Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: This is Sarah Holder from The Big Take. This episode
Speaker 2: contains descriptions of sex trafficking, sexual assault, and child exploitation,
Speaker 2: so take care while listening. In January of last year,
Speaker 2: the US Embassy in Colombia issued a warning to all
Speaker 2: American travelers be careful using dating apps.
Speaker 3: Here they noticed that in the past few months there
Speaker 3: were around eight US citizens who died in measuring in
Speaker 3: Colombia and some of the popular tourist cities because of
Speaker 3: meeting people from dating apps.
Speaker 2: Eight men had been killed in two months. It turned
Speaker 2: out that several of these men, after traveling to Medayin,
Speaker 2: had met women online and gone on dates before being killed.
Speaker 2: The embassy said some had also possibly been drugged or robbed.
Speaker 2: Natalie Lung covers tech platforms for Bloomberg, and she says
Speaker 2: not long after the government advisory, Tinder put out its
Speaker 2: own warning.
Speaker 3: They told people remember to vet your matches, meet in
Speaker 3: public places, and share with people you know where you're
Speaker 3: meeting your dates, and at the end, follow your instincts.
Speaker 3: So that was kind of a rare advisory that Tinder
Speaker 3: put out because it's almost saying be careful when you're
Speaker 3: using our apps, which as a profit driven business, you
Speaker 3: wouldn't usually see a company do that.
Speaker 2: Natalie wanted to know more about the mysterious deaths that
Speaker 2: it pushed Tinder to caution its users so explicitly, so
Speaker 2: she teamed up with Bloomberg's Antonia Muffaret, who started asking
Speaker 2: questions of people on the ground.
Speaker 1: I really started connecting with people in Columbia, with a
Speaker 1: private investigator, with a lawyer, with some local experts, and
Speaker 1: I started asking them, have you heard about this? What
Speaker 1: is the feeling like in Colombia and mahym specifically, are
Speaker 1: people speaking about this? What are tourists feeling? And they
Speaker 1: started saying, yes, this is a big issue and there
Speaker 1: are people that are getting killed.
Speaker 2: Antonia found a much more complicated, much darker situation. While
Speaker 2: some men were simply looking to date while traveling, others
Speaker 2: were going to Columbia to engage in prostitution, which is
Speaker 2: legal there between consenting adults. But some of these men
Speaker 2: were specifically looking to have sex with miners and they
Speaker 2: were using apps like Facebook, WhatsApp, and Messenger to solicit
Speaker 2: young girls.
Speaker 1: There are young girls that are being used that are
Speaker 1: getting lured into this kind of sex trafficking and are
Speaker 1: getting sexually exploited, and they are being involved in these
Speaker 1: meetings with foreigners, and a lot of local experts told
Speaker 1: me that this was a way more of a bigger issue.
Speaker 2: What happened to the men was making international headlines, but
Speaker 2: the stories of the young girls drawn into the sex
Speaker 2: trade were not. I'm Sarah Holder, and this is the
Speaker 2: big take from Bloomberg News Today on the show, how
Speaker 2: people are using apps from US based tech companies to
Speaker 2: engage in sex trafficking in Colombia and why it's so
Speaker 2: hard for platforms to stop it. Tourism to Colombia has
Speaker 2: been booming, especially since the pandemic, when foreigners started flocking
Speaker 2: to bustling cities like Medeine.
Speaker 1: It's located in a valley in the middle of the Andes.
Speaker 1: People are very kind, the weather is lovely. It's always spring.
Speaker 2: Antonio Muffarech went there last summer. She says, for a
Speaker 2: long time, foreigners associated Colombia with violent crime and drugs,
Speaker 2: they stayed away, but the country has done a lot
Speaker 2: to improve its safety record and reputation, and now what
Speaker 2: used to keep people away is part of.
Speaker 1: The draw Bauluscoar, a drug lord used Mayin as the
Speaker 1: base for his cartel. So this has really brought in
Speaker 1: a lot of tourists and you can see some of
Speaker 1: the even the Netflix series Narcos, and there are like
Speaker 1: Narcos tours and all of those kinds of things in Manjin.
Speaker 1: Once Biluscar was gone down and some paramilitary groups were stopped,
Speaker 1: the city started to reinvent itself and they really wanted
Speaker 1: to bring in another kind of tourism.
