Con Ink. (Part Two)

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We're at part two of our series of episodes entitled Con Inc. If you haven't heard part one, stop and go back and listen. from the beginning. We're looking for the answer to the question, what's the purpose of conservative media, by chronicling our long search for a story about human sex trafficking.

So to pick up where we left off, in 1885, London journalist W.

T. Steed was on a mission. He wanted to raise the age of consent for girls, which at the time was 13 years old. He came up with a plan. Steed thought he could produce an investigative report that would expose elites buying young girls as sex slaves.

He thought that the outrage over his investigation would pressure Parliament into finalizing a bill to raise the age of consent. To get his plan off the ground, Steed turned to the leaders of the Salvation Army. The Christian militant group had a stable of people that left the prostitution ring to find God. Steed heard their stories, and even went undercover himself. Through his investigation, he claimed to have uncovered the true story of a young girl named Lily, a 13-year-old virgin who was sold by her parents into sex slavery for a mere £5..

By the time he was finished with his research, Steed claimed to have found a world of unthinkable sexual behavior occurring right under the noses of the British people. He ultimately put pen to paper on what he found, and published a four-part expose entitled Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon. for the paper he edited, the Pall Mall Gazette. The articles were an instant sensation, sparking both righteous indignation and outrage over the pornographic nature of his articles. And his stories, even spread internationally, to places like France and the United States.

As a result, Steed's expose marked the introduction of sex trafficking to the world. People were astonished that white virgins like Lily were being sold into slavery.

But the massive success of his articles brought an unintended consequence.

You see, the expose became so popular that fourth- and fifth-hand copies began to make their way into the slums of central London, including a poor enclave of Marylebone, where 13-year-old Lily's family lived. W.T. Steed was hoping his articles would force Parliament to quickly act on the Age of Consent Bill, and that the government would be able to stop, but the unanticipated proliferation of his story led to the kind of scrutiny that threatened to derail his entire campaign.

Eliza was 13 years old, just like Lily. She had a drunken mother, just like Lily. And she'd went off with a woman right around the beginning of Derby Week, just like Lily. Word spread throughout the neighborhood that Eliza's mother, Mrs. Armstrong, had sold her daughter into prostitution.

When Mrs. Armstrong caught wind of this scandalous rumor, everything that had been troubling her over the past few weeks all started to make sense. You see, Mrs. Armstrong did not sell her child into sex slavery. She thought her daughter, Eliza, was going off to be a cleaning lady for a well-to-do suburban family.

Mrs. Armstrong had fallen victim to a sick plan that W.T. Steed put into motion a few weeks earlier. When Steed went out to investigate the London brothels, he didn't just want to interview people within that world to tell his story. He wanted to pull off an audacious stunt.

To heighten the salacious nature of its expose on sex trafficking, Steed decided that he himself would try to purchase a young girl as a sex slave, bring her to a brothel, and knock her out with a drug to prove that he could theoretically have his way with the child. Then he'd smuggle her out of the country to show how easy it was to take a sex slave abroad. Or perhaps he simply wanted to hide his dirty deed. Steed's plan was to then write up a story as if he'd only been a witnessing journalist to the crime. It was a diabolical scheme, and some would eventually question his true motives.

In case there was any blowback. later, Steed got the backing of the local clergy for his criminal plan. They astonishingly gave him their blessing. And then he hit the streets for his undercover investigation.

Steed led the life of a degenerate. He frequented brothels and cozied up with the madams. As he wrote to a friend,

Desperate for a juicier story than just rumors and anecdotes told by brothel dwellers, Steed again turned to the Salvation Army, who connected him with a former madam named Rebecca Jarrett. In her days at a House of Ville repute, Rebecca claimed to have sold innocent virgin children for as little as 10 pounds. Many believed that reformed brothel keepers like Rebecca often exaggerated their former escapades to amplify the miracle of their reform. But the narrative worked for Steed's mission, so he went with it. Steed asked Rebecca if she'd help him purchase a little girl.

