Thomas G. Martin represented the US DOJ in 50 foreign countries and the USA. After retiring he founded Martin Investigative Services and now employs 22 former federal agents.
In this episode he discusses Human Sex Trafficking and he calls it the biggest crisis we face in our country. Bigger than drugs, the opioid epidemic, mass shootings, etc. It didn’t take him long to convince Chris and Craig.
Tune in to see Sex Trafficking Through a Therapist’s Eyes!
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Listen to Episode #83 – Sex Trafficking with Thomas Martin
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Episode #83 Transcription
Craig Graves: [00:00:00] All right, we are going, Chris.
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:06] I heard race cars in the background. What was that? A new, a new, a new skit. He got,
Craig Graves: [00:00:10] well, we’re at home. I’ve got my back door open so I can enjoy some chirping of the birds and fill the, fill the cool air coming in. But every now and then a motorcycle goes by.
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:19] That was one, one heck of an engine, man. That’s a good intro.
Craig Graves: [00:00:22] Okay. You may have to close the door before it’s over with.
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:24] Okay. All right, man. Welcome to another edition of the best podcast ever through a therapist eyes. I’ve never started out that way. That’s a little arrogant. Isn’t it? Anyway, you are Craig graves. I am Chris Gazdak and we invite you to see the world through the lens of a real mental health and substance abuse therapist.
Try and create emotional growth through the medium of the podcast. Being aware. This is not the delivery of therapy services in any way throughatherapisteyes.com is the sites where you can get all kinds of cool stuff. Craig, I’m even blowing around in my head doing a blog, man. I don’t know. Do you think, do you think my writing skills can, can show up there?
Craig Graves: [00:00:59] You need to do that. I’ve encouraged you to do that since we started this gig and, yeah, I mean, I’ve, I’ve written some articles and I’m trying to get back into that. I recently published one on LinkedIn. I think I shared that with you. I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to read it, but yeah, you should start a blog.
Chris Gazdik: [00:01:13] Hey, you know what? I’ll make it, I’ll make an on air deal with you. You, you, you do one, I’ll do three. How about that?
Thomas Martin: [00:01:18] Well, you owe me three then.
Chris Gazdik: [00:01:23] All right. Maybe, maybe one for two. We’ll put it that way. This is the human emotional experience. We’re going to try to figure this thing out together throughatherapistseyes has got a book coming out at some point. Keep on, keep on point for that. Matter of fact, you got a cool meeting with Morgan James folks.
Monday next that’s kind of super exciting. I’m excited about that. And you’re mr. Coach now, aren’t you.
Craig Graves: [00:01:44] I am indeed.
Chris Gazdik: [00:01:45] Yes. Yes. Contact you through where?
Craig Graves: [00:01:48] right now I’m, I’m working on my website. you can find me on LinkedIn, J Craig graves. I’m also, listed as one of the coaches on unbeatable mind.com.
So you can find me there.
Chris Gazdik: [00:02:00] So I’m going to switch this up and instead of doing a fun fact, I’m going to do a quick current event. Do you know there was a pandemic going on?
Thomas Martin: [00:02:06] I heard something about that.
Chris Gazdik: [00:02:08] Yeah, man, I just caught up with that. We were just talking about it. We were talking about that. Alaska shows everybody who is not living under a complete rock, understands that, is going on.
I, I have observations that I want to make. real quick, just kind of for the listening audience to hear, you know, an opinion, interestingly enough, you know, part of what I’ve done, Craig over the many years is trying to, to getting that in the foot steps of people that are dealing with this. And I’ll tell you what I want to let all of the listening audience know, like, you know, we are all exhausted.
We are all super anxious. We are all losing our minds and it’s, it’s really stressing people out. I see them all over the place. It almost to a man and a woman, people are talking about it. Listen, we are washing our hands. We are aware of what we’re touching. We’re trying not to touch our face. We’re trying to get this information, trying to research this stuff.
Do we know what’s going on? Do you know what everybody is? Kind of experiencing Craig, just to nip it. Just a little touch of O C D. OCD. It’s, it’s, that’s kinda a little bit of what people experience. I mean, I listen to people’s problems all day long. I’m friends. Tell me all the time, like, Oh man, how do you do this?
How do you, how do you get into this? And I’m like, I don’t know. I just do. It’s not my emotion. So it doesn’t really wear me out. But let me tell you something. I’m licking the floor a little bit when I’m leaving my office nowadays, because I have my own emotion. That’s kind of wrapped up into this thing.
And a couple of weeks ago it dawned on me. I’m like, okay, Man. Wait a minute. Listen, can you imagine experiencing that all the time? Like that never ends. That’s what people are experiencing with that type of anxiety level, like incessantly.
That’s an interesting way to look at it. Yeah. I never thought about that.
That’s the current event that we’re kind of running with. So I want to throw that out there real quick. Let’s let’s get to it. Cause we’ve got an awesome guest, Craig. I can’t wait till we get back to the microphones. We’re doing the zoom thing again, I missed, I missed social distancing. Like I just said, it’s driving me crazy.
So we have a mr. Tom Martin that is with us from his website, mr. Martin. I see that, you have been a supervisory federal agent. he has represented the us department of justice over 15, over over 50 foreign countries. And throughout the United States received numerous domestic and foreign awards during service, including two U S department of justice.
special achievement awards, been involved in many high profile cases with natural exposure, including many unsolved crimes and cold cases after retiring as a federal agent, Mr. Martin formed investigative services, inc. in Newport beach, California. We just met with somebody from California recently.
Mrs. Estelle. Hi, Estelle hope, you still listening. She’s a friend of the show. Now he, you ever see these 22 male and female PI private investigators who are. Also formal federal agents and the DEA FBI, or as the secret service, I think I was talking to him. He said all those three letter guys, mr. Martin, welcome to throughatherapisteyes.
How did I do
Thomas Martin: [00:05:09] You did great. It’s great to be with you guys. I’m looking forward to it.
Chris Gazdik: [00:05:13] So what would you say in so far as who is mr. Tom Martin? Where did he come from? What did I miss about your experience? It just. Seems crazy involved. I mean, I got to tell you it’s so awesome. Have you
Thomas Martin: [00:05:26] on, well, thanks again, Chris.
I started out from college. I took a little bit different route. I studied to be a priest for four years in the seminary in California. went to, New Jersey where my cousin was a priest and, I thought the worst place to decide if you would want to be a priest, might be the seminar. And then, very naively and those days, I didn’t know too much about drugs, but in New Jersey, I got it to the drug scene, through counseling and being with some of the, kids in the parish.
I ended up in. Harlem teaching there for awhile Patterson high school. And I decided at that time, maybe my life’s mission might be better if I decided to go into law enforcement, applied to a few agencies, got accepted to the Bureau of narcotics, which you guys would know. And your listeners would know is the DEA now is drug enforcement administration.
spent 12 years there worked under cover, traveled the world, got hurt in 81 and started Martin investigative services. And, We’re an overnight success after 40 years. Awesome.
Chris Gazdik: [00:06:26] Wow. Yeah. And thank you for your services and understatement. I mean, you, you have spent a career, you know, working for us in a lot of different ways in the general public, pretty impressive man.
Really pretty impressive.
Thomas Martin: [00:06:38] Thank you. Has been pretty lucky guy.
Chris Gazdik: [00:06:40] Yeah. So 2018, I thought it was funny, man. We got a, we got a little common thought process. This is throughatherapistseyes to a certain extent as a platform on building. And I see the 2008 teen was, I guess your last book, seeing life through private eyes, mr.
Thomas G. Martin. Pretty pretty cool title. I might say,
Thomas Martin: [00:06:58] I wish I could take credit for it. One of my guys was sitting in the office one day and he was doodling and he actually came up with a title. We’ve been had study groups trying to do it and the secrets from a PI and all this nonsense. And then he just calmly one day said how about seeing life through private eyes?