Speaker 2: But Colombia is also attracting tourists. It doesn't want people
Speaker 2: who come to the country looking to pay for sex
Speaker 2: with minors. This trade often involves gangs and a network
Speaker 2: of patronas who connect foreign clients with women and underage girls.
Speaker 1: The situation in Colombia has sadly made it easier for
Speaker 1: these crimes to occur. It's very important to understand the
Speaker 1: context in which a lot of people live in poverty.
Speaker 1: In some areas of Maiyin, where some young girls are
Speaker 1: not really able to afford lunch every day or they
Speaker 1: have they live in a household with a single parent
Speaker 1: who's working all the time and not really able to
Speaker 1: take care. There are also armed groups and gangs in
Speaker 1: the city.
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Tech reporter Natalie Lung says that another factor facilitating
Speaker 2: this kind of exploitation has been the rise of apps
Speaker 2: developed by US tech companies.
Speaker 3: Meta's portfolio of apps, including What's App, Facebook, Messenger, and
Speaker 3: Instagram are among the most used social media apps in
Speaker 3: Colombia and Latin and the number of monthly active users
Speaker 3: on Facebook in Colombia were equivalent to more than half
Speaker 3: of the population, and same thing for Airbnb, It's one
Speaker 3: of the fastest growing regions for them. In twenty twenty four,
Speaker 3: that number of Airbnb listings jumped twenty one percent from
Speaker 3: a year ago, and for Tinder, it's the most popular
Speaker 3: dating app in Colombia with over half a million of
Speaker 3: average monthly users, which is three times more than competitor Antonia.
Speaker 2: And Natalie found that the apps could be used for
Speaker 2: many parts of the illicit sex trade. Gangs patronas and
Speaker 2: their foreign clients might exchange catalogs of women on WhatsApp
Speaker 2: or Facebook, set meetings through Messenger, and book airbnbs for
Speaker 2: the encounters.
Speaker 1: The gangs really evolved recently within like, for example, WhatsApp
Speaker 1: or Tinder or Messenger, they really started to harness these
Speaker 1: tools and use them to commit crimes like, for example,
Speaker 1: sell drugs, sell weapons, and also offer miners in many
Speaker 1: of these cases. And this has made it since some
Speaker 1: of these apps are encrypted, or you can buy a
Speaker 1: burner phone, or there's so many tactics that you can
Speaker 1: do to make these crimes really invisible or ghost crimes,
Speaker 1: that has really made it harder to track down both
Speaker 1: the criminals and the victims. So this has really exacerbated
Speaker 1: the issue and made it way harder to understand how
Speaker 1: to solve it as well.
Speaker 2: Antonio wanted to understand how young girls in Medeine were
Speaker 2: getting caught up in this illicit trade, how it was
Speaker 2: affecting them, and where these apps fit in. She connected
Speaker 2: with a US based NGO called Libertas International, whose mission
Speaker 2: is to combat sex trafficking in Latin America. The group's
Speaker 2: founder introduced her to several victims, including Sandra, who was
Speaker 2: fourteen at the time of the crime, and her younger sister, Veronica,
Speaker 2: who was twelve. Both names have been changed to protect them.
Speaker 2: The sisters had this friend who had nice things like
Speaker 2: a fancy phone and a motorcycle, and the friend said
Speaker 2: they could have nice things too.
Speaker 1: She mentioned that they could get all of this for
Speaker 1: selling their virginity. The girls didn't really understood what that meant,
Speaker 1: but they were like, I mean, sure, it would be
Speaker 1: great to be able to afford some more food help
Speaker 1: mother with her rent. Their grandma was sick at the moment.
Speaker 1: So the girls got connected with a patrona, with someone
Speaker 1: who connects the girls with a man or a foreigner,
Speaker 1: in this case through Facebook.
Speaker 2: Through a messenger, the patrona told them to wear makeup
Speaker 2: and revealing clothes a crop top if possible, and.
Speaker 1: They eventually went to a place where they met this
Speaker 1: foreigner alongside another girl, a friend of theirs. For them,
Speaker 1: it was a very traumatic experience. One of the sisters
Speaker 1: told me that she just like when the men asked
Speaker 1: them to start undressing or taking photos and try to
Speaker 1: do stuff with her. She just asked him to please stop.