In return, he promised she'd be forgiven by God for her past transgressions. Steed was persuasive. Rebecca agreed to the scheme, but instead of heading to a brothel like you'd expect, Rebecca made her way to the heart of London to see an old friend named Nancy Broughton.

Rebecca arrived at Nancy's doorstep around the beginning of Derby Week, again, a famous event of the time. Rebecca told Nancy that she'd married a wealthy man and needed a cleaning lady to help her with her suburban home. She hoped, for a finder's fee, Nancy could help her find a servant to hire.

A young lady sitting next to Nancy immediately offered her services, but Rebecca rejected the lady because she looked too old. She was 19.. An array of potential servants was presented to Rebecca, but one by one she rejected them all. That is, until a 13-year-old girl appeared, holding her baby brother. The girl's name was Eliza Armstrong.

When Rebecca first glanced at young Eliza, she gave Nancy a nod of approval. So, Nancy went in pursuit of the girl's mother, Mrs. Armstrong, to work out a deal for Eliza's cleaning services. Nancy eventually found Mrs. Armstrong and told her that a wealthy friend of hers was looking to hire her daughter to clean their six-room suburban home.

At first, Mrs. Armstrong was suspicious. Why doesn't your friend just hire someone closer to where she lives? Mrs. Armstrong asked Nancy.

Well, that's because she wanted to do a poor girl a favor by taking her to a place where she would be well cared for, responded Nancy. For Mrs. Armstrong, it was a timely offer. Her family of six kids lived in a tiny room in the slums. Her husband, Mr.

Armstrong, regularly beat her. Maybe this was an opportunity for her daughter that she shouldn't pass up. So, reluctantly, Mrs. Armstrong agreed that her daughter, Eliza, could take the job, but under a few conditions. First, her daughter had to write her at least once a week, and second, they'd be reunited in a month to see how things were going.

Nancy agreed to her terms and, without seeking the permission of her husband, Mrs. Armstrong allowed Eliza to take the job. Nancy escorted young Eliza to the former madam, Rebecca Jarrett, and that's when Eliza's nightmare began. Rebecca got word to W.T. Steed.

In other words, he wanted to ensure that Eliza was a virgin. While being examined by the midwife, young Eliza was terrified and tried to escape, but was unsuccessful. After the midwife confirmed that Eliza was a virgin, she sold the two kidnappers chloroform. The drug chloroform was used during childbirth to ease the pain of the mother. In Steed's case, they wanted to use it to put the girl to sleep.

to show that elites could do this. to have their way with a virgin girl. With the chloroform in hand, the two women took Eliza to a brothel frequented by the elites. An associate of Steed's had already arranged for two rooms at the brothel. The women slipped Eliza into one of the rooms.

While in the room, Rebecca attempted to administer chloroform to young Eliza to put her out, but Eliza refused to sniff the chloroform-soaked handkerchief. After multiple tries, Rebecca gave up and left Eliza. Once the room quieted down, Steed slithered in, where he found Eliza seated in terror. As Steed closed and locked the door behind him, Eliza let out a loud scream. There's a man in the room!

Take me home! Oh, take me home! Steed used her cry in his maiden tribute of modern Babylon expose.

By entering the brothel room where young Eliza was waiting, Steed believed he'd successfully simulated making a 13-year-old virgin his sex slave. He eventually left the room, and the women then took Eliza to a doctor. This time, the doctor successfully administered chloroform to Eliza and examined her to confirm that Steed had not actually sexually assaulted her. Eliza was then taken abroad, where she was put to work as a laundress in the south of France. When Steed published his expose, it immediately got the attention of Parliament.

His scheme to lower the age of consent appeared to be progressing without a hitch.

