The Untold Story Behind The Sound of Freedom - Paul Hutchinson

What is your background? Who are you? Well, I'm somewhat of serial entrepreneur. Had a few lots of failures and a few successes. I'm the founder co-founder of Bridge Investment Group, 48 billion dollars assets under management. So it grew pretty well. Give all the credit to the team. People call me all the time. They say, "Paul, I have a question about real estate." I say, "I don't know I don't know anything about real estate." They're like, "What? You're the founder of a multi-billion dollar real estate fund?" I said, "No, I know how to build teams and I know how to have the vision from the beginning to create it. Fast forward, got recruited about 10 years ago to uh help on an undercover rescue mission, the one that is featured in the Sound of Freedom movie. My character is played by Eduardo Verástegui. I'm Pablo. I'm the fund manager who gets recruited to help fund the operation and play a role. And we can go deep into that. Since that time I have led or played a key part in over 70 undercover rescue missions in 15 countries. Retired from my job, focused full-time on philanthropy. Zero social media for 10 years, came out just 4 months ago to share the stories and inspire people. Talk to me about how a fund manager ends up becoming an operative for a anti-child sex trafficking ring sting company? Well, I I have I have a special set of skills from previous life that makes me somewhat safe in a dangerous place, but what had happened is our attorney general called me about 10 years ago. And he I I'm like, "What's up, AG?" And he's like, "Oh, what's up, Hutch?" And and he said, "Hey, I got to talk to you about something. It's pretty dark." He said, "I know you're really involved with child-related charities." I was on the Make-A-Wish board of directors for 10 years, a bunch of things. And he said he said, "This is the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world and good people don't know that it's happening." I'm like, "Well, what is it?" He he says, "It's it's it's human trafficking. In this situation it's child trafficking." And I'm like, "What? Like children being sold for for what? I mean, how does that work?" And he says, "For sex." And I'm like, "What?" "No, that doesn't happen." He said, "No." He says, "There's this Homeland Security agent. He's in Colombia. He's identified some children down there. I want to introduce you to him." And and fast forward, I end up helping to raise some money and fund the what he thought was going to be 20 children that were in Cartagena. But then he called me and he said, "Paul." He said, "I'm here in Cartagena. There's not just 20 children. There's more than 50. There's more than 100." And what I didn't know is that that he had already had some conversations with with Sean Reyes, the attorney general. And and we're specifically looking for somebody who could play a role like a Jeffrey Epstein. Somebody who was was well-off that that had this playboy background, so to speak, that that also could handle himself in a dangerous place. And so he called me and he said, "Paul." He says, "There's more than 100 children that are tied to these different rings. I think we can rescue all of them on the same day at the same time, but I need your help in a big way." And I I'm like, "Well, how much do you need?" And he said, "I need you. Can you be in Colombia in 2 days?" And I was sitting there I was in in Atlanta, Georgia. I was at a conference. I was raising money from billionaire families for the fund. And I hung up the phone and my business partner's like, "Did you really just commit to that?" And I'm like, "Yeah, if if I can if there's something about me that they can use to help rescue these kids." An hour later, the co-founder of my fund, John, calls me up. He's like, "Paul, uh Don called me, told me what you're doing. Have you thought through this?" He says, "This is this is really dangerous." He said, "You're you're set. You could you could sell out today, buy an island, be happy the rest of your life." I'm like, "Would I really be happy, John? If I bought an island, if I bought a yacht, or whatever." I said I said, "Tell me this, if if if I was doing something else dangerous tomorrow, if I was climbing Everest, you and I would have the same conversation." He goes, "Yeah, we probably would." I said, "And when I'm 95 years old and I look back upon my life and I say I climbed this mountain and I built this multi-billion dollar company and I helped rescue this many children from slavery, from being trafficked, which of them matters at all?" He's like, "Yeah, you're right. You got to do this." Just how big of a Just how big of a problem is child trafficking? Because I I I thought this was some Middle Ages I didn't think that this was the sort of thing that happened and certainly not in, you know, relatively developed countries. Yeah. Yeah, it's Human trafficking as a whole is the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world and the second most profitable. Surpassed the illegal arms trade. And many think it's going to surpass the drug trade within the next couple years. And and you know, a quote out of the movie is that we had Jim Caviezel say because you can sell a bag of coke once. You