Speaker 2: The sisters told Antonia. The man didn't stop. They said
Speaker 2: he groped and kissed Sandra and penetrated Veronica and her friend.
Speaker 2: He threatened to kill them if they spoke.
Speaker 1: Up, and the men refused to pay them. They never
Speaker 1: heard back from the patrona. She blocked them and they
Speaker 1: went back home.
Speaker 2: Sandra and Veronica never got their money. Natalie says the
Speaker 2: tech companies that she and ni comment from Airbnb, Facebook
Speaker 2: and WhatsApp's parent company, Meta, and Match Group with Jones
Speaker 2: Tinder acknowledge the problem of child's exploitation and abuse on
Speaker 2: their platforms. In said they were taking steps to fight it.
Speaker 3: They're definitely aware that this is happening and they've been
Speaker 3: working with authorities the mayor on trying to combat these crimes.
Speaker 3: Match told us that their teams are continuously monitoring accounts
Speaker 3: and will take immediate action to banning and accounts that
Speaker 3: violate their terms, and they're also going to continue to
Speaker 3: engage with the USA Columbian officials to provide them with
Speaker 3: information they need to try to find these criminals. And
Speaker 3: for Meta, it's also similar where they would continue working
Speaker 3: with officials and in flagging those efforts. Airbnb has said
Speaker 3: they're definitely aware that this is happening, and they have
Speaker 3: worked with the mayor to come up with a plan
Speaker 3: that includes asking guests to acknowledge their no prostitution policy
Speaker 3: on the Airbnb platform, and they also recently committed to
Speaker 3: make donations to a nonprofit organization that would support girls
Speaker 3: who might be exploited and provide more charity contributions there.
Speaker 2: Advocates and local authorities say that while the responsibility for
Speaker 2: stopping these crimes doesn't fall solely on the platforms, there
Speaker 2: is more tech companies could do to crack down that's
Speaker 2: after the break. When Bloomberg's Antonia Muffarech went to the
Speaker 2: Colombian city of Medaine last summer, she saw evidence of
Speaker 2: the fight against sex trafficking everywhere.
Speaker 1: If you walk through Melain, through, for example, Barghaelleiras, which
Speaker 1: is the main place where nightlife in Malayin is, you'll
Speaker 1: see signs almost everywhere saying o jo cento as bartis,
Speaker 1: which means eyes everywhere, there are a lot of signs
Speaker 1: saying say no to sex trafficking. It's illegal here, it's
Speaker 1: illegal in your country as well, in English and in Spanish.
Speaker 2: As part of their crackdown, local officials set up a
Speaker 2: phone line to report cases of sexual exploitation of boys,
Speaker 2: girls and adolescents, and they're deporting foreigners who've been involved
Speaker 2: in these crimes.
Speaker 1: But as they all said, they really need collaboration from
Speaker 1: these apps and from these companies.
Speaker 2: Bloomberg's Natalie Lung says these companies have become more engaged
Speaker 2: in this effort over the past year, especially after the
Speaker 2: US Embassy in Columbia issued its warning about the killings
Speaker 2: of foreigners and after a high profile case last March
Speaker 2: of an Ohio man who was found with two miners
Speaker 2: in his medayine Airbnb.
Speaker 3: Obviously, Airbnb does not allow any sort of prostitutional listed
Speaker 3: activity on their platform, as based on their community policies,
Speaker 3: but there are people who circumnavigate this by saying my
Speaker 3: Airbnb is guest friendly, as a euphemism for saying, Okay,
Speaker 3: they're not going to be any guards. You can, you know,
Speaker 3: quietly bring someone in.
Speaker 2: Airbnb has begun suspending hosts with listings that contain the
Speaker 2: terms guest friendly, saying it's in violation of their policies.
Speaker 3: The tough part is bad actors are always evolving their ways,
Speaker 3: and even as Airbnb said they have taken down a
Speaker 3: lot of listings that have guessed friendly in the title,
Speaker 3: there will still be new ways, you know, new code
Speaker 3: that people are inventing, and that's part of their company's
Speaker 3: response there. They're always monitoring how criminal actors are evolving
Speaker 3: and adapting their ways, so it's definitely tough, you know,
Speaker 3: how do they pre empt this and understand how criminals
Speaker 3: are evolving.
