the game big time.
Well, it's certainly encouraging that this is getting done.
Sound of Freedom Rescue Efforts 00:02:37
However, for every person that you rescue, you have to wonder how many of these people are not rescued.
You watch that trailer and I think you guys drive the point home twice.
How many pedophiles have you caught?
How many children have you rescued?
And that is a great question.
Have you been able to see the film yet, Batman?
I have not.
I've seen some of the trailers.
I had the privilege of being on set during filming for, I guess I was in Cartagena for a few days of that.
But yeah, my family and I are excited to see it.
Excellent.
On the flip side of this last break, we're going to talk about that experience on set.
We're going to get everybody involved in rrescue.org.
That's ourrescue.org to make sure that you get out there July 4th and see Sound of Freedom.
This is Making Sense of the Madness.
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Final segment of Making Sense of the Madness.
We are joined by Operation Underground Railroad.
That's OURrescue.org.
We're talking about Sound of Freedom, the new Jim Caviesel picture that shines the light on the very, very dark trade of human and child trafficking.
I guess I'll ask you the same question, Matt.
Have you seen the film?
And if you have, it seems like you have because you've talked about it quite a bit.
Surprise in Sound of Freedom 00:08:03
What's going to surprise people about this movie?
So I have had a chance to see it a few times in editing, and they've really gotten it tight.
It's, again, a very entertaining film, but it's also educational.
It's powerful.
I think what will surprise most viewers is, again, that this is pervasive.
This is everywhere, that how the ease it is to move children in different places.
But I think it also is going to restore faith in parts of the government.
I know we can criticize the government, you know, as a day is long, but Homeland Security Investigations really is doing an amazing job in fighting child exploitation and human trafficking.
And you'll see in the movie that Tim's boss was also hamstrung and saying, Tim, you know, we can't go off rescuing Honduran kids in Colombia is in the trailer.
But in the end, you'll see, and not a spoiler alert, but Homeland Security did do as much as they can to support.
And that was real life.
And that Operation Triple Take, as I mentioned, that both Batman and I had the chance to lead with Tim, Homeland Security did help.
They helped from behind.
They helped in a few different places.
And I think it's going to be a great movie.
And again, not just because Batman is on with us now.
I'm going to tell you that the character who plays him, Bill Camp, I think he should be up for an Academy Award.
He should be up for best supporting actor, the Van Piero character.
When the viewers listen to that monologue, that is Batman's monologue.
Batman said those things in previous documentaries.
It is powerful.
It shows that God is aware of every single child, every single one of us around there.
And groups like Operation Underground Railroad are trying to do all we can to bring light and liberty to the captive.
Batman, you talked about being on the set of the film.
Tell us what that experience was like.
Yeah, it was awesome.
I mean, meeting Jim and pretty much I spent the day sitting around smoking cigars with Bill Camp, which was that was a blessing.
I guess the thing for me, you know, I've been in, I've been involved in movies in the past, but we were there for, I think, 12 hours, and they were just filming that scene.
I think that made the final cut of the movie where the boat, where the police roll up on the, on shore, and then they go in for the takedown.
That scene, just that, I guess it's maybe 10 seconds in the movie.
I watched 12 hours of filming that.
So for me, a little bit of a shock to see how long.
And then I was actually, I was talking to Caviesel and I said, hey, so how much of this is going to be in the movie?
He's like, oh, maybe a few seconds.
And I thought, good Lord.
It really does shine the light on how much work it is to put something of that caliber together.
And, you know, I talked to Matt about this earlier, but how is it for you, again, somebody boots on the ground with this organization to see it grow over the past decade to have an actual production studio like Angel out there that's not only putting out this film, but so many other pieces of important, I would say, family-centric material that is just very, very hard to find these days, Batman?
Yeah, I mean, we're inundated through all media of such garbage.
And they've literally, they're trashing, they're trashing people's minds and more so the children.
