By Saleem Rana
4-30- 12 Interview by Lon Woodbury
Allen Cardoza was a guest on Lon Woodbury’s Internet Radio Talk Show called “Parent Choices for Struggling Teen,” where he spoke about his career helping families in crisis as a private detective.
At the ripe age of 19, Allen got his first job working for a Private Investigator named Walt Zwonitzer. Even though Allen was of legal age, he looked no older than 16. So Walt assigned him to work on cases involving troubled teenagers. His memorable words were, “You look like those snot-nosed kids, so I’m going to send you to find them.”
It was during this time, working on the case of a missing girl, that the young apprentice learned about the horrors of human trafficking. After that experience, he put his focus on recovering, returning, and rescuing victims of human trafficking.
Human Trafficking
According to Allen, many drug traffickers have shifted their focus to human trafficking because is attracts less attention from law enforcement. In addition, they also find it highly profitable. “I can sell a gram of cocaine once,” said one trafficker,” but I can sell a woman over and over again.”
Internationally, human trafficking was even worse, with impoverished parents either selling their children or being duped by human traffickers about their children being given a better life in the big cities.
Allen went into great detail of how these organizations are run, what happens to children who stay in the criminal syndication, and how they are being used to commit a wide variety of crimes. Fortunately, when these children are caught, law enforcement is better trained to identify them as victims and not independent criminals.
He said that although 29 million people worldwide are caught up in the web of human trafficking, 1.25 million people are victims of it in the United States. Although there was initially a lot of denial in society about human trafficking in America, there are now independent human traffic task forces working to fight this crime against humanity.
He also described his transportation work with teenagers, the risks of doing parental abduction work, and future trends. He also professed that he did the work because he felt that it was his calling in life and that he was always deeply touched by family reunions after a child had been returned safely home.
