Undercover Cop: 'Predators Can Reach Any Kid' - Here's How to Stop Them | Ep 084

🚨 Officer Heidi Chance spent decades going undercover to catch predators targeting children. Her urgent message: NO family is immune, but EVERY family can be protected with the right knowledge. Officer Heidi Chance served 25 years in law enforcement specializing in undercover operations to catch predators and traffickers. She's testified as an expert witness in court and now trains law enforcement agencies, schools, and community organizations on how to recognize and stop these crimes. Her cases have resulted in major convictions, including one trafficker sentenced to 493.5 years in prison.

THE SHOCKING REALITY:
💔 Predators have moved from street corners to smartphones
💔 They can reach kids in their bedrooms through apps you use daily
💔 50% of victims are under 16 years old
💔 Average age of targeting dropped from 15 to 13 in recent years
💔 It's happening to kids from EVERY background - "good families" included

HERE'S HOW TO STOP THEM:
✅ The exact conversations every family must have (and when to start them)
✅ Warning signs that could save a child you love
✅ How predators actually operate on social media (real tactics exposed)
✅ Why traditional "stranger danger" advice is now useless
✅ Specific protection strategies that actually work
✅ Red flags every aunt, uncle, parent, and sibling should recognize

CRITICAL MOMENTS:
05:34 - The age statistics that prove any kid is at risk
19:25 - How predators slide into kids' DMs (actual tactics revealed)
26:20 - The conversations that protect children (exact words to use)
29:01 - Why you must start these talks by age 7-8
31:00 - The mental toll of fighting predators for decades
39:02 - Warning signs that could save someone you love

THE TRUTH: Officer Chance has worked cases involving kids from every background. The 13-year-old whose grandmother was tricked into letting her live with her predator uncle. The corrections officer's daughter. The honor student from the suburbs. Predators don't discriminate - but families can fight back.

FEATURED: 3-year Frontline PBS documentary following Heidi's undercover operations

⚠️ Important: This episode discusses mature themes but provides crucial information every family needs.

Why this could save a life: Whether you're a parent, aunt, uncle, older sibling, or just someone who cares about young people - these protection strategies work. Don't wait until it's too late.
SHARE THIS with every family member who needs to see it. The predators are organized - families need to be too.

🗣️  Connect with Heidi Chance:
💻  Website: https://chanceconsultingleo.com/
📕  Book: 'Talk to Them' : https://www.amazon.com/Talk-Them-Navigating-Difficult-Conversations/dp/B0D37K9NRR
💻  Email: chanceconsultingleollc@gmail.com

#PredatorAwareness #FamilyProtection #OnlineSafety #ChildSafety #ParentingTips #familysafety 

CHAPTERS
00:00 - Episode Introduction: A Message Every Family Needs
03:48 - Meet Heidi Chance: 30 Years Protecting Families
05:34 - Statistics That Will Change How You See Risk
07:38 - From School Officer to Family Protector
12:09 - How the Threat Evolved with Technology
19:25 - How Predators Target Kids on Social Media
26:20 - The Family Conversations That Save Lives
29:01 - Protecting Kids from Age 7 and Up
31:00 - The Personal Cost of This Work
35:57 - System Failures That Put Families at Risk
39:02 - Warning Signs Every Family Should Know
41:22 - Resources and Action Steps for Families
42:32 - Why Every Family Member Needs This Information

📲 Connect with Our Hosts:
Stacey: https://www.instagram.com/staceymgrant/
Mark: https://www.instagram.com/mark_lubragge_onair/

⭐️ Watch/Subscribe to Gurus and

Transcript

00:00 - Mark (Host)
That was depressing. 

00:03 - Stacey (Host)
But see, no, I don't think it's depressing. I mean, the actual thing that we talked about is depressing, but not Heidi. No she's like Because Heidi is trying to make a change. But even after all these years I would feel like I'd be so burned out. So Heidi Chance is a police officer. Police officer. 

00:23 - Mark (Host)
She was undercover forever in this sex trafficking crimes unit. 

00:27 - Stacey (Host)
She still is undercover. Oh, she's still doing it, yeah. 

00:32 - Mark (Host)
Really to help. What we used to call prostitutes are now looked at as victims, as they are, because so many of them down to what age? 

00:40 - Stacey (Host)
11. She said 11?, 10 or 11. 

00:42 - Mark (Host)
She is seen being trafficked 10 or 11. And we go through how or 11. 

00:44 - Stacey (Host)
She is seen being trafficked, 10 or 11. And we go through how that happens? 

00:47 - Mark (Host)
because it happens on social. That happens on the internet. You don't have to just meet them anymore. They're in your daughter's bedroom. They're in your daughter's. 

00:57 - Stacey (Host)
DMs. I just want people to understand that this can happen to your daughter. 

01:02 - Mark (Host)
Yeah. 

01:02 - Stacey (Host)
This can happen to your daughter. Yeah, this can happen to your son. There's a story about a boy who was catfished and, in a sense, trafficked, and I mean this can happen. This is not something that's way out there. This is dark, but you need to listen to this because you need to be able to talk to your kids about this at a very young age and let them know what they should not be doing online. Right, right. 