But then cracks began to form in his plan. You see, Nancy, the person that convinced Eliza's mother to let her daughter work as a servant, that Nancy didn't keep her end of the bargain. Eliza was supposed to send her mother letters every week, but they never came. Mrs. Armstrong went to Nancy asking how her daughter was doing, but instead of giving her letters from her daughter, Nancy showed Mrs.

Armstrong letters from the woman that procured her daughter's services. The letters claimed that Eliza was well, happy, and settling into her new job. Mrs. Armstrong was concerned that she wasn't hearing directly from her daughter, but when W.T. Steed's expose finally made its way into Mrs.

Armstrong's slum and her neighbors accused her of selling her daughter into prostitution, everything that had been troubling Mrs. Armstrong over the past few weeks all started to make sense. In a rage, Mrs. Armstrong went on the hunt for Nancy, and when she found her, all hell broke loose.

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My name is Michael Wolff, and I'm the host of Fire & Fury, the podcast. Not too long ago, I saw Donald Trump, and he shouted, Hey, Michael, I made you rich. And the truth is, my three books about Trump, they have sold a lot of copies. It all started eight years ago. I found myself in Donald Trump's Beverly Hills home, sharing Häagen-Dazs ice cream with him.

I asked him, why was he running for president? And he answered without missing a beat, because I want to be the most famous man in the world. Since then, I've become a go-to person when Trump and those around him want to talk. And now, every week, I'm going to share those insider stories with you. Listen to Fire & Fury, the podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Ben out of Haffrey, host of the history podcast, The Last Archive. And I want to tell you about a new series running in our feed. It's called The Deadline, and it features six essays written and read by Jill Lepore, the New Yorker writer, American historian, and founding host of our show. These are incredible essays on everything from the history of cryogenics to the Silicon Valley gospel of disruption. And at the end of each essay, I interviewed Jill about her craft as a writer and how she's thinking about the themes of these essays.

now. We talk Frankenstein, we talk writing leads, we talk Barbie, we talk Dr. Who. This is a crazy origin story. I don't think I've ever told this before.

I really loved having these conversations with Jill, and it was a rare chance to talk to her about how she goes about reading, writing, and the work of history. You can listen to The Deadline on The Last Archive feed, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Jacob Goldstein. I used to host a show called Planet Money. Now I'm starting a new show. It's called What's Your Problem? Every week on What's Your Problem, entrepreneurs and engineers describe the future they're going to build.

once they solve a few problems. How do you build a drone delivery business from scratch? Our customers, they want us to do this unbelievably reliably, in the storms, no matter what, hundreds of times a day. How do you turn a wild dream about a new kind of biology into a $10 billion company? We didn't have a particular technology.

We didn't have a way of making money. It was a great way to start a company. I highly recommend it. What could go wrong? How do you sell millions of dollars worth of dog ramps for wiener dogs in the middle of a pandemic?

We're working with 400 influencers,

And we're the hosts of The Bright Side, the daily podcast from Hello Sunshine that's guaranteed to light up your day. Every weekday, we bring you conversations with the culture makers who inspire us. Like our recent episode with comedians, writers, and partners in life, Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allen. I felt like I discovered my sexuality late. I now look back and go, God, I wasn't that old.

And I think people carry a lot of shame and guilt for not having figured things out, and then they feel like it's too late to start or try or change things. And we both, I think, were really drawn to just that idea of going, you know what? You can do whatever you want, whenever, and your life will be forever greater for having done it. Listen to The Bright Side from Hello Sunshine on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

In a rage, Mrs. Armstrong went on the hunt for the woman that connected her daughter with the job, Nancy Broughton. A public fight broke out between the two women. Mrs. Armstrong demanded to know the whereabouts of her daughter as a crowd of rowdy onlookers cheered on the fight.

Unsatisfied by Nancy's responses, Mrs. Armstrong turned to law enforcement to report the kidnapping of her daughter.

The magistrate rapidly started an investigation, and in no time, they concluded that W.