Yeah. Wow. Cause that’s kind of a duel. Process it yet. And so yeah, the editors and the publishers, they loved it. Of course I took full credit for it. I didn’t give him any credit. No,
Chris Gazdik: [00:07:27] I think these guys are getting ready to change my title to my book too. They just make it work. Doesn’t it.
Thomas Martin: [00:07:33] I just think it lets somebody else pick the title.
I think let somebody else pick the title.
Chris Gazdik: [00:07:38] I have no problem with that either, but I’ll tell you, the chapter that stuck out at me was chapter six and that is entitled greed. Love of money is the root of all evil. And, I know you’re not wanting to do a bunch of promotion and stuff, but you know, you just kind of Google your name and all kinds of stuff will come up.
And, and, and, and so our listening audience understands what some show notes that they, you give out a bunch of free stuff to really help people in some really neat ways. We’ll probably get to that maybe in the part two more so, but the greed love of money. It is the root of all evil to me is a big factor of what it is that we’re going to be talking I’m talking about today.
And I think that, you know, supersedes through, I mean, like you said, I said, I mean the root of all evil, the, a major part of human behavior. How do you see that?
Thomas Martin: [00:08:27] What was always struck? I mean, I, I came from a family where my dad was a milkman and my mom was a waitress, so we never went hungry. But, the thought of having money, it was nothing that my mind or my brother’s mine or my sisters.
Then when I got a little fortunate, thanks some clients after the business in 81. one of the most unusual things I have about 10 clients that are billionaires with a B, and I’ve always told people I’ve never met a happy one. And it’s, it’s just unbelievable to me that they would have all this money, all these resources, all this advantage, and they’re just miserable.
I’m not sure. Chris, its because you know, the bar is set so high that they can never be happy. They can never, if they can, you know, set a goal and get there, I’m not sure. and then money is affects all our, our case. Do whether it’s divorced, whether we’re getting into churn names, whatever we do is private investigator is around the country.
Presenters on money. yeah. How somebody from another person. Vantage. So it’s totally the root in our cases of evil.
Chris Gazdik: [00:09:41] Right, right. Yeah. So, you know, this part one part two, we’re going to kind of go on a myriad of topics. Let me, let me set up this, this topic that we’re going on today and, and Craig, I, I noticed a little choppiness on our audio.
You hear in that?
Craig Graves: [00:09:55] Or is that yeah, a little bit, yeah. Was a little bit there.
Chris Gazdik: [00:09:59] Okay. So it’s just a little bit of a zoom lag.
Craig Graves: [00:10:01] Yeah, I think that’s what’s going on.
Chris Gazdik: [00:10:03] All right. Listen to audience. We’ll get back to the mics at some point I promise, but, I got your attention. You got, you caught the attention in my eyes, honestly, because, this is a topic of human trafficking.
And let me, let me go ahead and put a disclaimer to our people. If you got kiddos in the car on this one, it’d be time to probably turn it off. Cause we’re going to be talking about human trafficking, sex trafficking specifically. And, I don’t know exactly where we’re going, because I don’t know a lot about this topic.
and, but it is, it is a, it is a topic I’ve wanted to cover for quite a while. mr. Should I call you Ms.
Thomas Martin: [00:10:41] Martin or Tom? Tom,
Chris Gazdik: [00:10:43] Tom. Okay. You know, Tom, because I have not found anybody that can really speak to it, this topic. And, and I think like, as we were speaking about it before the. The show a couple of days ago and stuff, you know, it’s something that people don’t talk about.
It’s, it’s absolute topic. That’s like a taboo reality is prevalent in our, in our communities. So probably this show is not appropriate for little kiddos as my disclaimer. So let’s make sure that we protect our, our young folks and, and, and people, but, we need to talk about human trafficking and we need to understand what’s going on about it.
We need to understand the ins and outs. And I’m going to be real honest with the audience. I’m going to be learning on this one big time. Cause I’ve seen it in my office and it’s a hard thing to really even tap into with trauma histories, because I find that people don’t want to talk about it in, in, in treatment.
Now what I have kind of gleaned in sort of anecdotal and information and things that people have, is that okay? This is a topic that kind of mostly runs around our youth who become disenchanted, having anxiety, depression issues, maybe add struggling in school. Difficult pair family lives and they run away.
Now I’ve worked a lot with runaway issues. I’ve worked a lot with children and, and disorderly conduct and criminal behavior and this type of thing, even street gangs. I I’ve seen a lot of different things come through my practice. And I think what happens is these kids leave their home and have a quote unquote rescuer where otherwise we might call them a pimp.
And they help them, particularly girls, but this is a boy thing too, I think. and, and they help them. They give that they set them up places to stay food, three hots and a cot, hotels, race, places, houses, whatever. And, and that the network of using these children and these young adults, 20, 22 years old, and whatever is amazing because they will.
Use social media set up a site when an event’s coming into our fine city of Charlotte and all of these people that are coming in for say big sporting event or the Republican convention is coming up in town and they will have a whole network. There moved from whatever city up to here and service quote, unquote, horrible way to say it.
The public with prostitution and sex activities and this type of thing. That’s about what I have gleaned. I’m going to lean a lot on you, Tom, to, to, to help us figure out how does this thing work, w as I’ve laid out, what my understanding is, how does that fit with reality from your, your experience?
Very curious to know. Well,
Thomas Martin: [00:13:41] I thought it was a great summary. if you define human trafficking, as, you know, some type of use of force to get one person to do something they may not want to do, be it, you know, something in the workforce or sex. then I think that, we can move forward with the discussion.
I first saw human trafficking 50 years ago when I was a federal agent, when the median cartel or the Mexican mafia would have, young children, females, actually bring dope across the border, in their cavities, either in their stomach, rectum in their vagina, whatever. And the trauma on that. Can you imagine if you have.
A condom say of a cocaine that you’ve swallowed. Sometimes they swallow 10 or 15 of them and that person isn’t an airplane or they cross the border and then they have to wait to do, you know, the, the substance is going to come out of them and then they go back and they do that repeatedly and repeatedly.
So that was in the seventies. It was very prevalent. That’s how a lot of dope got into the country now with the building of the. The, Trump’s wall. what we are seeing to fast forward in 2020 is the use of the bad guy, so to speak and. Transporting that dope either through the Gulf or through the ocean.
And they’re still using people to do that. and yeah, I think that human trafficking, I don’t want to overstate it. I have a hard time wrapping my head around it. I believe it’s probably the number one problem. In the United States today. I don’t know if it’s the, the number one problem, even more maybe than drug abuse.
and because
Chris Gazdik: [00:15:29] just pause there for a second and then go to the, because I just want to point out I kind of pride myself in being, you know, at this point in my career, pretty experienced. I’ve been doing it for 20, 25 years. And you saying that scares me in my brain because I just admitted, I don’t even know a lot about this.
Thomas Martin: [00:15:50] Well, and I don’t make the statement lightly because there’s one thing, I do know a lot about and that’s drug abuse and the effects in the country and how many people are dying and you know, all the stats. I don’t need to go into that. I have a hard time wrapping my brain around if I think it’s number one, or let’s say the number two or three problem in the country.
Why isn’t anybody talking about okay. And here here’s the difference. And if you take a person. From a street point of view, I’m coming from the street. and, and, you know, live my whole life the last 50 years or so on the street. If you take a person that is using fentanyl or cocaine or heroin, they’re doing that themselves, they’re putting that drug into their body.
And at some point in time, they may say, I’m going to go to a guy like you, and it gets some treatment or. Nope. And you’re going to get them into rehab and all that other stuff. You forgot more about that stuff than I know. But when you take a person and all of a sudden they’re 13 years old and they’re they’re enlist, or they’ve poverty, or they’re shy or they’re awkward and they get this.
