Mari tried to contain her fear as she climbed aboard the yacht.

Upbeat music played throughout the lavish interior, but the playful atmosphere did nothing to calm her. The people on the yacht were here to party.

And she was the entertainment.

Weeks earlier, Mari had received an online message from a friend in the Dominican Republic. The friend said she was having a big birthday party and wanted Mari, an 18-year-old Colombian national, to attend. They arranged the flight, and Mari’s friend said she’d have someone pick her up at the airport.

They never spoke again.

The person who picked her up brought her to a building where 10 other Colombian women were being held. Her passport was taken, and she was locked up.

Her “friend” vanished from social media, leaving Mari under the control of a woman who informed her and the others that they’d incurred a large debt upon entering the country. To pay off this debt, they’d be required to sell their bodies for sex.

Mari was horrified.

She had fallen into the hands of a ruthless international trafficking ring.

The criminal organization used a variety of tactics, from fake friendships to fabricated job offers, to lure women from Colombia and Venezuela into the Dominican Republic. Once under their control, they stole their victims’ passports and ID, informed them of the fake debt they’d incurred, and locked them inside during the day.

Mari was dressed up in a revealing outfit and taken to a professional photo shoot. Her image was displayed in an online catalogue for paying predators under the heading “Colombians ready to participate in all of your dark fantasies.”

Sealed away from the outside world, the women were kept under constant guard. At night, the traffickers took the women to poorly-lit clubs that had partnered with the syndicate to exploit the victims. Night after night, ruthless men bought time with Mari to fulfill their twisted desires, only to deliver her back into the hands of the traffickers the next morning.

The doors were locked before the sun rose, and the process started all over again.

That night on the yacht was no different from the others. Mari suffered at the hands of a predator before being sent back to shore. Only 20 percent of the money she earned that night was applied to the debt the traffickers invented; the rest went straight to the criminals. It felt like she’d never be able to meet their demands.

That was intentional, of course. Beyond allocating a meager percentage of the earnings to the illegal debt, traffickers also employ other means to prolong their victims’ exploitation, like fabricated “expenses” or absurd interest rates. The syndicate wanted to make as much money as possible before releasing their captives.

On her own, Mari had earned less than half of what she needed to escape. Everything changed when her mother dug into her own savings to pay off the remaining amount of Mari’s debt.

Whether out of a warped sense of integrity or because they thought it would make them look good for the other victims, the traffickers honored the payment and released Mari.

The traumatized 18-year-old was eager to get home, but she had something to do before she left.

On her way out of the country, she spoke with an airport police officer to report what she’d been through. Once the scope of the syndicate’s operation became clear, the National Police were called in to hear her story. And they brought along a Destiny Rescue agent.

As the tale progressed, her testimony began to sound startlingly familiar. Many of the descriptions matched a case that our agents had been working on with Dominican authorities for nearly a month.

After weeks of dangerous undercover work and meticulous surveillance, Mari was supplying the final piece of a massive puzzle.

The case had actually begun late the previous year when a couple of Colombian victims escaped from the syndicate and went to the police to report what had happened to them. The case went cold for a while, but months later, Destiny Rescue agents were called in to assist.

Fearless agents went undercover to get information from the victims about the syndicate, but every revelation seemed to lead to another mystery.

Authorities were reluctant to act on incomplete information for fear that part of the criminal organization would escape justice, taking victims with them, only to reestablish their horrific business elsewhere.

Mari’s information finally gave authorities everything they needed to act.

Two days later, Destiny Rescue collaborated with the Dominican Republic National Police to execute a massive, multi-location raid. Without firing a shot, the National Police were able to dismantle the syndicate entirely, as well as shut down several establishments that had participated in exploiting the women. Eight traffickers were arrested in the initial raid, and the final one was picked up in a separate operation a month later.

Most importantly, 48 women were rescued during the operation. After debriefing with authorities, all of the women returned to their home countries to recover with their families.

Without intervention, the traffickers would have continued brutally squeezing money out of their victims until they got what they wanted, just to start the process all over again with new women. It took diligent police, fearless agents and generous donors to stop these traffickers.

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