So to have, you know, a faith-based organization and then to have a faith-based production and media company to join forces, I think it's going to be awesome.
I mean, The Chosen is one of the best shows I think ever created.
And I think just bringing awareness to this in faith is vital to the war.
Well, he suggested the chosen.
Matt, what would you suggest?
You know, we talked about the upcoming documentary film.
Obviously, we want people to be involved July 4th for this film.
But what other shows or entertainment pieces have you put together at Angel that you can talk about?
Yeah, I'm excited.
So after the two-week running, essentially like you said, Jason, July 3rd, July 4th, running for about 10 days.
So again, viewers, your viewers can get tickets any and all of those days.
Please check out online, ourrescue.org, to find out where the studios are, where the movie will be showing.
Then in the coming weeks and months, Angel Studios will be putting out about four or five of our documentaries.
Operation Triple Take, which is the true story of Sound of Freedom.
You'll see Tim leading the Cartagena.
Batman, you'll actually see him on camera.
His face will be blurred, but you'll see him going undercover in Medellin.
I'll be leading in Armenia.
Then we have something I mentioned earlier called It's Happening Right Here.
How does it look in the U.S. with online exploitation, grooming?
How can parents keep their kids safe?
Then there's a movie, Operation Two Saint and the Abolitionist about the origins of Operation Underground Railroad.
And then I'll put in a plug for one of the most the scariest rescues I've ever been on, the time I honestly, no hyperbole, thought I was going to die or wind up in a Haitian jail, which maybe would be one in the same, right?
And it's called Sage's Prayer.
And it's a true story of how we were able to rescue 10 Venezuelan women in a brothel in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, get them to the United States, and then reunited with family.
Angel Studios is going to be showing all of those documentaries as a way of raising awareness about this issue of human trafficking.
You know, for the audience out there that's watching this and says, hey, I want to get involved, but I'm not sure how.
In these last few minutes, Batman, Matt, tell us how they can be involved, how they can get effective, how they can get active in their communities first.
Batman?
Well, I mean, right now on the U.S. side of this, the biggest chain is prosecution.
So most of your prosecutors or district attorneys are elected officials.
I think people should be very focused on what's happening in their local communities and specifically in that position.
A lot of the law enforcement right now is reluctant to work these cases because even if they do a good case, get a good perp racked up, the prosecutors are just pleaing everything out.
So like you said, I mean, you've got these guys raping children, which you don't have sex with a child.
You rape them.
And then having them walk is, you know, that's creating a lot of problems in terms of getting law enforcement to do their job.
I absolutely agree, Matt?
We always say you will know before we do what you can do to help.
And so go to ourrescue.org.
There's a little tab that says join the fight.
Perhaps you can donate.
Obviously, that's great.
Perhaps you can make some connections, as I said earlier, with law enforcement.
Maybe you can just send up prayers for the safety and success of our operators.
If that's not your cup of tea, just send out, you know, well wishes, good thoughts.
Maybe you can post on social media about this issue that I mentioned earlier.
Hey, everyone, this is trafficking, not prostitution.
These are victims, not volunteers.
Any and all, what you see on the screen now, you can start your own fundraiser.
Again, everything from bake sales to big gale events, it all makes a difference.
We are empowering law enforcement like never before.
We're operational in some 40 countries.
We've provided behind the scenes support in all 50 U.S. states, but the need is great.
And because of platforms like yours, Jason, now we think more and more people are going to see the sound of freedom.
Then there will be demand for Operation Underground Railroad, working with people like Batman and others to be everywhere at once.
For that, we need resources.
We need funding.
We need assistance.
Well, it has been a pleasure, gentlemen.
Thank you so much for everything you guys are doing at Operation Underground Railroad.
We will get people over to rrescue.org and to the film Sound of Freedom and the many other projects that are coming out of this because, folks, this is an important issue.
This goes beyond left or right.
This is about our children.
This is about humanity.
And it's time to fight for that humanity and make sense of the madness.
We'll be back tomorrow.
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