Predator to the Charlotte where they’re going to have sex with an unknown person and that how not one. Sometimes three or four I’m in multiple times during a week for a year or a year and a half until that person is just basically worn out spiritually, physically, mentally, academically, and professionally.
Right. So when you think about, I know you’re talented at what you do do, but if you drug abuser versus so somebody who’s been in human trafficking, my guess is human trafficking person is going to test your metal pretty well.
Chris Gazdik: [00:17:34] I think you’re right. I think you’re right, because the, you know, we did a, a show.
I think I told you about it. And we were talking on a, you know, compound trauma versus simple trauma and the idea for the listening audience, go back to whatever. Craig. What does that episode four or something? Pull, pull that up and check that out so we can tell them I didn’t do my research on that, but a man alive.
I I’ll tell ya. You know, you have a horrible one time event. I mean, I don’t care if you’re abducted kept in a pit full of bugs and you know, a week later, a month later you’re found and you’re retrieved and brought back to your family and all sorts of things happen during that time. That’s, that’s kind of one event that is from beginning to end.
And that’s, that’s actually fairly easy to deal with in our, in our, in our trauma treatment. But when you have compound trauma where it’s, it’s an event, It has an end and other week later another event, it has an end. And another way, are you talking about events after events, after events on such an intense level?
Yeah, you’re totally right, Tom. I mean, it, it, it absolutely tests the ability to heal and recover.
Thomas Martin: [00:18:46] Try it in our office. So how we get these cases, very rare. A private investigator will get a phone, email, text and say, you have a child that is 12, 13, 14, 15. And they’re in human trafficking. Honest with you.
I don’t think I’ve ever got that call, but just, we get. 50 to a hundred calls a month regarding locating a person, getting a runaway. I haven’t been to with my son or daughter, all the different ramifications. We all still be pretty easy. We have our house computer system. we, we, we, we can find people and, but when they’re eight thunder, they’re not in any system.
Okay. Most you gotta be street smart, get off the street and in them. And then in the early eighties, I mean, this is like almost 40 years ago. Find in some kids down in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, in New York city. And plus anywhere you want to pick that were actually taken in the, in the great summary that you gave a why they’re doing this, they’re doing it because somebody befriend.
And now we have this problem where they’re into sexual activity on a daily basis. And it was, it was pretty surprising to me and you fast forward the videotape last 40 years. I’m just surprised. In fact, I was shocked. I saw her as an actress. Just mentioned yesterday in a press conference, human trafficking almost fell off the chair because nobody
Chris Gazdik: [00:20:19] you cut out there.
Pretty good. president Trump mentioned it. Human trafficking.
Thomas Martin: [00:20:23] Yes, I was. Yes. He was, giving, the COVID-19 press conference and he mentioned human trafficking. And I was, I mean, I tried to play it back. I was shocked because it’s. Nobody talks about. And, you know, from my chair, just from a simple guy, who’s got a small private investigator business and we do lots of cases.
I think it’s as big a problem. And maybe I could make the case in front of a judge or a jury that it’s, it’s the bigger problem than drugs. I asked to the department of state, I’ve asked the department of justice where I have some tax people. Do you estimate, you know, don’t get me up, you know, pie in the sky, but give me some evidence.
I think the number of kids between say 10 and 18 that are involved in human trafficking and you know what the number is. Hmm. 2 million.
Chris Gazdik: [00:21:13] Wow.
Thomas Martin: [00:21:14] Now just let that sink in a little bit. Yeah. Two millions around the country. And I think it’s a, I think it’s a small number. We’ve seen that steady to go up on our locates and we’re pretty good and can find almost anybody.
But the amount of kids that we’re finding, just as recently, I think I might’ve shared with you on the pre show. We just found a kid who was no problem in the Hawaiian islands. He ran away from home and he was gone for six months and he was being marketed and sold to people coming from Asia into the Hawaiian islands in our homosexual fashion.
Hm. And, and you talk about, I mean, when you find somebody like that and rescue them from that situation, I mean, it’s, it’s mind boggling. Is it across, I mean, I, I I’ve had the privilege of teaching interview and interrogation and I think I can probably size up people fairly well and no one who’s lying and all this stuff.
I don’t know what to tell her. I don’t know what to say to some of them. Yeah. It’s just, it’s just like, I’ve never been in this position and they’re, they’re just like talking to you in a total oblivion and that’s the word? Sorry. Bird, I use a lot because I think the country’s oblivious to this problem.
Chris Gazdik: [00:22:29] And just, just to highlight that, and I I’ll foreshadow it to you, one of the things on the, you know, the skip around on F on pro on part two that we’re going to do is your interactions with Charles Manson. Okay. So, so really just because it’s something that I think people would be interested in, but th th th to, to highlight that for our listening audience, when.
You know guys, when, when, when mr. Martin here is saying he can interview people, he can deal with people. He can profile people. He’s had experiences literally culturally around the world. I just want to want to say that now, because in my clinical brain that just ups the ante in intensity level, so much more sort of knowing your experience base and the power of what you just said.
Thomas Martin: [00:23:17] I would put it back on somebody of your caliber and your qualifications. I would, I would say teach me because I’m not smart enough to figure out what, what to say to these kids. We try to get them into therapists like this kid that we just had an in the, we got him into a therapist on a wahoo there. The therapist didn’t have a clue.
I mean, I think the kid came out worse than when he went in. So, I mean, we just don’t find the kids and say, okay. And then throw them to the wolves and say, okay, good luck and goodbye. So, I mean, it’s, it’s yeah. I mean, if they’re on drugs too, then you’ve got to get them, get them. Yeah, sure.
Chris Gazdik: [00:23:55] Yeah. Yeah. And there’s a, there’s a lot there, which were probably, I don’t know how much we’re going to be able to cover, but, but having, you know, learning what the realities are on the ground from you today, I’m going to be, like I told you earlier, I’m pulling this in my brain and kind of pushing it out to, to, you know, people that I’ve had, you know, pretty significant traumas and, and, and exactly.
I can see a list and back to this one and doing another show on, on that, because there are things that you do. I mean, and, and, and, and honestly, the first thing that pushes in my brain is, is really just, you know, sitting with that person and letting them know, like, you’re not a crazy gross person. You’re a real person and I accepted you and let’s go, let’s go get this.
Figure it out together so that they’re not alone because if I’m putting myself in the shoes of somebody who’s been homosexually farmed out for the last year or two or three, I mean, they have got to feel like there’s nothing more than an animal and not even human. And they need to know that. No, like I accept you.
It’s okay. We can deal with this.
Thomas Martin: [00:24:54] Well, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head and that’d be counseled to somebody, your fellow, a therapist, if they could do that, because I’ve asked them and I wasn’t trying to be critical, but it’s more than one therapist. When you were going to school, did they teach you how to deal with people that are in human trafficking and the answer’s a hundred percent across the board?
No, sir. No, sir. And it’s amazing to me, if I, if it’s, let’s just say it’s in the top five problems in this country, you would think somebody would be doing something about it. And you’d think that somebody would say, okay, this is. We’ve got, I think you’re a something and hopefully you’ll, you’ll bring it to more light.
Chris Gazdik: [00:25:33] Okay. So let’s, so let’s back up a little bit. What are we talking about? Human trafficking. I looked it up and had a, a basic idea of, of what trafficking is defined. And you, you said it earlier here, it’s the recruitment. Transportation transfer harboring or receipt of persons under threat force coercion, fraud, deception, or abuse of power are sexually exploited for the financial goal of another.
So let me say that, right. We’re talking about children oftentimes like literally. People under 18 children. And, and this is young adults. I mean, you see people missing persons all the time, you know, like, you know, we just had one. Craig, do you remember that story? that was, The 25 year old woman was abducted and gone for a while.
I remember that in Charlotte a couple years ago.