01:25 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, because there aren't any red flags. 

01:28 - Stacey (Host)
No, it's not like the creepy white man anymore. Right, that pulls up and you know, let me show you my puppies. 

01:32 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
Or come get some candy. 

01:33 - Stacey (Host)
It's not that it's in your house, it's on your phone. 

01:37 - Mark (Host)
Same things that your kid wants to hear. And the next thing you know they. And the next thing you know they're in the life. 

01:42 - Stacey (Host)
So they have a fight with their mom or their dad. 

01:44 - Mark (Host)
Yeah. 

01:44 - Stacey (Host)
And they get online and they talk to their TikTok their. Snapchat, wherever it is, about how pissed off they are at their parents. A trafficker sees it. They have a public profile and starts talking to them like. 

01:59 - Mark (Host)
Saying everything they want to hear, everything they need to hear. 

02:01 - Stacey (Host)
You're mad at your parents. Why are you mad at your parents? They don't appreciate you. They're so smart. They get in there and we have to understand what to say to our kids and what, how we can avoid this and the signs. And this is like an important episode, mark, good job getting Heidi on the show. She's great. 

02:24 - Mark (Host)
She certainly knows her stuff after almost 30 years as a police officer and undercover in this unit. We talk about everything. We talk about the crime, we talk about the punishment, we talk about the victims, we talk about the perpetrators. There's a lot to learn here, but it's like a fascinating thing. 

02:39 - Stacey (Host)
There's a documentary on it on Frontline on PBS that both Mark and I watched. That I still am thinking about now and I would highly recommend for you to watch that documentary as well. 

02:47 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, they followed Heidi's police unit for two and a half years, three, three years and just filmed them undercover and we talk about all the stuff they do undercover and how it all plays out. 

02:57 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
It's a good episode. 

02:57 - Mark (Host)
You're going to enjoy it. Heidi was amazing. Heidi was amazing. 

03:01 - Stacey (Host)
Enjoy. Enjoy, is that the right word. Learn from. 

03:05 - Mark (Host)
Learn from and maybe not sleep tonight In an entertaining way. Yeah, it's not school. 

03:11 - Stacey (Host)
Sorry, I keep interrupting. 

03:13 - Mark (Host)
You keep trying to end it, heidi Chance, I keep trying to end it. Let me try again. Learn from, but don't enjoy. No. 

03:17 - Stacey (Host)
And definitely enjoy. Well, is it enjoy? We need the right word here. 

03:24 - Mark (Host)
Learn from. 

03:25 - Stacey (Host)
Digest. 

03:26 - Mark (Host)
There you go, digest and learn from Hide a chance. Hi, I'm Stacey and I am Mark, and this is the Gurus and Game Changers podcast. Today's show is darker than normal because it covers a really important topic that few people talk about. 

03:48 - Stacey (Host)
Think about, yeah, human trafficking, sex trafficking, specifically in the united states we have heidi chance on the show today and she is kind of incredible right, yeah, so she three decades right she's been a police officer and now she has written a book and she actually with her unit went undercover on frontline on pbs back in the day, going undercover meant standing on a corner in dressed, a certain way and coming up to cars and trying to get the. 

04:15 - Mark (Host)
Now it's, you're online, you're texting. 

04:18 - Stacey (Host)
You're on social media. 

04:19 - Mark (Host)
They're on facebook in their car talking to potential traffickers, and johns and yeah, and the johns and traffickers are talking potentially to the kids, you know yeah, that's the thing, and that's her message. She wrote a book called talk to them, which means talk to your kids. Right, you might be shocked. It's not happening only on tv. It's important conversation there's gonna be a lot here it's gonna be a lot right heidi, welcome to the show. We are so happy to have you. 

04:42 - Stacey (Host)
Thanks for joining us when you think about it. Drugs are one time, but humans can be trafficked over and over and over again. How does this economic reality shape the brutality of how the traffickers operate? 

04:54 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
Well, I think that people need to wrap their head around the idea that this really isn't about the sex. It's about the money, and traffickers see their victims as a commodity that can be used up and thrown away and a new one can replace them, and so thinking about human beings that way is what we need the public to understand about part of the dynamics of traffickers and how they treat victims and what they go through. 

05:25 - Stacey (Host)
Mm-hmm. 

05:26 - Mark (Host)
Well, what's the average age of a woman or a girl who is trafficked, who's recruited online and trafficked? 

05:34 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
Accumulation of research has determined that 50% of trafficked women are under the age of 16. 

05:42 - Mark (Host)
50%. Yeah so you add in 16-year-olds, year olds and 17 year olds. More than half are minors. 

05:49 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
It sounds as though that's the reality. 

05:51 - Stacey (Host)
Wow, wow, that's terrifying. I want to get into all this stuff in your book, but I also want to kind of find out your story and how you got into this. I know you were a police officer and I know you went undercover, obviously. I know you were a police officer and I know you went undercover, obviously. How did? 

