ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Tomas Lares will tell you: human trafficking in the state of Florida is happening right under investigators’ noses.
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“The jail, the prisons here in Florida, they like to target them,” Lares said.
Lares, an advocate in the fight to stop trafficking, said there are recruiters inside the jail working for those those traffickers.
“They tell the trafficker there’s (somebody) in the jail, (they) should maybe send her some money,” Lares said. “Maybe a phone call and maybe bond her out, so that’s their recruiting.”
On Friday, the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation announced Joselito Martineza and Tanya Wurster were caught trafficking three females between 2019 and 2021 in Central Florida.
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The MBI said both would take photos of the victims and advertise them on the internet and commercial sex sites. In total, the two raked in $300,000 in a two-year period.
Investigators said Martinez would control the victims by using narcotics, threats of violence and humiliating acts like shaving their heads, and even branded two of the victims as his property with tattoos.
Investigators said they’re not ruling out there could be more victims, and that the couple was constantly looking for new victims.
READ: ‘Help Me’: Kidnapped girl from Texas rescued in California after writing note to passerby
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