T. Steed had likely fabricated his story about Lily. The Palm Mall Gazette editor did not uncover an underground child sex slave ring. He'd staged the whole affair to further his own agenda. A competitor publication called Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper caught wind of the building scandal.

Remember those letters that Nancy read to Mrs. Armstrong, claiming that her daughter was happy and settling into her new job? Well, a reporter from Lloyd's took Mrs. Armstrong to the address listed on those letters. And when they got there, they could see that the home was empty.

The Lloyd's reporter sensed something was off and ran a story in their newspaper entitled A Mother Seeking a Lost Child, subtly referencing the characters in Steed's expose. People began to get suspicious. A new scandal was brewing. An inspector from Scotland Yard then took Mrs. Armstrong to see Bramwell Booth, the Salvation Army's chief of staff.

Scotland Yard suspected that it was Bramwell that orchestrated the abduction of Eliza. Mrs. Armstrong begged Bramwell to return her daughter. During her plea, Bramwell learned that Mrs. Armstrong was a poor woman, so he attempted to bribe her.

Bramwell offered Mrs. Armstrong double her daughter Eliza's wages if she just dropped the entire matter.

He advised Mrs. Armstrong to go and speak to her husband before responding to his offer. But Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong would turn him down, issuing a letter in response stating that they found it impossible that you could send a.

The public outcry over what Steed supposedly uncovered was too much for the government officials to resist. The House of Lords immediately passed the bill. Shortly after, it was sent to the Queen for ratification. A source told Steed that the Queen had been reading his expose every night, and she sympathized with his cause. The Queen quickly gave her royal approval.

The Criminal Law Amendment Bill, raising the age of consent from 13 to 16 years of age, became law. Both Steed's supporters and detractors would ultimately call it the Steed Act.

Shortly after its passage, Steed went on a crusade to argue for a purer moral life. He gave a speech to a crowded auditorium, but some discerning Londoners were on to W.T. Steed's scam. They began chanting, Armstrong! Armstrong!

in reference to the young Eliza Armstrong he'd kidnapped. And that's when Steed admitted for the first time publicly that the Lily story was staged.

As Steed combed the sea of people in the crowd, he noticed a group of young girls perched on a platform holding up a banner that read, Must the innocent be slaughtered? Steed's fabricated story had struck a chord. Steed proclaimed to the crowd, If you are not stirred to action, then you are.

Armstrong, and gave her a note along with some money, in hopes that it would keep the poor mother quiet.

The note said that she could visit her daughter the following day at W.

T. Steed's home, but visit only. Steed wouldn't be present, but the editor instructed his wife that under no circumstances was Eliza to leave with her mother. But Steed's wife ignored her husband. Mrs.

Armstrong arrived at W.

T. Steed's home, and her and Eliza were tearfully reunited. Eliza went home with her mother. The thirteen-year-old's nightmare was over, but W.T. Steed's was just.

Publicly, he welcomed the trial, believing that it would expose what he referred to as the brothel lobby that he claimed was behind his prosecution. But privately, he was concerned, and his concern was warranted. Under pressure of the prosecution, the former, madam, Rebecca Jarrett, caved, confessing that the purchase of Eliza Armstrong did not exactly happen as it appeared in Steed's expose. Steed would ultimately have to admit that his investigation did not uncover the shocking child sex slavery ring he'd written about, so he had to take matters into his own hands to ensure passage of the Criminal Law Amendment Bill.

Steed. He fabricated it. He was the one who actually kidnapped her, who chloroformed her, who had a doctor perform an examination to.

And perhaps most shockingly, some believe there was another side to this whole affair. The Pall Mall Gazette was thought to be in financial trouble. The expose reversed its fortunes by drastically increasing its circulation. But, more importantly, according to W. Sidney Robinson, author of Muckraker, The Scandalous Life and Times of W.T.

Steed, some of Steed's friends believe that Steed had indulged at one time in the very crimes that he'd been working to expose.