Speaker 2: As of September, Airbnb said it had removed more than
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty listings in Medeyin from its platform
Speaker 2: for violating community standards and policies, including ones on sex
Speaker 2: work and sex tourism. The company's website says it may
Speaker 2: perform limited background checks on US based users if they
Speaker 2: have the users first name, last name, and date of birth. Still,
Speaker 2: Natalie says Airbnb hosts believe the company could do more.
Speaker 2: She spoke with an Airbnb proprietor whose company operated the
Speaker 2: rental where that Ohio man was caught with two underage girls.
Speaker 2: The proprietor said he felt that Airbnb's background check process
Speaker 2: wasn't adequate.
Speaker 3: And as a result of the things that happened in
Speaker 3: one of his rentals, he had to pay a fine
Speaker 3: and obviously face a lot of negative press around his property,
Speaker 3: and that really harmed his business and caused him a
Speaker 3: lot of stress. And so one of the things definitely
Speaker 3: they want the apps to be able to do more
Speaker 3: safety checks in the US. For example, Airbnb is very
Speaker 3: proactive in banning parties in that way, and they're using
Speaker 3: AI and different ways to detect if someone is trying
Speaker 3: to host a big party on a property. But are there,
Speaker 3: you know, specific things built in Colombia to prevent these
Speaker 3: sort of illeg activities. Say they're not doing enough.
Speaker 2: Sources told Natalie that Meta's response has limitations too. The
Speaker 2: company bars adults from starting private conversations with teens who
Speaker 2: don't follow them or who aren't already connected to them
Speaker 2: on Messenger and Instagram. It also prevents adults who have
Speaker 2: been blocked or reported by teens from being able to
Speaker 2: find or interact with teen accounts. Metas also launched Instagram
Speaker 2: teen accounts, which will automatically put teens into the most
Speaker 2: protective settings. Some of the girls Antonia talked to got
Speaker 2: around metas protections by setting up a business profile that
Speaker 2: allowed men to find them using the company's people you
Speaker 2: May Know feature, which uses algorithms to suggest potential friends.
Speaker 2: It's a feature a former Facebook engineering director named David
Speaker 2: erb has been raising specific concerns about.
Speaker 3: He was basically describing it's almost like when you move
Speaker 3: to a new neighborhood, you would check the sex offender
Speaker 3: registry to see if there are any people around you
Speaker 3: like that and to avoid them. But Facebook people, you
Speaker 3: may always kind of doing the opposite and surfacing miners
Speaker 3: to adults and meta. On their part, they said they
Speaker 3: do have safeguards in place where adults who are not
Speaker 3: connected with certain miners won't be able to see those accounts,
Speaker 3: and there are ways that they prevent miners from being
Speaker 3: serviced to adults. But the thing is, if let's say,
Speaker 3: if some girls are using a business profile, those are
Speaker 3: totally not protected by the same minor safeguards that are
Speaker 3: in place.
Speaker 2: Digital safety advocates say tech companies should do more to
Speaker 2: verify their users and introduce additional safety checks because despite
Speaker 2: the many things these tech companies have done, children are
Speaker 2: still being exploited on their platforms. The girls Antonia spoke
Speaker 2: with in Colombia say they hope others aren't drawn in
Speaker 2: by the promise of making fast money on these apps.
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, it's not really worth
Speaker 1: it and it just leaves a really profound wound. One
Speaker 1: of the things that I think was really admirable and
Speaker 1: courageous was speaking to these young girls and how they
Speaker 1: really wanted to share their stories, hoping that others won't
Speaker 1: fall into that as well.
Speaker 2: This is The Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder.
Speaker 2: This episode was produced by David Fox. It was edited
Speaker 2: by Tracy Samuelson and Molly Schwetz. It was fact checked
Speaker 2: by Adrianna Tapia and mixed and sound designed by Alex Sugiura.
Speaker 2: Our senior producer is Naomi Shaven. Our senior editor is
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Ponso. Our executive producer is Nicole Beemster born Sage
Speaker 2: Bauman is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. If you like this episode,
Speaker 2: make sure to subscribe and review The Big Take wherever
Speaker 2: you listen to podcasts. It helps people find the show.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow.
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