Fighting human trafficking: More than 150 professionals attend human trafficking conference in Tulsa

More than 150 law enforcement officers, prosecutors, victim advocates, social workers and others from across North America are in Tulsa this week for a counter human trafficking conference.

The conference was started seven years ago to bring all of the tools and resources together to fight human trafficking. Organizers say human trafficking is happening everywhere, every day, even in small-town Oklahoma.

The idea of the conference is to bring every piece of the puzzle that’s fighting human trafficking together, in one place, to prioritize victims and hold offenders accountable.

High Demand for Human Trafficking:

Human trafficking is a more than $230 billion industry in the U.S. per year.

Kevin Metcalf has spent more than 30 years working in law enforcement, the military, and as a prosecutor. He started the conference in Tulsa seven years ago to make people aware of the problem happening right here in Oklahoma.

"Human trafficking for law enforcement, for a long time, we have looked at it as we have looked at everything else. We just have to go in and arrest people, and for a long time that has meant looking at the victims of human trafficking as prostitutes," said Metcalf.

What does human trafficking look like in 2025?

Metcalf says human trafficking is not what you see in the movies, and oftentimes it's hard to see. He says most human trafficking victims are trafficked by their own family members for drugs or money. He says there's labor trafficking where victims are used for work and not paid or paid low wages. He says there's Romeo trafficking where men will traffic their girlfriends.

Metcalf says that at a bare minimum, one trafficking victim can bring in more than $100,000 for the trafficker.

"When you start looking at small town Oklahoma, that creates a shockwave, this awareness of these are people I see every day, these are people I sit in the church pew with every Sunday. These are people I work with," said Metcalf.

Training Law Enforcement to Target Traffickers

Joseph Scaramucci works with Skull Games to train law enforcement across the country on how to catch traffickers and people buying sex. Scaramucci recently trained agencies and conducted recent operations in Coweta and Tahlequah, where law enforcement arrested a local pastor, a former police officer, and a federal agent.

"The goal of all of it is to make trafficking hostile for traffickers and buyers in any jurisdiction, right? If you start targeting Tahlequah as an example, you make it to where people have to think twice about conducting business there," said Scaramucci.

Metcalf says he plans to hold this conference again next year and continue to give communities the tools they need to fight human trafficking.