06:08 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
you get into this specific channel? Yeah, so when I first started in law enforcement, I was assigned an area of West Phoenix called Maryville Precinct and I decided after a few years to have a family, and so being a female pregnant as a police officer is always a challenge. I decided to go be a school resource officer for the schedule of weekends, off and evenings and normalcy during the first few years of my child's life, and so in doing that I blinked and six years went by. 

06:39 - Mark (Host)
Wow. 

06:47 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
And one day, I remember, towards the end of being an officer at the school, I went into the police station and I went past an area of the police station called the juvenile holding area and there was a girl in there that I saw through the little window that I recognized as a student from when she was at the school that I worked at and I kind of peeked my head in and I opened the door and I said, hey, what are you in trouble for? And that's when she told me she was under arrest for prostitution. Obviously I knew prostitution was a crime. I just had no idea that kids were getting involved in it. I began to do temporary assignments and any undercover opportunity where, you know the unit at the time was called the vice unit and they would borrow female officers from patrol to have some fresh faces out there on the streets to pose as prostitutes. So I started doing that and I fell in love with, you know, the idea of using undercover work to pursue bad guys. 

07:38 - Stacey (Host)
What was that? Like being on the street corners and pretending to be a prostitute. I mean, that's got to be wild and pretending to be a prostitute. 

07:47 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
I mean that's gotta be wild. Yeah, I mean it was definitely where, looking back, I was in situations that I was not trained for. Um, I was kind of thrown into it after like a you know half hour discussion of hey, this is what we're doing tonight, what? Oh yeah, and so that's where my mission now is, with my female undercover school and actually giving training to female officers, because there's, you know and this is back sometimes engaging with these buyers in hotel rooms. 

08:28
Some of them would be armed, some of them would be high or drunk. I saw very, very huge needs for training, and that's what I try to do now. 

08:37 - Mark (Host)
Wow, Hold on. You weren't alone in the room. When you got to the room, it was a team of it. Was your team there to help arrest? 

08:44 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
this person right In the other room down the hall Got it, I got it. 

08:50
Yeah, so I think I didn't think anything of it for many years while doing it. But when I went to a female conference with some other female officers and it was an undercover school kind of an undercover school not specific to females but one girl that we met attending the conference described a situation where she literally opened the door for the buyer in the hotel room, got punched in the face, knocked out and there was silence. So the arrest team in the other room listening had no idea and this, this buyer was taking her clothes off oh, my, my. 

09:24
God. So she ended up having to have like jaw surgery and all kinds of things and, um, you know it's. It's one of those things where it really needs to be trained on, like how much time are we going to let go by here, guys? Well, you don't hear anything, and um, let's, let's, put cameras in all areas of this hotel room, not just the bedroom area. 

09:44 - Stacey (Host)
I would just be so scared I would be standing out there and you have to be a good actor, right? I mean you have to like, not every police officer could be that great of an actor, but you pretend and then you call the John in and then you have to. You know they have to exchange money right in order for it to be an offense. Is that right or no? 

10:07 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
Well, to your first question, it's a fine line between this is totally going to happen and don't touch me Right, that's where you have to. You know, and there's no training. I learned that on the job as well. As far as the, you know how to set them at ease as well as be officer safety conscious, but as far as the the way that this goes down, obviously I'm not going to share secrets or no, no, no secrets. 

10:36
It is an offer or an agreement. It doesn't have to be like there's this myth out there that if you don't accept the money, then nothing happens for realsies. But yes, it's the offer or agreement. So even if you and I've arrested people who he didn't even have money in his wallet to pay me, which makes me wonder what was your intention? 

10:53 - Mark (Host)
Right money was done Right or when you were done, it's a real victim out there. 

10:58 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
What was your intention? 

11:00 - Mark (Host)
So it's how much for X 20 bucks deal? He just broke the law. 

11:06 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
It's the offer agreement, so prostitution is defined as a sex act in exchange for compensation. So it doesn't even have to be money. It could be by my hotel room. It could be offer of drugs. I've been offered two tacos from Filiberto's before for a blowjob. It could be any form of compensation and exchange for the sex act. 

11:26 - Stacey (Host)
I wonder if someone would take two tacos for a BJ. 

11:30 - Mark (Host)
How good are those tacos? They're big tacos. Sorry, we're allowed to laugh. 

11:35 - Stacey (Host)
I mean this is a very serious topic, but tacos I mean come on, dude. 

11:40 - Mark (Host)
So let me ask Garth this how do you follow? Follow that, so your primary directive was get the people who are out looking for prostitutes and arrest. Right, that was your. But when you were undercover, that was. But in the course of that, you were meeting women who were forced into prostitution because they were kidnapped. They were, um, they were being human traff. They weren't out there by their own volition. You were meeting kids. You were meeting kids. 

