A second person on the mission said that they, too, had been introduced to the psychic—both people remembered her name as “Janet”—and that her tip, perhaps predictably, did not pan out. (When reached by VICE World News, Janet said, "I signed an NDA so I can't answer any of your questions," and recommended we reach out to OUR. A spokesperson for OUR didn’t dispute Janet’s involvement, telling us, “OUR has partnered with Janet, who was referred to OUR by a U.S. law enforcement agency, for some of our top level cases. She has been very successful in helping our rescue efforts alongside our law enforcement partners. Her skillset has long been used by law enforcement and government entities in this line of work.” The spokesperson also shared two links: The first was to an abstract of a 1993 paper from the journal Law and Order, which referred to the work of psychics in law enforcement investigations as "controversial," did not endorse their use, and noted that most large police agencies surveyed did not work with psychics, nor did the FBI at the time. The second was a Forbes profile of a different psychic medium who says she works with law enforcement.) Soon after Ballard arrived, the villagers became suspicious and increasingly upset as he began circulating through the village with a camera crew.“She’s a fucking psychic. That’s his fucking source.”
The villagers began to gather, some of them armed with old shotguns, and soon OUR’s crew learned that a rumor was circulating: There was a virus in the village, and the workers were there to figure out who had it. “They were yelling and getting riled up,” a person who was present said. “Tim got in the truck and buried his head in his lap.” Senior elders soon asked the medical team to leave. Several cars followed them out of the village to make sure they’d gone. The day was a disturbing wash, and, in many ways, indicative of a larger pattern for OUR. While the group built its reputation on the image of highly polished, heroic rescues carried out by the best of the best, a VICE World News investigation suggests a different reality.Have you worked for or with Operation Underground Railroad or a similar group? We would love to hear from you. Contact the reporters at anna.merlan@vice.com or tim.marchman@vice.com, or via Signal at 267-713-9832.
While the group built its reputation on the image of highly polished, heroic rescues carried out by the best of the best, a VICE World News investigation suggests a different reality.
While ex-military and law enforcement members—among them former members of special forces—have been among OUR's operators, they have by no means all been similarly credentialed. “They claim they have all these special operations guys and it’s complete and utter bullshit,” said one person with extensive experience working overseas with OUR. Like many people interviewed by VICE World News for this story, this person was granted anonymity both because they fear reprisal from OUR and because they operate in the anti-trafficking area and are concerned for their safety. Both this person and another veteran who has worked overseas with OUR said that in their experience, nothing OUR did seemed recognizably informed by professional military or intelligence practice. There was, they said—contrary to the process for operations laid out on OUR's website—no meaningful surveillance or identification of targets; no development of assets; no validating that people they sought to rescue had in fact been trafficked, or that people they were targeting were indeed traffickers; and no meaningful follow-up with people who had been rescued on the missions in which they took part.“They claim they have all these special operations guys and it’s complete and utter bullshit,” said one person with extensive experience working overseas with OUR.
This is a common pattern for anti-trafficking NGOs working abroad, according to sex worker activists with Thailand’s Empower Foundation. Empower advocates for legalizing sex work—something to which OUR is staunchly opposed—and has for decades criticized human rights abuses perpetrated against sex workers by the government, police, NGOs, and clients. Three Empower organizers interviewed by VICE World News had not heard of OUR, which was surprising, they said, given the level of involvement the group claims to have in Thailand. That said, OUR are far from alone. “There’s so many of these organizations here I don’t know one from the other,” Mai Janta, a sex worker leader of the organization, told VICE World News, laughing. “From our point of view, they come into our workplaces and make a relationship with the employer as well as the police. If there are no underage workers they continually ask and ask for the employer to find them some underage workers,” Janta added. “So they create a situation where there are underage workers, where there weren’t before.”“They’re making it worse,” said a former military member who has worked with OUR.
“From my perspective, Tim Ballard and OUR are the Theranos of the NGO world,” they added. “Tim is a master marketer: good-looking, charismatic, he tells these stories, and so nobody really diligences him. Nobody took the time to check and see what his product was, could he deliver. This thing just grew to what it is.”In response to detailed questions about its overseas operations, OUR issued the following statement to VICE World News:“I’m not saying they don’t need help. But this is not Taken with Liam Neeson. These are girls in a desperate situation. They need a job and an education. They don't need someone to rescue them, some white guy from Utah.”