Craig Graves: [00:26:18] I don’t remember that, no…
Chris Gazdik: [00:26:20] yeah, it was, it was big around here just from you and from the local college. they, they were, they were just gone and, and I, I, her to think that this happened, but it’s recruitment, transportation transfer. Harboring or receipt of a person under threat of violence, forced coercion, fraud, deception, or abuse of power, that are sexually exploited for the financial gain of another person.
That’s what we’re talking about when we talk about human sex trafficing, I think you explained now this usually starts Tom, when you find networks or people. During sex trafficking, essentially as a missing persons case. And then you stumbled upon finding the person or the network and whatnot. Can, can you kinda middle of, down to brass tacks of like, how does this really look?
How do you really see it? What does it really look like? Because it’s so mysteriously, You know, disguised as something else. I think a lot of times
Thomas Martin: [00:27:18] I think the simplest one is to think about a Monetary goal and he’s not going to chump change. He’d consider his money and we have Seen. If there’s something typical would be this predator finds a 13 or 14 girl.
And one of the common ways is he takes her to a club. And she dances and, and after she gets done dancing, the money she collects, she gives to the predator. Then the day she may be taken to one of the predators clients where she is forced to have sex. And these. I have a hard time saying, well, are these the additional predators that are performing in sex with these young people?
we’ll pay anywhere from a thousand to 5,000 dollars. So we’re talking serious money. So you’ve taken a kid. Homeless, maybe some psychological problems, maybe even some mental illness. And she just ended a sexual activity, where the gentlemen can making the predator. can be making anywhere from 15 to $20,000 a week.
And he doesn’t just have one. He has multiple girls. We didn’t really see the homosexual activity coming in until around 2000 2002 and to where 99% females. And then now we saw the tables kind of turn where in our cases, I’m not saying this is prevalent in United States. It’s just in Martin PIs cases that we have.
It’s about 80 20 now. So the, the definition that you grey gave is a great one and that’s, you know, right out of the books and, you know, that’s all the good teaching stuff, but on the street, it’s just taken somebody that it’s a vulnerable put in position they. I don’t want to be in forcing them to have sex, getting money and just trashing them over and over and over again until they get to the point where they become useless.
And. There, there there’s kids on every corner of every city, of every County, every state in the United States that are vulnerable. And it’s, it’s, it’s like picking an apple, from a tree for these guys. and that’s why it’s a little frustrating for guys like myself who see every day. And nobody’s really doing anything about it.
Okay.
Chris Gazdik: [00:29:50] So because it is so. Hard to do something about it. I mean, you know, listen to that, I’m, I’m just, I’m kind of hearing this play out, which by the way, sometimes, you know, needs to be said, we know with sexual molestations and, rape cases and, and, you know, this type of thing that oftentimes it’s a family friend of the.
To the home or their say, even a family member, uncles and parents. I mean, it’s, it’s hard to think that a parent would do this with their children, but I can tell you, I have heard and talked to people in my therapy office that have had this type of thing happened. And I think, I don’t know if that’s, you know, we tend to think of human trafficking is like shipped off to, you know, Japan or China or coming into Hawaii.
But you know, this can happen in the tri state area. You know, up in the, you know, the Michigan area or down in Iowa. Yeah. By the way, the dust bowl. Oh man. I bet it’s in West Virginia. Like you said, it’s, I think it’s everywhere. And, and, and it starts, you know, just by people that are disenchanted. With their major support systems and they voluntarily leave and then they’re there.
So it’s, it’s gotta be so difficult to track because if I’m on the down low and I’m fire up a social media outpost in a day or two in Charlotte, because there’s a big event coming on. And now I just made like $50,000 in three days by a simple post. Like, how do you track that? Like is what my question is?
Thomas Martin: [00:31:23] Well, the way we track it is we don’t see too much of the family dynamics where a dad will take a daughter or mother will take a son, whatever, whatever that is.
Chris Gazdik: [00:31:33] It’s unfamable isn’t it
Thomas Martin: [00:31:34] Yeah. I, but it does happen. But as far as human trafficking goes, what these guys will do is they will. They in say Charlotte, but then they’ll move them to Chicago.
They’re not going to stay in that area. They very, very rarely stay in the area because then the teen doesn’t have the contact with their friends or neighbors, all the things that might be able to extricate themselves from the situation. So we call it the 1500 rule. It’s usually fit a hundred miles from the place that they, where they’re raised, that they’re taken.
And it’s, it’s pretty common now. and I don’t want to label this, but in our assessment of things, yeah. Three major beds are Dallas, Los Angeles, and New York. And Las Vegas certainly is coming up a close fourth. And that’s because of all the conventions that are there. And so we S we see a lot of that and it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s not something so much in the families, as it is bad guy gets teenager volnerable have sex, throw them away like yesterday’s condom.
Chris Gazdik: [00:32:41] Wow. That’s just, that’s, that’s tough to, it’s tough to stomach, man. I just experienced a little bit of a visceral, like physical. Like I want to go after somebody now. I, I don’t. Holy cow.
Thomas Martin: [00:32:58] Wow. I think you and Craig would w would both, if you actually sat across and we don’t have any skills, like you guys have in terms of how we talk to them while we try to get them.
Rescue them and then get them into a place. And that’s where the, is that where your, your talents and your people could come I’m into, because I’m out to be honest, I’m not trying to broad, bro. You’re. People that are in your profession, but, and maybe they haven’t had a chance, but sometimes we bring these kids.
If they’ve got dope problems, that’s one thing. But if they’ve got human trafficking problems, it’s been really difficult to get them help. And I can’t tell you, we have, we’ve tried to follow up, but I can tell you that we’ve had, I would say over the last 30, 40 years, we’ve probably had at least 50 suicides from these kids.
That might be a conservative number.
Chris Gazdik: [00:33:53] Say that again,
Thomas Martin: [00:33:55] of all the hundreds and hundreds of cases that we’ve had. And we try to follow up on them, especially when they’re 13 and 14. And so once we get them back to their families and once, you know, we can only do so much, we can tell the families to get them home therapy, get them off the drugs, get them off there.
They’re not pieces of trash and they’re really good. And because we sometimes get calls from the parents. Thank you for rescuing. just wanting to let you know that she committed suicide yesterday. And I think we’ve had, as I said, about 55 Oh times in the last years, and those are the ones that we know about now.
I don’t know what the number is. It’s just too much for the people to handle.
Chris Gazdik: [00:34:36] Yeah. Yeah. And what I’m hearing is about, you know, hundreds of cases over the last, you know, what’d you say a couple, few years and 50 suicides. I know those are just sort of, sort of off the cuff, you know, figures and whatever.
But if you think, if I’m, you know, Craig, I suck at math, but what percentage is that, man? I mean, that’s like what, like a quarter of, of, of, of people 30%. I mean
Thomas Martin: [00:35:02] that’s well, they are, you know, just to, just to make sure we’re understanding, and I’m not trying to blow numbers out to you. If we’ve had this say since the year 2000, 20 years, we probably had, I would say a 500 to 600 cases.
Just the last 20 years. And I would think all 50 that I said of those suicides have been there. So you’re looking at 10%.
Chris Gazdik: [00:35:27] Yeah. Okay. That’s yeah. How much, how much of this is internationally woven? I’m curious. So, you know, I, I think I do have a, and you’ve corrected, you’ve confirmed rather my limited understanding of how this sort of gets off on a local level, off the ground and in function.
1500 mile rule. You said that’ll stick in my head. How much of this really operates too? On an international level. We started talking about the drug thing, which might not even be sexual trafficking, but it’s still trafficking. Local, how do I want to ask is like local functioning versus international functioning.
What is your breakdown of that?
Thomas Martin: [00:36:11] It’s almost zero. When you take a somebody in the United States, that is being abused, that is involved with human trafficking. They very, very rarely go international. They don’t need to the appetite and the, and the amount of people that will pay to have sex with these kids is unlimited.