12:09 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
Yeah, so I actually witnessed the evolution of law enforcement's change in response to this problem, Initially when I started doing that undercover temporary assignments and even when I first got assigned to the unit those units it was called the vice unit back then and it was restricted to one female officer position to each squad because the focus was at that time to arrest prostitutes all day long. And then we had an incident involving a juvenile that was held in a dog crate and I don't know if this was actually national attention to this story and the girl and her mother were on Dr Phil and basically she was a runaway juvenile. It was a male and female trafficking couple, 18 and 19 year old, that had held her up in their apartment and law enforcement went looking for her multiple times and she was. When they were in the room looking for her, she was held in like this water bed you know how it's raised up like she was locked under the mattress of the water bed. 

13:11
Oh, my god and then on the third time, they noticed something or heard a noise and they were, you know, discovered her, because the mom was adamant, she was at this apartment and, and you know, she literally was trafficked out of that apartment where men would come have sex with her. 

13:27
There the focus changed and it evolved into hey, let's go after, like, some of these women might actually be victims and not just prostitutes committing a crime. They might be victims. And so we need to change the way we do business and pursue the real bad guys, which, in this, it is a business, it's supply and it's demand. The supply is the traffickers supplying the victims and the demand of the buyers purchasing people for sex. The only way to do that is if you have victims coming forward, which is very difficult and I can talk more about that in a little bit, but you have to use female undercovers to pursue traffickers and buyers. And so now I'm happy to say that this evolution has really shifted and these squads are female officers outweighing the male detectives on these squads, because we're pursuing a new target which is the appropriate one. 

14:20 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, and. 

14:21 - Stacey (Host)
I was kind of surprised by how many female officers in the in the front line of the front episode had a room full of female officers and everyone is. They are just so smart. Like how did that come about? 

14:32 - Mark (Host)
like I watched it, I was riveted a special frontline report on a police unit in phoenix we just learned that our arrest team is that tries to recover women and girls. I was out there for almost four years. 

14:50 - Stacey (Host)
You ladies were all so brilliant. And then there was this one scene in the front line where you're sitting in a room and all of you are talking to either you know traffickers or John, somebody's husband would call in the middle and you'd like I'll pick up the kid at three yeah. 

15:05 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
So we were approached and obviously initially law enforcement's like, uh no, we don't want cameras, especially when we're talking about undercover operations. But the um directors, they were um wonderful and they're actually really good friends now to all of us. And then it actually turned into what you do today, where they did find a juvenile that was um, trafficked the typical way that it is happening today um through social media, and then she ran away and lured away from home and ran away with this trafficker. And I think it was more important to focus on how this is happening and following her story. And so that's why it took three years because it actually took that amount of time to pursue those traffickers and finally resolve those cases with those three traffickers that trafficked her finish and I'm going to stay on what you just said. 

16:01 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, I was surprised at how long it takes like two and a half years, things like that. Right, the amount of time from arrest through prosecution. What is the usual outcome? Is it a handful or 10, 15, 20 years? Is that the common outcome and should it be more? What should be appropriate for somebody who's taking a 15 year old out of her house and forcing her for a year into sex trade until she finally gets liberated? 

16:28 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
Yeah, I think. Well, there's a lot to say. We've definitely evolved, we being everyone. When I do a presentation about human trafficking, I compare two cases. I compare a case of a 14 year old who was lured away on an app called MocoSpace. She's a Native American and she was trafficked by a trafficker in and out of Arizona, texas, new Mexico, all over, and she was rescued by law enforcement two times and we don't know what we don't know of this was happening until the final violent incident that she endured with him became her breaking point and she decided to tell the truth and talk to us about it. But I compared that case because that case happened in about 2010, 2011. And unfortunately, in that case, I had a laptop, I had another girl that flipped on, this trafficker was going to testify, I had the victim, I had all these things, so he was offered a plea and he took it because he knew, and that was for 20 years. 

17:31
And I compare that case to a case that is the biggest case of my career. It was a five-year-long case and from day of disclosure to we went to trial, which was seven months long, and that was a familial trafficking case. It had seven victims two juveniles. One was a 13 year old niece of her uncle who basically it was a family situation, familial, so he was able to convince his mother, her grandmother, to let her live with him and he continued to have sex with her and exploit her out of this brothel he was conducting out of his house. And then a 17 year old stepdaughter as well. Her mother actually was a Department of Corrections officer and entered the life of prostitution in her 40s after she lost her job and became a stripper and met him at strip club. 

18:22
And I told that story too because I want people to realize, you know it's, it's not just the poor kids in the poor part of town that come into this lifestyle, could be anyone. It's just a matter of the vulnerability that a trafficker is skilled at exploiting. All that to say, that case resolved itself through the end of the trial. He was found guilty on 101 out of 105 counts and he was sentenced to 493.5 years in prison. And that only happens, obviously, because we are now doing outreach to the community. I call it an informed public equals an informed jury, which equals those kind of sentences. 

19:05 - Stacey (Host)
I kind of want to talk about the victims and how the traffickers get the victims, because I don't think that people like me or other people that I know understand that it could be your daughter, it could be your friend's daughter, it could be a neighbor, it could be in any affluent or not affluent town, and how do they get to? 