When William was a teenager, he would do magic tricks at the local mall and donate the proceeds to an anti-trafficking group. He went on to learn about the signs of trafficking and write reports for the police about potential trafficking situations. He couldn't believe there was such a thing as modern-day slavery, and he wanted to do something about it.OUR is not a vigilante organization and has never operated in a country without the invitation of our host government partners. We always coordinate closely with our host government partners to determine when, where, and how we operate. They are in charge of the investigations and operations at all times, and we follow their lead.
OUR does all we can to avoid creating demand, and informs suspected traffickers that we are not interested in them making efforts to find other victims. We are clear: they either have what we are looking for, or they do not. Additionally, we use a variety of undercover and operational tactics to elicit the information we need from suspects without entrapping or enticing them to commit a crime.
In the early years of OUR’s existence, there were a few instances where some working in our organization’s name did not adhere to our best practices and policies. We cut ties with these individuals and they no longer have affiliation with us. Our standard operating procedures for both operations and aftercare are clear: at no time are we to create demand for trafficking victims.
“Before I went to this training,” he said, “I was counting down the days. I was expecting a world-class training, because these are supposed to be the best operatives.” Instead, he didn't feel like he was learning anything, and certainly not like he was being prepared to rescue children from dangerous traffickers. William wasn't taught, among other things, basic self-defense, signs to look for in a trafficker or trafficking survivor, surveillance technique, or secure communication. Topics that were covered included how to compartmentalize your discomfort if you find yourself in a gay bar, and the instructors' many war stories, including one that involved someone being stabbed dozens of times.“A lot of our training," said William, "really just consisted of activities that felt like they were for kids.”
Eight days later, OUR contacted William to tell him that he had made the jump team and should prepare to ship overseas. While he wasn't told exactly where, he knew it would be in Asia, and believed it would be in Thailand.“I could not in good conscience go forward,” William said. “Not only did I feel I was extremely underprepared to go out as a private citizen with no training provided by OUR, what happened on that last day just completely shattered my image of them. And it was just something that I no longer wanted to align myself with.”“If at any time you may feel tempted to do something with one of the women, you need to tell us so we can get you out of there. Many men have come before and told me they feel tempted, and I respect them so much for it.”
Empower says that more than 50,000 sex workers have been a formal part of its operations over the years, and that members include sex workers from Thailand and migrant sex workers from Laos, Myanmar, China, and Cambodia. Its members are often extremely familiar with the various rescue operations that come to the country intent on “saving” trafficked women and girls; many organizations, working with local police, have conducted raids on massage parlors, legal brothels, and other places where they work. Most of these groups hail from the U.S., United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia, said Janta, and often have a clear religious focus. “They say they’re helping but really want to change your religion and your job,” she said. (“Often, adult sex workers were trafficked when they were younger, and/or are being trafficked as adults. Because of this fact, many adult sex workers are not participating willingly and often don’t have a way out of the life,” said an OUR spokesperson. “For example, under U.S. law, minors under the age of 18 cannot legally consent to engage in sex work since they are not considered developmentally mature enough to make such decisions. Some seek to legalize adult prostitution, a stance that OUR does not support. We believe that due to the lucrative nature of the trade, allowing traffickers and pimps to operate freely would lead to higher rates of human trafficking—of both adults and children.”)“When they’re giving police these skills and equipment, do they know what it’s being used for?”
"They worked without a license for years,” the person said. “This is why they were not invited to any meetings; no one was able to legally work with them." Even now, they added, “On the ground, none of us—and I speak on behalf of the entire Thailand anti-trafficking [community]—none of us works with them.”The NGO manager also said that while American law enforcement agencies have offered useful assistance to law enforcement abroad, they are skeptical OUR has that level of expertise."All the foreign agencies, especially the Americans, come in with specialists. If you are going to do law enforcement training, it needs to be approved by law enforcement. It can't be Johnny from Missouri who just joined the NGO teaching a government agency on how to conduct investigations in their country.” Being part of an established legal system is crucial, they added: “The more you muddy those waters, the more you create an environment where it makes it difficult for everyone to conduct proper, legally-aligned investigations. You’re just there for yourself.”“On the ground, none of us—and I speak on behalf of the entire Thailand anti-trafficking [community]—none of us works with them.”