Yeah. It’s you know, just like a grocery store line. Now, internationally we do see is the pedophiles and the bad guys who want it. You have sex coming from different places, say from Asia, from Europe, from South America, they come to the United States. That’s that’s we see a lot of that, yeah.
Chris Gazdik: [00:36:50] Okay. Because we had a, we had a lovely lady ms. Stephanie fast, hope you’re still listening to ms. Fast. She’s a friend of the show too, and she’s, I’ve been thinking about her through, through this, this conversation. She brought light, to, the incredible issue worldwide of orphan. being an orphan. So being orphaned where you’re just left and kicked out of your village or kicked out of your society, all tolded.
And you’re just left to fend for yourself. I would imagine there’s a great joining internationally with the orphan problem that exists with the trafficking problem that I would imagine kind of goes hand in hand with that. Does that make sense?
Thomas Martin: [00:37:30] It does make sense in our experience, in our experience only we haven’t seen a lot of orphans.
They’re kids that are in foster care. maybe. A couple of maybe a handful, th the amount of people available. And I hate to make it sound like, you know, more buying produce or milk. Yeah. The amount of people, young people that are available, Who are in mainstream America, so to speak, the, these pedophiles and bad guys don’t need to go out into the orphan communities.
They’re, they’re trying to try to get somebody that they can mold and they’re on every street corner in the country.
Chris Gazdik: [00:38:09] Well, you know, when I speak of orphaning. It’s interesting because they’re not in foster homes. That’s part of the problem that Stephanie kinda pointed out, ms. Fast was like, well, these kids are not cared for they’re.
she, she briefly, her story was such that she was kind of orphan from her village in South Korea and just left to walk the countryside, literally at age five for like three years or something. I mean, it was just, just absolutely remarkable. So they’re not taken care of. They’re not put in foster homes, they’re left then for themselves.
So it might be kind of different flavor. Because we use the term orphan there, here, we’re using the term runaway. I wonder if runaway and orphan kind of operates the same way throughout the world.
Thomas Martin: [00:38:45] Well, now that you say it and put it in that way, I think you’re right. I, I do think a lot of our kids may have been orphans.
We just don’t talk to them most. Are you an orphan? We just, we talked to them as homeless, or we talked to them on the street or, but I do want to make it, these, these people do go after. The homeless and maybe quote orphans as you were saying. And that’s a good point. There’s so many kids that are in local junior high schools.
And middle schools that are prone to want to have a friend to think that the beginning, this is all good. Great. And then it just turns to a big pile of dog do. And, and so, so we find, I would say 95, 98% of the kids that we talked to are just kids and normal mainstream Americans. I said,
Chris Gazdik: [00:39:35] Okay. So, Craig pointed out that it is episode four, where we talked about compound versus simple trauma.
Thanks for looking at that, Craig and Craig, let me turn it over to you and just kind of get your voice. once again, you’re kind of quiet over there, man. What, what are you thinking? What are you hearing? Give us the flavor of what the listeners kind of thinking at this point. And what can you ask as far as what we’re talking about?
Craig Graves: [00:39:56] Yeah, I mean, you know, I’m hearing a lot, it’s very interesting conversation between the two of you. You guys have taken quite a bit of notes here. when I think about human trafficking, I think about kids playing out in the culdesac and some white van pulling up and hauling them off. But it sounds like these are kids who were vulnerable for whatever reason that are running away or meeting somebody who befriends them and then takes them into this life.
So I think I’ve got a little bit different outlook on, on how it actually happens. Tom, I do want to know if there are, when you said that this was a bigger problem than drugs. I was thinking really, you know, I had a,
you hear about the
opioid epidemic and I had a cousin who Od’ed to November. we had no idea he was using.
It was a great kid. but when you say 2 million kids from the ages of 10 to 18, that like, wow, that, that kind of puts that whole statement that you made into perspective there.
So with that, with that volume, that’s a huge problem of why isn’t it talk about this thing, man? I mean, why is it that we. I mean, we’re concerned about who’s peeing and which bathrooms when this kind of stuff’s going on.
Chris Gazdik: [00:41:03] Wow.
Thomas Martin: [00:41:04] That’s a, that’s a, that is a great line. I’m going to use that and take full credit.
I want to write that down and make sure I saw a lot smarter than I am.
Chris Gazdik: [00:41:16] That’s so true.
Thomas Martin: [00:41:17] I don’t know. I mean, I, I, I’m sorry for your friend that died, but I’m sure that there was a lot of interaction between family. I’m sure there was a funeral. I’m sure there was people whose emotions weren’t like, Oh, could I have done something better?
Could I have done something more? And I that, but when one of these kids is brought back home, There’s no really crying. There’s really no therapy. There’s really no, anybody upset about it, it’s just another kid who has fallen on the garbage heap of life and, and they get no real guidance on what to do, be it spiritually or physically or mentally.
And you know, those people grow up to be. You know, adults. And, and so I, I, I dunno, you can deal with the drug issue. You can deal with the drug issue, but I just don’t think there’s enough talent. And I put myself in that pool of lack of talent to deal with the people I’m really good at finding people and extricating from the bad guys.
But I gotta be honest with you. I need somebody, you know, like a Chris. The up my side,
Chris Gazdik: [00:42:27] I’m going to be vulnerable. Ben Craig. And actually try to answer that question because I was just thinking it, it hit me, Bottom line. We don’t like to talk about sex.
We don’t want to talk about it. I remember very well.
Mr. Shook, man, do you remember mr. Soock, Craig? He was my supervisor. He hired me and then later on a career, I hired him sorted those so to speak. So it was really kind of a cool career that I’ve lived with. With Jeff. And I’ve learned so much from him as a colleague. when I was hired by him early on in my career, I’ll never forget.
He was given us an inservice training and we were sitting there talking and we were not understanding that we were at a mental health center and I was doing therapy. I was, I was, I was still pretty green at the time. And. You started talking about doing couples counseling and he started talking about the sexual relationship and how that comes up in a marriage discussion.
And I remember that we’re very clearly, you know, I was like, yo, I ain’t never had it conversation about sex in a therapy session.
And here’s this older guy like talking about sex in an inservice training in my office. Honestly, it freaked me out, creeped me out. It’s, it was like, it shocked me. And I’ll never forget that as a, as a young therapist.
I mean, now it’s funny, like I’ll sit in a room with two, two dude, honestly, in therapy world and, and, and I’ll ask, you know, questions about sexuality and, you know, what happens for them and normalize the discussion and decrease that anxiety and that angsty and weirdness and announced. I mean, I mean, as a therapist, I can get away talking about all sorts of stuff with people, but.
You said that, and it took me back there, Craig, that as a therapist, I didn’t want to go there. Yeah. Well,
Craig Graves: [00:44:08] you know, I guess I might buy that a little bit, but like we do talk a lot about sex in our, in our society, you know, in, in gender and you know, who can be a man and who can be a woman who can, and can’t stuff like that.
When I think about human trafficking, I don’t think about the physical act of the. Of the sex. I’m thinking about some of the things Tom saying about these kids, you weren’t loved apparently, you know, and, and who don’t feel connected to anything. And that’s why they, that’s why they’re reaching out for somebody to care about them.
And, It sounds like that’s how they get caught up in this. So
Chris Gazdik: [00:44:40] I’d love to hear your thoughts. I don’t think that we talk about the sexual act, the dancing one night, the next night, you’re having sex with a stranger in a hotel and how that. Those sexual acts really get real
Thomas Martin: [00:44:59] well. I sometimes put it this way.
When I, when I reach out for a therapist, be it in Cincinnati or, Hawaii or New York, you know, if somebody comes to us and they’ve been on cocaine or drug abuse for a long time, I know the best places in the country to go. I know where the, depending on the drug, I know the Betty Ford’s and I know the Hazelton’s and I know we’re not to put kids in the camps that they try to break them like horses.