19:25 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
the girls. Yeah, I think what it is is multiple different ways, especially with the internet and social media, and you know people used to think it's the white van with the creeper in the white van. 

19:40
This is the white van right here. This is offering the opportunity in the palm of your hands for a trafficker to and I know this because, as an undercover, I have seven Facebooks, four Instagrams tag meet me, bumble plenty of fish. Snapchat X, tiktok I just opened up a discord all an undercover persona, so I call it catfishing pimps and that is part of what I do as an undercover and I do a search for it for my conversation with this pimp, and I may have talked to them for a week's length of time and I'm seeing the message, the initial message sent to me, copied and pasted to hundreds of other profiles, all female, looking for new victims and whoever takes the bait and engages with that trafficker. That is how this is happening. It isn't to say that the other, traditional, older ways of meeting someone at the food court, at the mall or at a party isn't still happening, but If the trafficker can sit on his butt on a couch and send out copy paste messages, they can reach so many more people. And it's also not just local. 

20:45
By the way, I have had traffickers I've extradited all the way from Orlando back to Arizona, from Reno back to Arizona, both ends of the country, to see a judge and take a, you know, take a case for pandering, which is what that is. Take a case for pandering, which is what that is, and that is happening through the means of open profiles, and that's the other problem here is we've got kids that are believing YouTube and that you can be famous someday if you have this X number of subscribers or followers, and we have a combination of that and parents that don't realize this is an open door into your house, into your child's bedroom, for a predator, sex buyer, a trafficker all to walk in and have talks with your kid and you don't know that they're even talking to these people. So, very concerning what's going on here. 

21:37 - Stacey (Host)
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22:02 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
you're so pretty, like you know what? 

22:04 - Stacey (Host)
what do they do to get the, the girls, to be like oh, this is interesting yeah. 

22:09 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
So they, like I said, are on their device all day long sitting there hanging out. They're looking back into your posts, your prior posts, and they're thinking, okay, this girl was mad at her parents that day and this girl doesn't like school anymore and she may be more, um, you know, open to me suggesting that, uh, she goes traveling with me and I can get her hair done or her nails done and all these you know things that she's bitching about, maybe in her past posts, or because we share everything, even what we eat for breakfast, nowadays on our social media. That's where it is um easy for traffickers to look at your history of what you've shared and learn things about you and then use those things to relate to you when they converse with you and slide into your dms and start talking to you and, yes, a lot of it is initially like trying to play the role of I'm wanting to have a relationship with you, and if you're a 14 year old that doesn't think you're exactly the most attractive person, and this person's calling you pretty and building you up. That is all the game of the traffickers motive to further enhance that relationship. And then eventually, hey, we should meet, and you know why don't I come pick you up? I'll meet you at the park. 

23:26
Whereabouts are you located, all of these things? To move to the point where they lure them away from home. I think earlier you had said that you know kidnapping occurs in this situation. It would be actually more accurate to say that that's not the most common way that these kids are being lured in this situation. It's not kidnapping, not abductions. It is unfortunately the vulnerabilities and the skill of these traffickers to exploit those vulnerabilities and almost the idea, introducing the idea and then they agree with it, not knowing what they're getting into. 

24:03
We do have operations where we have male detectives posing as sex buyers, and all of that is with the intent to offer an opportunity to that victim. Once we you know, we will conduct that undercover operation and then, once we have them detained and identified and make sure they don't have warrants or drugs on them, listen, and this is what we were not doing before. 

24:24
We were never asking the question what can we actually do to help you get out of this? And now that's what we're doing. We're taking them aside. We even have a victim advocate that actually is there for them to confidentially speak to and is out at two in the morning with the law enforcement unit and can offer a bus ticket or a backline phone number to a shelter and get them out of the situation they're in. That is ultimately what we're trying to do when we use the male detectives, because before we were arresting, but now we recognize that they might be being exploited. 

24:58
There is a line in the sand we have to draw, though, if we give you the warning, don't do this. We tried to offer you services, you took the services and then you went back multiple times. We're going to eventually we're going to have to say listen, prostitution is a crime, you need to stop, and today you're going to have to go to jail. But we do all that we can to avoid that multiple times over, to avoid that. So then that way we can actually help people get out, and it's a matter of just like someone on drugs if they're not ready to stop doing drugs, they're not ready to stop doing drugs. So there is a pull for this lifestyle. It's fast money, it's easy money, so to speak. And it's hard when you get someone out of the life and you're getting them reintegrated back into society and all you have to offer them is a minimum wage job, right when they're used to making a hundred bucks in five minutes. 

25:52 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, that's a good point. It is like drugs, right, it's hard, it's hard, I think so. It's hard to get rid of, I think so Go ahead. 

26:00 - Stacey (Host)
Well, I just kind of want to go back, because we talked about what kids get drawn into, these types of situations. But for parents and I think your book addresses this Talk to them. What should the parents be talking to the kids about? To get them and how, and to get them to not indulge in this type of behavior. 