In the end, Steed would be found guilty of kidnapping, drugging, and physically assaulting Eliza Armstrong. But he would only be sentenced to three months in jail.

Apparently, the judge was sympathetic to Steed's cause.

T. Steed was actually sent to prison, but it didn't really matter. He went on to have a career.

It was a false.

It still ended up changing the age of consent laws, both in England and, you know, not too long thereafter here in the United States as well. The first law here in the United States to combat sex trafficking was in 1910.. It was called the White Slave Traffic Act, or the Man Act. And so sex trafficking was also discussed and conceptualized in terms of quote-unquote white slavery. So, as you can imagine, it was very racialized.

And I don't think it was a coincidence that this wasn't not too long after the end of chattel slavery, where the media was sort of shifting attention to say, oh, well, white people can be slaves too. White people are being sex slaves. And can you guess who they pointed the finger? at most of the time? People of color.

Non-white people, were being accused of being.

One of the first notable cases of sex trafficking here in the United States was the heavyweight boxer Jack Johnson, who had a white wife and was charged with sex trafficking because of that and convicted. Trump posthumously pardoned him 100 years later.

more than a century ago. Johnson served 10 months in federal prison for what many view as a racially motivated injustice. He was treated very rough, very tough. Born in 1878 in Galveston, Texas to former slaves, Johnson overcame difficult circumstances. I believe that Jack Johnson is a very worthy person to receive a full pardon.

And because it was such an evocative topic that it.

We talk Frankenstein, we talk writing leads, we talk Barbie, we talk Doctor Who. This is a crazy origin story. I don't think I've ever told this before. I really loved having these conversations with Jill, and it was a rare chance to talk to her about how she goes about reading, writing, and the work of history. You can listen to The Deadline on The Last Archive feed, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, everyone. It's me, Katie Couric. If you follow me on social media, you know I love to cook, or at least try, especially alongside some of my favorite chefs and foodies like Benny Blanco, Jake Cohen, Leidy Hoyt, Alison Roman, and, of course, Ina Garten and Martha Stewart. So I started a free newsletter called Good Taste that comes out every Thursday, and it's serving up recipes that will make your mouth water. Think a candied bacon, Bloody Mary, tacos with cabbage slaw, curry, cauliflower with almonds and mint, and cherry slab pie with vanilla ice cream.

to top it all off. I mean, yum. I'm getting hungry. But if you're not sold yet, we also have kitchen tips like a foolproof way to grill the perfect burger and must-have products like the best cast iron skillet. to feel like a chef in your own kitchen.

All you need to do is sign up at katiecouric.

com Good Taste. I promise your taste buds will be happy you did. My name is Michael Wolff, and I'm the host of Fire and Fury, the podcast. Not too long ago, I saw Donald Trump, and he shouted, Hey, Michael, I made you rich. And the truth is, my three books about Trump, they have sold a lot of copies.

It all started eight years ago. I found myself in Donald Trump's Beverly Hills home, sharing Häagen-Dazs ice cream with him. I asked him, why was he running for president? And he answered, without missing a beat, because I want to be the most famous man in the world. Since then, I've become a go-to person when Trump and those around him want to talk.

And now, every week, I'm going to share those insider stories with you. Listen to Fire and Fury, the podcast on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jacob Goldstein. I used to host a show called Planet Money. Now I'm starting a new show.

It's called What's Your Problem? Every week on What's Your Problem, entrepreneurs and engineers describe the future they're going to build once they solve a few problems. How do you build a drone delivery business from scratch? Our customers, they want us to do this unbelievably reliably in the storms, no matter what, hundreds of times a day. How do you turn a wild dream about a new kind of biology into a $10 billion company?

We didn't have a particular technology. We didn't have a way of making money. It was a great way to start a company. I highly recommend it. How do you sell millions of dollars worth of dog ramps for wiener dogs in the middle of a pandemic?