Yes. Okay. But now I’ve got a, like a young man and who is 14 years old. And for the last six months have had, you know, sexual, experiences with say 20 or 30 different men. And it’s, I don’t have any problem. Even talking about sex with you kid. Did you have a, what did you go through? No, no work. I don’t even know something because now I got it.
I got to get him help.
Chris Gazdik: [00:45:50] Right.
Thomas Martin: [00:45:52] And then my frustration is, is that, where do I take him? I can’t take them to a Hazelton. I can’t take him to a Betty Ford. I can’t take them to some camp somewhere. Where do I take him? I can’t, if I take him back home to his parents. That’s just a complete nightmare. The kid will never recover.
So I’ve got to find somebody in the area and mostly the therapists they love talking about sex. But they don’t like talk about human trafficking sex. Right. And I’m not so sure that all these, you know, great schools and do all this stuff. If there there’s gotta be somebody who’s can bring it to the forefront and say, here here’s the program.
Here’s what we need to do. And maybe that’s what your show today will spurn somebody on or somebody who comes at it from a medical point of view, because I’ve been in the game a long time guys. And I haven’t found anybody who can really sit down with them.
Craig Graves: [00:46:46] That’s a great, that’s a great point, Tom, if somebody, some therapists, so who knows, is listening to this, who could fill that gap?
It would, man, it sounds like a huge gap and it needs to be filled. That’s a terrible, there’s no place for these kids to go, to get, to get help.
Chris Gazdik: [00:47:02] We have identified a little bit of a lacking. I mean, the answer to some extent are, are people that are well steeped in trauma therapy. That’s the buzz word. You know, people that are steeped in trauma therapy, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll be able to kind of do this, but we don’t have a lot of intense type placements.
Like we have in, in the rehab facilities, we have, you know, inpatient hospital systems such as the Hazelton’s and whatnot for mental health. Issues. But unfortunately what that really kind of wraps down to is with insurance payments and stuff, you know, it’s for suicidality and rather intense, you know, self harm thoughts, which of course we would have with human trafficking victims and whatnot.
But then, but they’re there for two weeks or three weeks. And, you know, you kind of go back home as you, as you say. So it, it is a bit of a gap, but trauma therapy is the. The buzzword there.
Thomas Martin: [00:47:51] Well, I’m, I’m glad you mentioned it. And I wrote down trauma therapy as that as kind of the word to go forward. But what are the other things that I thought about this briefly is that you’re have a drug problem.
Your insurance would probably pay for it, or the parent’s insurance might pay for it. When you say that you need to have a kid who has been in human trafficking, the insurance is don’t even bother with it.
Chris Gazdik: [00:48:14] Yeah. I mean, I don’t want to say they don’t bother with it. I want to say that they, they, they need, you know, to prove medical necessity for an inpatient stay that involves, inability to function at home.
And unfortunately you got somebody who’s really numbed out. They might even be repressing their experiences. And they’re saying, Hey, I’m not suicidal. I’m fine. Thank God. I got home. Let’s see what have a cake, you know? And, and so are they going to be admitted? W, you know, may, may maybe not there, you know, unless, unless somebody is really kind of know needling in there and getting at the real information on what happened.
I mean, you would think.
Thomas Martin: [00:48:50] Yeah, well, I was going to say that might be our problem because maybe we’re not articulating to the parents who articulating to, or speaking to the insurance company that, Hey, this is, this is a problem. This, this is this. If it’s, if it’s related to drugs, you’re in, if it’s just , it’s not, you’re not in.
Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: [00:49:08] because they’re like, I am fine. I’m back home. You know, we’re, we’re reunited.
Craig Graves: [00:49:13] I would argue that if your sex traffic, that way, that all those bullshit requirements go out the window, get to get the person some help, man. I mean, that’s gotten to be trauma for anybody.
Chris Gazdik: [00:49:25] Anybody who’s listening to insurance companies listen up,
Craig Graves: [00:49:28] Tom, I’ve got a, I’ve got a couple more questions, man.
So. These, these people who the clients, if you will, you know, it seems to me these days with Tinder and all these crazy apps out there, you could find a willing sex partner pretty easy. So why would these, why, what, what, what’s the, what’s the draw to these two abuse and these children, man.
Thomas Martin: [00:49:50] Well, it’s a great question. And I think, you guys probably already know it. It’s not about the sex. It’s about the power. It’s about, you know, control and yeah, you can go on Tinder and do a lot of different sites, but it’s very, very difficult to find a 13 year old boy or a 13 year old girl. And.
Craig Graves: [00:50:09] Yeah. So that’s what these people want.
They just want the control. He’s the pot is the power thing. The power dynamic.
Chris Gazdik: [00:50:16] Money Too
Thomas Martin: [00:50:18] Yeah. Here at well there’s there’s, there’s the guy who wants money and then there’s the actual pedophile who wants to have sex. And. I’ve even talked to some of them. And if you have for them a 13 year old girl or a 13 year old boy versus a world-class prostitute.
Out of Las Vegas, that’s 25 and this drop dead gorgeous. They won’t even bother with that girl. They want the young victim. That’s maybe not in puberty and all that craziness, which you’ve heard about. And that’s, it’s hard to get your mind around it
Chris Gazdik: [00:50:56] because I’m sitting here when you said that just now my immediate reaction was, do people really do that?
Thomas Martin: [00:51:02] Oh, my goodness. Oh my goodness.
Chris Gazdik: [00:51:04] Yes, people, they really do.
Thomas Martin: [00:51:08] I mean, it’s, it’s, it has every day and in every city, in every County, in every state, and these are some sick, sick people that even educated peoples like yourselves, you have a hard time getting your head around it. Can you imagine the kid who’s been violated?
You mentioned his parents trying to get around. Can you imagine some insurance person sitting there the whole lot when your kid did, what, how did you let that happen? All it becomes, you know, the parents become the problem.
Chris Gazdik: [00:51:35] Thank you for that, because that is a big, big factor, really going Craig.
Craig Graves: [00:51:40] That was, I was going to ask another question if we’re, if we’re, if we’re all kind of, kind of moving on to the next topic, so it kind of relates to Utah.
You said you talked to these people and they tell you these things. Dude. How do you control yourself? How do you not polarize these scumbags or, or worse?
Thomas Martin: [00:51:57] Well, I always think of the day that there were more bad guys in the room than, than we had agents going through. And I got, I got knocked down, hit and I got kicked really, really hard.
And I had a guy down on the ground. There’s another guy coming with a baseball bat and he was standing over me and I. I told him to freeze and thankfully froze. But then I said, you know, I could just pop this guy right now and, and all this nonsense, but then it flashed into my head. Maybe some of that training that we talked about in the pre show.
And I said to myself, do I really, as a DEA guy, want to expend the rest of my life in jail? Not really. So you don’t pull the trigger and, and, and, and those instances where we actually get intelligence information and find a kid in a hotel. Kick the door down or we call the law enforcement and they go out.
Yeah, it’s a lot, it’s a lot to not say something to them or walk up. And, but my daddy once told me, you know, you can’t argue with ignorance and you know, if you, if you try to engage in these people there that they’re there they’re so off the charts. So it would 10 verses, well, let me tell you that. Yeah.
Yeah.
Craig Graves: [00:53:11] And kind of as a followup to that, like, We’re talking about compound trauma here. There’s got to be life experience for you and the investigators that work with you. You, I mean, do you guys have, how do you process all that? I mean, seeing these kids that were just, you know, abused so severely, I mean,
Thomas Martin: [00:53:30] I don’t think we’re numb to it.
I think were more frustrated, more frustrated that, okay, now we’ve done this part of our job and a lot of PIs in the country we’ll just end it. but you know, you see, I don’t want to see a kid get out of this situation and commit suicide. I think I kind of failed in that deal. So that’s why we try to get them some help and DEA agent.