26:20 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
Yeah them to not indulge in this type of behavior. Yeah, so when I was doing community outreach and I still do I talked to the audience about when I first started, the national average age of entry into sex trafficking was 15,. As far as youth getting involved, today it's 13 years old, and recently I participated in an operation with Phoenix PD where we rescued a couple of 11 and 12 year olds. So it's getting younger and younger, which is so concerning. So that's why I wrote my book. Talk to them. I happen to have it right here. 

26:49 - Stacey (Host)
Oh, let's see it. 

26:53 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
Yes, and this is a guide, a how to guide for parents to have this difficult conversation, navigate it strategically. I model it after as a forensic interviewer, how I would conduct an interview with someone who really doesn't want to talk to me about what's been going on with them and their worst day, you know, and I might have some skill in interviewing. So I poured that into the book to give parents a strategy on how to conduct these conversations build rapport the right timing. It's not a one time deal, but in those conversations, build rapport the right timing. It's not a one-time deal, but in those conversations it needs to be. 

27:25
You know, there was a news, let me, let me tell you this. There was a news recently, a news interview with some parents where their son was basically on the internet contacting someone that he thought was a peer, and it was someone else and he ended up sending inappropriate images. And you know, the parents thought and they said this to the news media who was interviewing them? They thought they had done everything right, they had the parental controls. They, you know, looked at the phone, they checked, they made rules and expectations that you know, you monitor their activity in front of us, all the things but they never thought they needed to talk to their child about. If someone sends you a picture of their penis, please come tell me. They never thought they'd have to say that. 

28:12
But this is where we're at now. You have to say those hard things. You have to talk to them about these people who might be asking personal information like. Arm them with the information so that when these bad guys are doing this, they can self-police themselves and recognize creeper alert and they'll disengage talking to that person and they'll go tell their parent about it. So, recognizing that, when someone tells you to keep our conversation secret, recognize when someone tells you to delete messages or secret. Recognize when someone tells you to delete messages or speak an emoji code that your mom walked in the room. You know the personal information is huge. Recognizing someone doing that. They're not going to know those things unless you, as a parent, tell them about it, right? 

28:55 - Mark (Host)
That's good, that's good stuff, that is so good. 

28:58 - Stacey (Host)
What age do you? Think you should start that conversation. 

29:01 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
That is so good, what age do you think you should start that conversation? I mean, I, I would recommend seven, eight, nine, and unfortunately it's. It's awkward as hell, but you gotta, you gotta start early. 

29:12 - Mark (Host)
I mean you're. You're saying don't even wait for a red flag, just have these conversations, but are there? I think it just seemed. No, no, mom, I'm talking to Maya, and then you're going to believe she's talking to maya, right, her friend like, and then she could delete it. So what is there? A red flag? Are there any signs? 

29:30 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
that maybe your daughter is being groomed to walk out. I think the red flag is maya, someone that we know in real life yeah, I was in that example. 

29:36 - Stacey (Host)
It's my friend yeah, but if she pretends, I'm saying she's lying. 

29:40 - Mark (Host)
She pretends it's like her best friend, exactly exactly I'm just talking to my best friend, you know, like chill out, mom. I'm just talking to maya, right, yeah? 

29:48 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
it's definitely something where it's got to be a learned expectation, like there is no expectation of privacy in my house. I'm going to take the door off the hinges if I have to. Um, I pay for that phone. I'm going to go through it. I will have the password to it. I will have the password to your social media, if you're allowed to have social media. It is being a parent, not a friend. 

30:11 - Stacey (Host)
Yeah, so it's being active in talking to your kids because the traffickers are being active and talk to you, yeah, and like like Dr McConkie said you, you know he does drive-bys, so at any point in time he'll be like oh, let me like, let me see what you're looking at your phone. 

30:23 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
Let me see your phone. 

30:24 - Stacey (Host)
Let me see you know like I, that's my phone, I I pay for that phone, so let me, let me. Let me check and see what you're doing you know just even if you're not interested in what they're actually doing, so that they think at any point in time, there could be like a yeah, it's like shaking down a jail cell at any minute, or like a drug test Right, right, right. 

30:41 - Mark (Host)
You've seen some dark things. I'm sure that you know. Nobody would be surprised if an officer who saw something goes back to the station and cries over what they saw. 

30:49 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
Yeah, right how do you turn that off? 

30:52 - Stacey (Host)
when you go home. 

30:53 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
I've always wondered that. 

30:56
How do officers turn that off? 

30:58
I call myself bipolar. 

31:00
I have myself at work and I have myself at home and I try to really and maybe that isn't the best way to handle this, but this is how I've been successful is part to mentalizing, is that the word Um this and that, and keeping them separate as best I can, um it's. It's one of those things where, uh, I think it's all catching up to me now because I have been having trouble sleeping and I've had nightmares, actually, because I've put some really, really bad, bad people in jail and prison and I've had them do public records requests for my personnel file from prison not sure if they're trying to get my home address or writing a book about me, or know not sure if they're trying to get my home address or writing a book about me, or I'm not sure. But it's one of those things where you really do need to protect your information. You know I have an account with delete me. You know, if you've never Googled yourself to see how much personal information that's out there about yourself, it's very scary, it's all out there. 

