Sheriff Jeff Dirkse spoke about his department’s efforts to combat human trafficking in Stanislaus County in a 35-minute video released Dec. 18 by the Stanislaus County Office of Education on YouTube.

In the “What’s Brewing in Education?” video, Dirkse holds a conversation with Scott Kuykendall, superintendent of Stanislaus County Schools and explains how victims are recruited through various methods, prevalently through social media.

“I would say that human trafficking in our county is prevalent,” said Sheriff Dirkse in the video. “It’s not necessarily rampant. It’s not necessarily everywhere but it is most certainly prevalent.”

Stanislaus County is skirted by the Highway 99 and I-5 corridors which have involved a circuit of drug and sex slaves that circulates out of the Bay Area, Sacramento to Southern California and Las Vegas. That means some traffickers take advantage of complicit participants in the county.

Two detectives and an analyst from Sheriff’s Department are solely dedicated to the crime of human trafficking which lead to “huge numbers of human traffickers that we arrest.”

He noted the county has had the second highest number of arrests out of the “Operation Reclaim and Rebuilt” operated statewide and coordinated by Los Angeles Police Department. The largest numbers come from Los Angeles.

“I think it’s just as prevalent elsewhere as it is here but because we go after it so aggressively we see more of it kind of stats wise and news wise than I think other places may,” said Dirkse.

Dirkse said he became more aware of human trafficking in the county when as a traffic sergeant he was educated through the non-profit Without Permission agency.  When he served as the Patterson police chief he had Deputy Casey Cooper who focused on cracking down on trafficking occurring at truck stops along I-5. Dirkse said he carried that “passion” to crack down on traffickers when he became sheriff.

The sheriff said traffickers work to groom both women and men who are at-risk emotionally “for some reason.” He said victims are commonly come from lower socioeconomic  standing or underserved communities. When they see others on social media enjoying clothing and cars they don’t have, they are motivated to make big money.

“The traffickers will start to identify them and ‘Hey, you like this? Here, I’ll give you some.’ And kind of the same thing can work into the drug arena and they start to get them hooked onto things – either on the money, the drugs, which they may need money for.”

He cited one young woman from a “well to do” family who got involved in the sex trade because her father was absent and she was seeking a father figure. A trafficker groomed her and was “later captured by that lifestyle.”

Picking up his cell phone, the sheriff said, “these cell phones, social media, that is where 90 percent of it occurs.”

Kuykendall relates hearing stories of young women from affluent families have been blackmailed into prostitution after sending explicit photos of themselves to men who threatened to expose them publicly. Dirkse agreed saying “that is an avenue to kind of get those hooks into them.”

Traffickers also snag victims by offering free drugs, get them addicted and then the supply is tied to sexual favors and sex work.

What can parents do to safeguard that their children won’t become prey to the sex trade? For one thing, said Dirkse, parents should not introduce medications to their kids to relieve stress or pain and thereby get them used to medicating their way out of problems and thus creating a drug dependency which traffickers can exploit.

Dirkse also said at-risk youth come from families where parents are not engaged in their lives and not supervising their time.

“Not even related to human trafficking,” the sheriff said, “but if we had good quality family units, 90 percent of my job goes away.”

Kuykendall agreed, saying “its’ the same in education too.”

When asked what school officials and teachers can do to help combat the problem, Dirkse said behavior or mood changes could be a red flag requiring a counselor to delve into the problem.

“I think if we can get parents and school staff to kind of intervene and ask tough questions earlier – you’re going to have to have a rapport with the kid, they’re going to have to be willing to open up to you – I think that is a way for us to intercede before some of these kids get too far down that road. You brought it up earlier, this idea of sexting and sending explicit photographs, videos between kids is so prevalent now, that parents (need to) put privacy protections on phones. You pay for it. You can take it away. You need to be looking at the content your kids are engaging in.”

Aside from Facebook, Instagram and X, some groomers use Snapchat, gaming consoles and other platforms to wile their devious way to kids.

Kuykendall said that parents should have a “really thorough discussion about parameters” before giving a child a phone and remind them that “it isn’t your phone” and there is “zero privacy.”

The Sheriff’s Department does offer educational presentations to groups and churches to help get people thinking and talking about the problem.

Dirkse noted a recent Sheriff’s sting operation where deputies posed online as under-aged girls as young as 14 to catch men who were willing to meet up for sex at a house that was rented. There were so many “dates” set up that a limit had to be placed.

“We were shocked by that,” said the sheriff. “This was specifically pedophiles looking to … engage in sexual acts with kids, juveniles.”

Aside from sex trafficking, Dirkse touched on labor trafficking of illegal immigrants smuggled over the border by cartels. To pay for the smuggling fee, which can run from $5,000 to $10,000 for Mexicans and as high as $50,000 for immigrants from other countries, the person is put to work at illegal marijuana grows and other jobs to pay off the debt.

One marijuana grow the Sheriff’s Department busted involved 30 workers who were paid a small amount and clothing.

“Most of them, they didn’t even know what town or what county they’re in. They knew they were in California but they were like, “I don’t know where I’m at. I’m in Modesto? Where’s Modesto?” They don’t know that because they’ve been brought in here on a bus or in the back of a truck or whatever and they’re just working there. They may owe six months, they may owe a year and kind of get caught up in that lifestyle and they find themselves functionally stuck there forever or they stay on as an underpaid indentured servant. Some of them, specifically the ladies in that case, they may get transferred off into the sex trafficking side. ‘Oh, you want to make more money? Have I got an opportunity for you’ type of deal.”

Typically those who aren’t legally in the county and busted in illegal marijuana grows are arrested and charged with cultivation. They often quickly bail out of jail and slip back into the shadows because they can get away with giving a fake name for lack of documentation and since state law doesn’t allow suspects to be turned over the ICE for deportation unless other serious crimes are charged.

Toward the end of the video the discussion turned to fentanyl crisis.

He said political pressure is being placed on China, which is shipping precursor chemicals to cartels in Mexico where they are manufactured.

“Ninety-five percent of our fentanyl comes over the southern border,” Dirkse noted, “sometimes in the backpack of a human smuggling victim or more commonly hidden somewhere in a vehicle.”

The drug also is transported into the U.S through tunnels that straddle the border and flown by drones in smaller quantities.

Dirkse said often kids get involved with marijuana before graduating to pills because they are cheap and readily available for a high.

Because the pills being manufactured by drug cartels contain content that is not regulated and can have lethal concentrations, Dirkse said “one pill can kill somebody. We see it. It’s happened here in our county, it’s happened in some of our schools in this county.”

Kuykendall said the schools are all equipped with NARCAN as an antidote to opioid overdose victims.

“That’s been a big thing for us in the last couple of years just to make sure we’re prepared that way,” said Kuykendall

The sheriff said problems are increasing with Tranq, which is more deadly than fentanyl.