And you’ve been through, you know, 60 countries as I have as an agent and another 60 FBI. And, and you see the scum trash of the world. I don’t want to say your. You know, kind of numb to it all. you gotta keep focused just like you’re doing a therapy session. I would imagine just keep focused on what the problem is, trying to get the help.
And certainly you go home and, you know, I will say that I I’ve had a few sleepless nights with some of the, the kids that I’ve seen that are, I mean, some of these kids aren’t even in puberty yet. Come on. I mean, you know, and I mean, As we asked the guy, I mean, you, you, you just had sex with a girl and I mean, she’s has no development.
You wouldn’t know what side to get. We’re a back rub and this is, this is how sick they are. And this is who they want to have sex with. So
Chris Gazdik: [00:54:41] I think there’s a, there’s a numbness slash compartmentalization that kind of almost professionally to, to, to occur. They, because if you compartmentalize, you deal with like, this is my job, and then you have to kind of shake it off.
Like honestly, one of the things I do when I come home from work is I come in and greet people, pet my dogs, whatever, say hello. And I go upstairs and I changed my clothes. The armor has to come off, you know, and, and then I’m home. So is that, does that ring true at all? Tom,
Thomas Martin: [00:55:09] that’s a good way to put it. I mean, I have for many, many years, you know, I have what we call the FBI, the DEA uniform, you know, the suit, the white shirt and the red tie.
And I come home and put on a pair of sweatpants and a tee shirt and sit back and, you know, try to try to let it all go. But I mean, I could, I can deal with a guy who’s committed murder. You know, we’ve had 500 murder cases in our career. I can handle a guy robs banks. I can handle, you know, all kinds of different things, but I’m telling me it’s really hard when you see a 13 or 14 year old who has been abused for a couple years and probably had more sex than I’ve had in 60 years.
I mean, it’s like, Whoa,
Chris Gazdik: [00:55:52] I don’t want to talk about it. Right back to that. Like, I don’t want to talk about this.
Thomas Martin: [00:55:58] That’s why I think it’s so great that you are talking about it. And then, you know, I don’t know why the people in the country don’t have a, a greater sense of awareness of it. Cause it’s, it’s out there.
You talk to any cops, they’ll tell you. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: [00:56:12] And so let’s, let’s go to there a little bit, because part, part of what I wanted to do is gain another understanding as well, right? Like, okay. So how mainstream is this? We’ve got this idea. How, how, how big are the dramatic rings of people versus the smaller people?
I think we have a little bit of an idea about that. What do we do? You know, I have a, a per a person in my personal life that has helped me understand that in the national guard, for instance, there is a, there is an element in each unit that is. Responsible to train the unit to identify sex trafficking, you know?
So have you ever heard of anything like this? Tom.
Thomas Martin: [00:56:48] I have not.
Chris Gazdik: [00:56:49] Interesting. Yeah. So that’s what I’m told. And so the, the, the, the, the, the training is just like somebody in the units feels like, and I’m speaking out of ignorance a little bit here, please, a listening audience. But what I understand is, you know, someone in a unit just kind of picked and then, and then the unit is kind of taught and trained to identify sex trafficking, kind of what looks like and whatnot.
And I, and I was going to ask you how effective a lot of that stuff is, but it sounds like you haven’t really even kind of heard about that.
Thomas Martin: [00:57:14] Well, I mean, I’ve talked to enough police in my day or our agents that, and getting involved in these cases. And, and I don’t want to be little the training. I think it’s very important, but when you kick a door down, or you’re in the law enforcement community and you find a 45 year old man with a 13 year old girl, I don’t think you have to have much training to figure that out.
Right? The, the real question is, is where I think. Therapists can really help out here is what training are the law enforcement people getting to date in 2020 to help that victim that they just found? So do they just say, okay, come on, call up the parents. And sometimes you call them, you guys will die on this one, call up the parents.
You say, can you bring them over? I’m busy. I got to go golfing. You go kidding me. I just found your kit an or or the women will say, ah, okay, well, thanks for doing that. Can you bring her back tomorrow? I’m going to be, you know, I have a
Chris Gazdik: [00:58:11] wait a minute, wait a minute. You have had an experience where on a missing persons case, you have found a child found a 20 year old, a 17 year old, whatever, and notified the family and been put off.
Thomas Martin: [00:58:24] Multiple times, and I’ve even written about it in blogs and in my books where they will call up and it’s like, you’re bothering them. Yeah. And I’ve had women say, I’ve got a shopping appointment, man. I’m going to be at Nordstrom’s for the next couple of days and our next couple of hours. And, Bring back.
They don’t care. Now this one happened too often in, in the, in the, in the cases we were talking about human sex trafficking. These are like runaway kids who are pregnant. And so yeah, most of the kids who are in sex trafficking, they’ve been gone for six months, nine months.
Chris Gazdik: [00:58:58] And what my brain does with that though.
I mean, let’s think about it as, as weird as that was and is immediately shocked as I am to hear that. I’m also pulling back a little bit. You got to understand the parent’s perspective here. All right. Little Johnny has been, you know, in trouble with pot. he didn’t give a rip about school. you know, he’s, he’s, he’s literally punched his dad.
you know, we had to take the data to the hospital with a broken nose and he, you know, a little Johnny 15 year old kid, it was just absolutely unmanageable. And he decided to leave the home and he’d been gone. I don’t know where he’s been. I’ve tried to contact him. I don’t really know. He doesn’t answer some phones, so great.
So you got this guy. Okay. Well, you know, he needs to say sorry to his dad.
Thomas Martin: [00:59:38] Well, you’d be shocked. I don’t know how to put it any other way is that there is. Tremendous tension when we find these kids and bring them home. And, and the, the, what we say to the parents who call us, we go, don’t worry about it.
Let’s find it. We’re going to find your child. And there’s lots of great methods out there. A lot of PIs are very good about you to do with them after we find them. If they have an anger problem, where do we put them? You know? And of course the parents want on summer camp, up in Alaska where the freezer burns off and completely useless, completely useless, but
Chris Gazdik: [01:00:14] don’t know what you speak of
Thomas Martin: [01:00:17] an uncommon occurrence.
I didn’t throw it out there to be, you know, off the wall, but I can tell you prob so many times, dozens of times, parents will just say, well, I’ll get back to you tomorrow. I’m busy right now. They don’t care.
Chris Gazdik: [01:00:31] What kind of prevention efforts do we have, actually, I’m aware of the time we need to start texting and Craig.
So let me kind of make it real quick. Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.
Craig Graves: [01:00:40] To I assueme that Maybe these kids were, and probably incorrectly stereotype and, but maybe lower income, but you’re talking about parents who were playing golf and hanging out at Nordstrom’s. I mean, what are the, what. Income levels are these kids, are they, does it span the, you know, lower middle, higher income kids?
What’s this.
Thomas Martin: [01:01:02] Well, we’ve done thousands of locate cases. So I would, I would say it’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a good question, but it’s, it’s easily answered in the fact that, you know, we have kids that are, have billionaire parents and we have kids that are, you know, barely putting food on the table and it’s so it’s, it’s, it’s,
Chris Gazdik: [01:01:19] remember it’s a pissed off kid.
Who’s frustrated with their mommy and daddy because they didn’t get the right car for them and they go off and they say I’m out of here. A year and then the world gets real and they’re on the street and they don’t really have a place. And somebody says, Hey, I’ll buy you a car. Here’s your car.
Thomas Martin: [01:01:33] And that happens every day, every hour.
Craig Graves: [01:01:36] Yeah, I get that. I get that piece, but you know, if, if, if that happened and you called and said, Hey, I found your kid, I’d be like, thank God. Get him, get her, him or her here now, you know, and I would. Be loving on that kid. I wouldn’t be playing golf or hanging out at Nordstrom’s.
Thomas Martin: [01:01:52] Well, I’ll give you another example of how it is.
