Although January is National Human Trafficking Prevention Month, the FBI takes a collaborative, victim-centered approach to its trafficking cases every day of the year.

“Human Trafficking is a crime that hides in plain sight and it involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act,” said Special Agent in Charge Douglas M. Korneski of the FBI Memphis Field Office. “The FBI works closely with local, state, and federal law enforcement partners, as well as non-government agencies and non-profits on the front lines to combat human trafficking.”

Human trafficking victims can be imprisoned through force, fraud, physical or psychological coercion. Warning indicators of human trafficking include:

• Victims work in the same place they live;
• Poor living conditions;
• They let someone else speak for them;
• They are not in possession of their own travel or immigration documents;
• There are locks on the outside of doors where they live;
• They are constantly watched and guarded by someone;
• They pay their boss for food, clothing, and rent;
• They are lied to about the work they are to perform;
• Victims are subjected to debt bondage in which traffickers demand labor to repay debt.

Victims of human trafficking are encouraged to call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center Hotline at 1-888-373-7888.

If you wish to report an incident of human trafficking or suspected human trafficking, FBI Memphis is available 24 hours a day at 901-747-4300 or submit an anonymous tip at tips.fbi.gov.