And we're the hosts of The Bright Side, the daily podcast from Hello Sunshine that's guaranteed to light up your day. Every weekday, we bring you conversations with the culture makers who inspire us. Like our recent episode with comedians, writers, and partners in life, Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allen. I felt like I discovered my sexuality late. I now look back and go, God, I wasn't that old.

And I think people carry a lot of shame and guilt for not having figured things out, and then they feel like it's too late to start or try or change things. And we both, I think, were really drawn to just that idea of going, you know what? You can do whatever you want, whenever, and your life will be forever greater for having done it. Listen to The Bright Side from Hello Sunshine on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome back to Red Pilled America. So for 100 years after W.T. Steed's 1885 exposé, the concept of human sex trafficking was often weaponized to serve secondary agendas. But it wasn't until the late 1990s that a documentary introduced the phrase sex trafficking to modern America. And again, children were used to introduce the concept.

At this moment, thousands of men are cruising for prostitutes. Often they are looking for children who are more easily available in poor countries such as Nepal and India. The Selling of Innocence was a documentary by Indian feminist activist Ruchira Gupta that claimed to expose the child sex trade in Nepal and Mumbai, India. The internet has become a tool for accessing detailed information of specific cities, special districts, even city streets, where underage prostitutes can be found. The film was broadcast on the HBO Cinemax network in 1996 and introduced an unfamiliar term to Americans.

These children are valued commodities in the sex traffic industry. This is their story. Each night, more than 200,000 local men crowd into an area of about six blocks where more than 20,000 prostitutes live and work. Half the girls here come from Nepal. There's a huge demand for their golden skin and oriental features.

Even more desirable are the hundreds of children, some as young as nine. Perhaps most shocking to Americans at the time was that those forced into the sex trafficking industry were held as slaves. The girls here have been cheated, kidnapped, beaten and sold into bondage. They are modern day sex slaves. The documentary was a jarring introduction of an unfamiliar phrase to modern America.

Within just a few years, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 made human trafficking a federal crime. The purported goal of the TVPA, as it would come to be known, was to stop human trafficking overseas, protect the victims of human trafficking by giving them the opportunity to rebuild their lives in the United States and to prosecute human traffickers federally. The act also helped define the term human trafficking. It was reauthorized in 2003 and provided certified trafficking victims federally funded benefits and services. By 2004,, the filmmaker of The Selling of Innocence, Ruchira Gupta, caught the eye of feminist icon Gloria Steinem, and the two would begin working together to raise awareness on the issue in the United States and globally.

Human sex trafficking got another spotlight in 2010 when journalists from CNN discovered popular classifieds website Craigslist was being used for prostitution.

Okay, what's your name?

But so what is that now? We've had 15 calls and the ad's only been up for three hours. 15 calls in three hours.

So can people trust that children are not being sex trafficked on Craigslist? I think we explained that pretty thoroughly in our blog. You guys say in the blog that you'll remove any ad that looks like the person might be suggesting they're going to offer sex. Look at this ad. It says young, sexy, sweet and bubbly.

Clearly here. she writes $2.50 an hour. I mean, what do you think? she's selling in her bra and underwear? A dinner date?

And she's in her bra and underwear. What are you guys doing? Why do I have the responsibility to report this to you when it's your website? You're the one posting this online.

This is a human tragedy, a national tragedy. Up to 300,000 children in our country are enslaved sexually. Houston, we have a problem. It's not just in Houston. It's in Atlanta.

It's in San Francisco. It's in Oakland. It's in New York. It is across this country, and we are not addressing the issue.

With the removal of adult services, like the manual review, what has happened is that the ads have migrated to other sites. The evidence of that is clear. Craigslist fears that its utility to help combat child exploitation has been grossly diminished. However, we remain willing and able to work with the committee to do whatever we can to continue to fight this absolutely horrific problem.

C. It was getting overwhelmingly bipartisan support. But according to Dr. Orozco, much of the support was symbolic and didn't get to the core of the problem.