32:02 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, yeah, it's pretty much everything, and do you? 

32:05 - Stacey (Host)
like, do any like? 

32:07
I think I would be at my therapist office like every other day, like I you know I truly believe in therapy and you know, like I think, just knowing these horrible things are happening, like even just watching this frontline episode for me, I was like driving over here like oh gosh, I can't believe this is happening in this world and I just it would be great if it never happened again. But how how can we? How can we like curtail this? It feels like, as I was watching you all work on this on on the documentary, I one woman was like this is, like you know, spearing fish in a barrel, Like there are so many men who want this service. 

32:44 - Mark (Host)
That's why I have a very bleak outlook on this. I don't know that you'll ever control it, because demand will always be there. 

32:49 - Stacey (Host)
You're doing it every day. So how do you get yourself to be psyched up for the next time you go in there? 

32:55 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
Yeah, I think for me personally, I am inspired by all of the successes I've had with my huge cases and getting actual justice for victims. But I've had a lot of victims, you know, that changed their mind about wanting to press charges and it hurts my heart because I know that pimp has been free to traffic someone else as I was watching that, I'm like, wow, this woman. 

33:18 - Stacey (Host)
There's a woman in the documentary, kat, who had to continually face her. You know people that she was accusing and that, the fact that that happened to her over and over and over again. I can't imagine that a lot of victims would want to stay in that scenario, right? So it doesn't seem like it's your fault, it seems like it's the system, right? 

33:37 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
Yeah, I mean there's no reason why that other case should have taken five years. It was not because we were not ready. Part of it was a game where the defense continued because they knew that she went back to prostitution. They knew that the main victim went into heavy drug usage and they were hoping something would happen to her and she would not be around to testify around to testify. 

34:04 - Mark (Host)
What bothers me a lot is the sense of hopelessness that a woman or a kid has in in that situation, like what else am I going to do? I have to listen. He's going to beat me. 

34:10 - Stacey (Host)
You know, he owns my life Like this is it, they, they and there's. 

34:14 - Mark (Host)
there's the police station, but they won't go there because of the sense of hopelessness. 

34:18 - Stacey (Host)
They're so scared of this person right. 

34:29 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
So what would you say to that person who's like this is it? I have no choice, I have to go back to him. Yeah, I mean, I think that it's. It's. It's definitely the brainwashing, the whole term brainwashing is a real thing and they are convinced, are convinced that something's going to happen to them if they do report, because traffickers set it up from the beginning that way. 

34:50
I always say a trafficker is the most reliable person you will ever meet. If they say they're going to beat you up, they are going to beat you up. They need their victims to believe that, otherwise they wouldn't stick around, they would take off, and so that is so ingrained in them that they are nothing. They're not going to ever get to anywhere. They're a whole part of the isolation and burning bridges of family and friends that, even if they wanted to leave, they have nowhere to go. All of that is intentional to keep them in this situation. They have nowhere to go. All of that is intentional to keep them in this situation, and what I would say is there is a place to go, there are people that want to help and there is justice for you. We just need you to disclose and come forward and tell us, so that we can help you. 

35:35 - Mark (Host)
It's so hard. 

35:36 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
Wow. 

35:37 - Mark (Host)
I'm depressed now, no, no because, because they're probably what. 

35:42 - Stacey (Host)
What do you need? What do you and your department, what does everybody need to help you with? To get this to be a better conclusion, like to help? 

35:53 - Mark (Host)
get more To move forward. 

35:54 - Stacey (Host)
Yeah, to move forward and to make this better. 

35:57 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
Yeah, so here in Arizona we just recently passed a law about if you traffic a child in Arizona, you go to prison for life. Oh, I love it, oh beautiful. 

36:08
So, that's a law and that is one state, and so we need other states to get on board with that. That. I would say, and this just to put in a perspective if I arrest a prostitute, her fourth conviction in a five-year period is a felony. She will go to prison and she will have a felony on her record. If I arrest a buyer five times, they're just gonna get a little more jail time and a higher fine. There isn't an equivalent to what happens to a prostitute versus the buyer, and the buyers are creating the demand for this problem. So we need stricter laws to make it more of a deterrent for buyers to participate in this activity. 

36:48 - Mark (Host)
Should it be a felon at five times? Should it be a felony? 

36:51 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
It should be a felon at two times. It should be a felony at one time. 

36:54 - Mark (Host)
Well, I was just going off of your number, like four times in five years or whatever. 

36:57 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
Yeah, it should be a felony somewhere in there, but it isn't yet. And that's just my state. I'm speaking for my state. 

37:09 - Stacey (Host)
I don't know about other states, but I'm pretty sure other states might be also lacking in the strict punishments for buyers, which is what we really need, and I think you coming out here and talking and us, you know, putting this out in the world and people being educated on the fact that this is actually happening and it can happen to your son, it can happen to my daughter. 