In 2017, Freedom Collaborative helped publish a Code of Conduct for foreign NGOs involved in raid-and-rescue operations in Southeast Asia; among other things, Macher said, it pointed out that missions “required government authorization, cooperation with local law enforcement agencies, and protection of all involved stakeholders.” OUR has not signed on to this document. The curated image that groups who work overseas have created—the heroic, undercover, high-octane model of rescue—has also created subtler problems. It can be difficult, for instance, for groups working in the United States to interest potential volunteers in the more prosaic but also more helpful day-to-day work of helping trafficking survivors find meaningful recovery and self-determination. Instead, they often have to fend off enthusiastic would-be donors and volunteers who only want to engage in the more cinematic versions of anti-trafficking work they’ve seen depicted via groups like OUR. “Even private foundations and donors get into the topic because they think of the quote unquote sexy version of it,” a person familiar with the anti-trafficking world, who asked not to be named to freely discuss their work, told VICE World News. “They want to kick down a door and save a girl out of a cage.”Another person, who has worked with anti-trafficking groups internationally, told VICE World News that while anti-trafficking NGOs have the potential to do good work in developing countries, the desire for heroics often blinds even the most well-intentioned of them. “NGOs that are responsibly run have great potential and often provide very useful insights from grassroots levels that would be otherwise inaccessible to police,” the person, who asked for anonymity for reasons of both privacy and security, said. “Well-run NGOs work hand in glove with law enforcement agencies to help them understand emerging trends and identify people at risk. When it works well, it’s hugely positive.”The problem emerges, this person said, “when that’s not sexy enough,” and insist on things like “undercover extractions, black ops, etc.” Or else, they added, when they try to set themselves up as a surrogate for local police; organizations often argue that local police are corrupt or lack the capacity to do the work. “The answer is to do something about corruption and capacity, not to create your own parallel police force,” they should. “They should, by design, aim to make themselves unnecessary.”These organizations, experts noted, also operate in a difficult, liminal space in terms of international diplomacy. Lou deBaca—formerly Ambassador at Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons under President Obama and director of the Office for Sex Offender Monitoring Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking under both the Obama and Trump administrations, and currently a lecturer at Yale Law School and a senior fellow at the MacMillan Center—said that American NGOs are sometimes mistaken as being backed by the U.S. government. “Just because they’re Americans or American missionaries, does not mean they’re actually representing the U.S. and U.S. interests,” he told VICE World News. “That is a very tricky place where we end up finding Operation Underground Railroad.”“Much research has been published demonstrating how these types of rescues are severely undermining the agency of trafficked persons and disempowering the individuals the involved organizations are claiming to help.”
People who sincerely want to help trafficking survivors, deBaca added, should use the skills they already have. “If somebody is an accountant in their daily life, volunteer with the local anti-trafficking service provider who actually has clients who could really use financial literacy classes," he said. “There are so many ways in which we can become involved that end up assisting survivors on their journey and centering the story on them rather than on our commitment to or our revulsion for their situation.” DeBaca added, “I would hope that at some point the fever breaks on some of this and what’s left behind ends up being a commitment to working on behalf of trafficking victims.” In response to detailed requests for comment sent by VICE World News about the reporting in this story, OUR sent, in addition to its other responses, the following broad statement:“Just because they’re Americans or American missionaries, does not mean they’re actually representing the U.S. and U.S. interests.”
OUR's future seems, by all appearances, to be bright. Sound of Freedom, the film about the founding of OUR starring Jim Cavizel and Mira Sorvino as Tim Ballard and his wife Katherine, has been screened in theaters and awaits broad release. Celebrity backers like NFL players Corbin Kaufusi and Josh Allen enthusiastically promote OUR's work. And the public's continued fascination with QAnon and related conspiracy theories about pedophilia and child sex trafficking—from which OUR has publicly distanced itself—has led to huge interest in, and funding for, groups vowing to combat them. During the COVID-19 pandemic, OUR has continued to raise money on the back of its claims about international work. Its social media feeds are constantly alight with stories of its latest successes, and in a recent email blast, the group boasted that its operators “continue to work in the COVID-19 environment, as literal warriors in a global battle." Trafficking, it says, is “arguably far more devastating than any virus.”Operation Underground Railroad's (OUR) mission is to help rescue and protect victims of child sex trafficking and exploitation, bring their perpetrators to justice, provide survivors with life-saving aftercare services, and raise awareness of this worldwide scourge.
OUR strives to be a force multiplier, working closely with law enforcement globally to understand how to provide the needed tools and resources, within the confines of each country and agency structure, to safeguard children from harm and bring predators to justice while delivering optimal outcomes and tangible impact.
In carrying out this mission, OUR, has sought to comply with all laws that regulate non-profits since its inception in 2013. We have remained highly focused on our financial stewardship of donor funds and being transparent about OUR's use of the great financial support we receive from our donors. If asked, OUR will cooperate fully with any official inquiry into its operations.
We are proud to help play a part in giving better lives to children around the world. Keeping child predators away from our children is paramount and we will always support legal efforts to protect children.