. It's better to find what are the root causes? How do we address this in an empirically effective way? For over 100 years, we've just been symbolically using this law and weaponizing the media attention around sex trafficking to pass policies that really aren't helping anybody and that are very costly.

As mentioned earlier, we interviewed Yaku in August 2019.

. We'd eventually shelved the story. The lack of detail, ability to corroborate, and a few other red flags made it so that the story just wasn't meeting our standards for broadcast. But we would eventually revisit our interview with Yaku to see if anything had changed. that would make us rethink our decision.

And I'll never forget, Nick, I don't talk about this often, but I was driving in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and I stopped at a red light, downtown Chattanooga. They got a place called Lookout Mountain, right? And I saw a scene across the street at a 7-Eleven gas station. And the scene I saw, I was like, well, that's what my sister told me they would do to her. And so I witnessed for the first time in the U.S., around 2003,, 2004,, this scene.

that was a human trafficking scene. I was like, wait a minute, no way. Yaku claimed to have seen child sex trafficking here in the United States for the first time in Chattanooga, Tennessee, at a 7-Eleven gas station. But when he told us the story roughly three and a half years earlier, he claimed it happened in Nashville, Tennessee, at a Greyhound bus station. But I started seeing signs in Nashville of children being trafficked.

And the first time I saw a child being trafficked, that I knew that child's being trafficked, is at the Greyhound bus station in Nashville, Tennessee. It might sound small, but this was a crucial part of Yaku's origin story. It's what supposedly introduced him to the fact that child sex trafficking was not just a problem that happened in far-off lands. It was happening in his adopted home of the United States. Yet what he told us was critically different than what he'd told another media outlet.

And this wasn't the only discrepancy. Remember when we asked Yaku for more detail about how his sister, Ilanka, was rescued from her sex trafficking situation? This is what he told us in August 2019.. So there was a nest in this record label. So this particular detective started being a detective, did work, would come to?

the family, sat at home with us, report back. We haven't found her yet, but I'm getting close. I am getting information. And then there was a physical, call it a raid, right? An intervention moment where there was a rescue.

Dramatic. Anything you can imagine, that you can see in your mind. And we depict a rescue in the movie Eight Days. He went off on a tangent about a dramatic rescue scene in his movie Eight Days. that was apparently similar to his sister's rescue.

Then he came back to the question. To your question, Ilanka's was a rescue like that, where there was a physical get in and get her out scenario. But when compared to the story his sister told in an interview published in March 2023, the two didn't match up.

The discrepancy was clear, and there were other problems with Yaku's story, but I think you get the picture. Maybe there's a good answer for these discrepancies. Maybe his memory was clouded, or maybe it's something else. It's hard to tell. But one thing is certain.

Yaku has been riding the wave of interest in human sex trafficking for roughly a decade. It's an issue he still champions and monetizes to this day. And yet he's been able to achieve his prominent standing within conservative media. On some pretty foggy details and unverifiable events. Looking back today, in hindsight, a pattern emerged.

Yaku's story, and Rachel's alleged sex slave ordeal, and W.

T. Steed's child sex slave hoax, and all of the weaponizing of the issue that occurred after Steed's expose, they all signal something about the topic of human sex trafficking. And that signal is, proceed with caution.

Interviewers often don't probe too deeply on the alleged victim's story, perhaps for fear of seeming unsympathetic, or maybe they don't want to anger their audience. Or maybe there's just an alternate agenda at play. We were slowly beginning to sense that this was a topic we needed to enter with caution, because it appeared conservative media wasn't acting as the vetting mechanism we'd expected. Human sex trafficking stories appeared to be popular within conservative and Christian circles because it fed a narrative. A narrative driven by cases like Jeffrey Epstein, who was arrested for federal sex trafficking charges, and had close ties to liberal elites like Bill Clinton.

But once we started researching that story, we learned that conservative media had a real problem brewing.

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