37:23 - Mark (Host)
It can happen to anyone. 

37:25 - Stacey (Host)
I think we need to continue this conversation and just keep getting it out there, dark or not, you know, because I think it's just so, so important and I think you're doing such great work and I want to give you props for what you're doing and I know it's hard. So thank you for doing this work, for what you're doing, and I know it's hard, so thank you for doing this work. 

37:40 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, you're totally making a difference. We appreciate it yeah. And thanks for sharing all that message and all that info with us here today. 

37:45 - Stacey (Host)
I mean, I could talk about this with you for another three hours, Like I, just so I get feel mad about it. It just makes me mad. Yeah, that's good yeah, what else do you want Before we, before we bump off? 

37:58 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
Yeah. So I just wanted to say that I have some resources on my website, a chance for awareness dot com. I have what I call my sex trafficking indicators list, which is kind of you know, a list of things that someone could view and observe in a person that they know that might be acting in a different way all of a sudden, and maybe some of these things are happening with your friend or the person you know and you could recognize that. We have a National Human Trafficking Hotline, which you've, I'm sure, seen in the airports and bus stations and things that is based in DC. Now we're all the way in Arizona. 

38:34
So if you were to report something to the National Hotline, there's a little bit of a delay of that information getting to the right state, to the right city, to the right police department, to the right detective. That's going to work it and that could be two or three days. So if it's something happening right now, right now, that's always a call to 911. That's always a crime in progress. Even if it's a 12-year-old you see out on the street, that is a crime in progress, 911. 

38:57 - Stacey (Host)
There are signs that some of my. Could you tell me a couple, a few of those? 

39:02 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
tattoos are a big part of sex trafficking. If you've ever heard the term branding, the tattoos have two purposes. Part of sex trafficking and the manipulation that traffickers are trying to engage in is having this victim believe that they are part of something. Now they're part of this traffickers family, and so that sense of belonging is the tattoo and they're all going to have same or similar tattoo. 

39:28
And then the second purpose of the tattoo is to advertise to other pimps. These people are mine, I own them. Um, and I've seen tattoos of a pimp's name on people's faces, um, multiple. I've seen property of and then the traff's name on people's faces, Multiple. I've seen property of and then the trafficker's name on multiple people. It is modern day slavery. It's not just a catchphrase. This is happening right now. Other indicators if you heard me use the term, you know the square and there's other terms, the actual language of trafficking, and I have a whole glossary of terms. That is an indicator of itself. If you overhear someone speaking in these terms, that's a huge indicator. You don't pick up that just from anywhere. You are in a lifestyle or around people speaking that way and that's where you pick that up, and so that's an indicator in itself. 

40:18 - Mark (Host)
What are a couple of those terms, and so that's an indicator in itself. 

40:20 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
What are a couple of those terms so like? For if you have street prostitution in your city we do several areas in Phoenix it's called the blade or the track. A sex buyer is called the trick. There is a rule that some traffickers have where these girls if you've seen the awful documentary pimps up, pose down you'll see it right there in the documentary but they're not allowed to look at anybody in the eye and if they do, they're committing a violation of reckless eyeballing. I mean, these are terms that are not spoken in normal speech out there in the world and so definitely no one says reckless eyeballing without knowing about trafficking. Right, and that would be an indicator. People are using the term out of pocket in different ways now, which basically means someone's violating a rule of a trafficker and they're out of pocket, but the terminology is definitely an indicator. Wow, wow, that's crazy. 

41:20 - Stacey (Host)
Heidi, you're awesome. 

41:21 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
Oh, thank you. 

41:22 - Stacey (Host)
Thank you so much, I really. I hope you get some sleep, yeah, and let us know how we can help you. What else do you have? That's it. 

41:33 - Mark (Host)
I just want to thank you for sharing everything you shared and sharing with us and spending the time with us. 

41:37 - Stacey (Host)
Absolutely Thank you for having me Really appreciate you. 

41:40 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
I hope that everyone checks out the resources I have available so that we can all do something to help we can buy the book on Amazon Also. Yeah, oh, one last thing about the book. I'm having it translated in Spanish because I want to reach non-English speaking parents as well, because you know that's a vulnerability in itself that traffickers recognize that they can see a kid and their parents don't speak English and they don't know what's going on. 

42:06 - Stacey (Host)
So talk to them, talk to them and you have a website as well and you speak, you do speaking engagements, so you can book me on my website. 

42:15 - Heidi Chance (Guest)
There you go, she's fighting the good fight, Achanceforawarenesscom right. 

42:20 - Stacey (Host)
Uh-huh, nice Mark. Thank you, slay. 

42:23 - Mark (Host)
I do some homework. Thank you, heidi, you be well and thank you guys for watching. Thank you so much. 

42:32 - Stacey (Host)
You're still here. You're still listening. Thanks for listening to the Gurus and Game Changers podcast While you're here. If you enjoyed it, please take a minute to rate this episode and leave us a quick review. We want to know what you thought of the show and what you took from it and how it might have helped you. We read and appreciate every comment. Thanks, See you next week.