People will call us up and say, Hey, I have a missing person case. I’d like you to work. Johnny ran away, or Mary ran away. And I said, okay, are you the mom or the dad? They go, I’m the aunt. And my first question is where’s the parents. Why are you hiring us? Well, they’re too busy. Well, that’s all you need to know.
Right? What chance this kid? I mean, these kids, a lot of them that we find are not saints. Trust me. Yeah. Some of their own fault and some of the faults of their parents and a whole lot of other factors. But at the end of the day, She kind of sit back and say, I often say to the kids, man, I feel your pain. I know how you got here.
Cause I just talked to your mom and dad. They are whack jobs
Chris Gazdik: [01:02:37] and you know what, it’s really going back to something, Tom, you talked about before you do something like that. And then boom, you’ve got that kid’s attention and you’ve got the rapport and you can then move in to really helping them. That’s awesome.
Oh,
Thomas Martin: [01:02:50] yeah. They’ll say to me, you’re the first person that, that knew my mom was crazy. I go, well, I didn’t say she was crazy. I just said she’s a little off, but, but it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s an issue interesting time. And once you make that connection with the kid, as you do it, I’m sure you guys, in your therapy sessions and stuff, and they’ll listen to you.
Cause then they think you got it, you know? And then once they identify the street smarts, I’ll have a person there. Cause they’re street-smart
Chris Gazdik: [01:03:17] Go political with them… you lose them.
Thomas Martin: [01:03:20] I think you’re right. I really, I think you’re right. We try to stay away from one, cause we don’t have the talent nor the expertise or the, or the education, but we try to stay at on the street level with them because that’s what we do know.
And that’s the only thing that’s going to save them.
Chris Gazdik: [01:03:35] It’s what they have learned. It’s, it’s what they know. No, you know, in social work, particularly early, we’ve got a awesome, notion that says, you know, w w you start where the client is, you know, you, you, you, you, you go where they are on their level.
At their pace. You know, I’ve got some trauma rules that I think I’ve shared somewhere in the show. And then whenever trauma comes up, I mean, I list them, you know, things such as, you know, what we talk about as much as you want, or as little as you want, you control the pace. You’re, you’re in charge here.
I am not. you can’t say anything that shocked me ever. I’ve heard it all. There’s there’s like three or four or five, six things that I. I will, I will Institute whenever identify trauma, but, but you’ve got to, you’ve got to just get on their level with them. Otherwise, they’re going to be like, yo, you’re some geeky queer girl in this therapy office.
And I don’t talk to there. You know, I don’t talk to you, but when you crack that joke, that, that it just took me back to your question. Like, what do you do once you do that? Your mom’s a little bit cracked out. You know, I get why, you know, what’s up now. You’re in.
Thomas Martin: [01:04:34] Right. And it’s very helpful then, because they want to believe that what advice you’re going to give them next.
They they’re, they’re more open minded to it. And especially we tell them now we don’t believe your parents sent you to these schools that break Shetland ponies down or the Mustangs. No, no, you’re not.
Chris Gazdik: [01:04:50] I really don’t like the wilderness programs. Do you?
Thomas Martin: [01:04:54] I’m sorry to all the wilderness programs, but I’ve never heard that all they do.
Those kids. They, and I’ve seen him, I’ve made a lot of mistakes cause I sent a lot of kids there.
Chris Gazdik: [01:05:03] Well, just so you know, they’re, they’re, they’re in my mind for what it’s worth, and this is just an opinion. Someone’s going to email me and hate mail me on this, but Hey, you know, it’s all right. I can take it.
It’s on thick skin with it. They’re more effective with younger kids. You know, the older, the kid gets the less effective they are. So you’re doing that with a nine, 10, 11 year old and whatever, you know, those kind of, kind of those kids that are into Cub Scouts and whatnot, then they’re very much more effective.
But when you got this pissed off 15, 16 year old kid and sending note to a Wilderness program, they’re just like, You know, they’re there to fight and it’s a mess.
Thomas Martin: [01:05:35] Let me, let me just make one thing, clarify didn’t on, on the wilderness programs where I think some wilderness programs are better than others and become effective is when.
They take the kid who has a drug problem or a sexual problem, or it’s been through this human trafficking problem. And the address that issue first, if you don’t have so many as on cane or methamphetamine Adderall. No, if you don’t put them all wilderness training, you want, it’s not gonna work. And so.
Yeah, the recovery and I don’t see a lot of, you know, Oh, we have a doctor on staff. No, no, you don’t. No, you don’t.
It
Chris Gazdik: [01:06:16] bothers me because we had this great divide in our, in our, and I’ve picked on it. Craig, you’ve picked up on me saying this man, you can’t like have mental health professionals to say, Oh yeah, I don’t deal with that substance abuse stuff.
And then we have the substance abuse people say, Oh yeah, I don’t deal with that mental health stuff. It drives me nuts, Tom that we have this great divide. I mean, I haven’t North Carolina, a substance abuse certification relationship, and I have a, a Mental Health, well, your discipline counseling, your psychology, whatever, a mental health licensing board.
Why, why are we it’s nuts. But anyway, anyway, sorry that sound off.
Thomas Martin: [01:06:50] I mean, I think it’s great for your listeners to understand that there’s, there is, there’s two things that you have to do, which you just happily said about. And if you don’t have the knowledge of doing the first one before you try the second one, the whole, thing’s going to go to hell on a hand,
Chris Gazdik: [01:07:04] I call it a great blind spot.
So what do we have for prevention? And we need to start texting in a, what do we have for prevention out there? For human sex trafficking,
Thomas Martin: [01:07:15] anything. I, I, you know, I wish I had an answer for that. All, all, all I can see from my law enforcement days is, would putting some of these people in jail, be the answer.
I don’t know. I think they’re going to keep, keep on keeping on as they would say. I just think we, we have to have a little more awareness of parents, which is sobering and easy to say. I mean, I mean, I’ve had parents that don’t know where their kids are at, and then they’re there, they’re shocked after six months that they’re in this predicament.
So I don’t know. I mean, I think that’s a, a more medical situation and clinically Clinton.
Chris Gazdik: [01:07:54] I know another big blind issue. Yeah. All right. We have, we have gone over a little long on part one here. We need to taxi out. I think we need a little bit of repairing. We’re going to talk about part two, a, Charles Manson thing.
I, you know, just get people interested. That should be fun. We’ve got a lot of topics. We’ll kind of go over, but, Craig, this guy was knocking before my mom or Mics came on. He was knocking, I think a little bit on my West Virginia pride. So you’re going to go ahead and tell him this stupid joke that you’ve got for like the teth time we’ve heard on this show.
What what’d you got, man? Tell it, tell us, tell us Craig, I told you I can, you, you, you,
Craig Graves: [01:08:23] you know what I was going to let you slide you side, Chris, Chris loves this joke, Tom. I tell it to everybody about West Virginia, but how do we know? That the toothbrush was created in West Virginia.
Thomas Martin: [01:08:39] I didn’t want to say the one, two thing, but go ahead.
Craig Graves: [01:08:43] Otherwise it would be the teeth brush. Oh, no.
Chris Gazdik: [01:08:48] usually we do a high five. You’ll understand that next time when we go out of here, but we’re kind of running over Craig. Let’s get us outta here. And we’ll we’ll fire up again, with mr. Tom Martin, if you’re still willing to hang out with us.
Thomas Martin: [01:08:58] Oh yeah, it’s fun. I’m learning. I’m going to read, I’m going to take all this and pretend I actually thought about it.
Chris Gazdik: [01:09:06] Got you. It takes out of your Craig. you
Craig Graves: [01:09:08] can find out more about our show on throughatherapists eyes.com. We have individual entries for each show. You can listen right there or find us on any podcast platform.
And I think that’s it, Chris.
Chris Gazdik: [01:09:21] Ah, man, we’re going to see you guys next week. Stay safe out there. Appreciate you sharing this with a, with a friend, hit the little button and share an episode we’re wanting to grow this year take care and we’ll see you next week.