can sell a child, a 5 10-year-old child, you can sell them 5 10 15 times a day for the next 5 or 10 years. And it's a big problem. Now, I will say this, what's depicted in the Sound of Freedom movie, those things happened. Those children, those stories that we pulled from all these rescue missions, we compiled a bunch of those stories together to create the narrative for the movie itself. So yes, children are taken just like that. There's there there's all kinds of different ways that these kids are brought in, but the majority of child trafficking is right under our noses. Over 70% of children that are being sold for sex sleep in their own beds at night. And and people are surprised at that. They're like, "Oh, that's not trafficking." No, they're being sold by their uncle. They're being sold by their their cousin or their their babysitter, even by their parents. And it happens a lot where the parents were involved. And so and and as we're as we're trying to really fix this problem, yes, sending in some Navy SEALs and going undercover and finding these kids and pulling them out. Yeah, that's all big and Rambo and everybody gets behind it. Yay, let's go fix this problem. But the reality is every one of us needs to look in our own backyard, in our own basement, in our own homes and say, "What kind of things are are potentially dangerous for my own children in the relationships that that they have and the people that they go over to, etc." Literally one in every four women on the planet has been a victim of sexual violence as a child. And most of them in their own homes. The number of men is smaller, but is still a serious problem. Yeah, I've seen Tim Kennedy has shared videos like this where it's um you know, some uh car circles the outside of a playground where it's a Saturday morning and the kids are playing tennis or something and someone comes over and says, "Oh, I'm here to pick you up and mom's not here or whatever." Like that uh almost like Taken Liam Neeson daughter style um cartel stuff is the more uh outrageous, the more kind of attention-grabbing, but as you've suggested there, a lot of the time the problem is actually a lot closer to home. It really is. And and as as people leave the movie studio mad as hell saying, "Okay, I want to do something. I want to do something. What do I do?" The worst thing they can do is try to go be a Rambo and go into some other country and find these kids. You know, you're going to get killed. You're going to get arrested. That doesn't work, right? The best thing you can do is actually go home and hug your kids. People are like, "What? How's that going to fix it?" No, the the the children that are being brought into this are from foster programs, broken families, runaways. Those are the ones that are being actually trafficked trafficked like that. The the kids that are that are being abused and trafficked from their own homes, these are these are ones who have super low self-esteem. They don't have a relationship with you as a as their father such that where they can come in and say, "Hey, Dad, you know what? I'm I'm I'm really uncomfortable when when I have to hug Uncle Harry or or when I go over to so-and-so's house, whatever." Those are things that we need to have that relationship with our kids to keep them safe. Absolutely. Who are the biggest consumers of human trafficking, child trafficking, and sort of trafficking-related material? Americans. North Americans. Yeah, North American. The United States is the number one producer and consumer of child pornography. And the number one consumer of pedophilia, especially traveling abroad. So one of the reasons why I was recruited was that that a lot of these traffickers were used to wealthy, well-spoken, financially secure, connected businessmen who had big-ass egos that guys like Jeffrey Epstein that decide they want to go and have this big sex party in this foreign country. And so so it wasn't an odd thing for me to come down saying, "Yeah, I'll fund your your sex hotel. I'll put 8 million bucks into it." But what what does it say that they looked at you and said, "Yeah, that guy that guy reminds me of a pedophile." Like what what do you This is funniest right here. Are you ready for this story? So so Sean Reyes I wasn't there for this meeting, but I was told that that the Homeland Security agent that the that Jim Caviezel plays in the movie, he was trying to find somebody to play this role. And he was in a meeting and he had he had Josh Romney, Mitt Romney's son, was there. And Sean Reyes, the attorney general, a couple others. And he says, "You know, this is what I need. I need somebody who's who can play this role that that, you know, would be safe in this dangerous place and whatever." And Sean says, "Well, have you ever met Paul Hutchinson?" And and Josh Josh Josh Romney said, "Well, Paul would be perfect." And later I told him I says, "I don't think that's a compliment, guys." Yeah, so okay. Um you mentioned about the America thing, which is terrifying and mind-blowing. How interconnected and global is this? Are we are people children from Southern Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, are they being flown over? Do do do children and and human traffickers tend to stay within a particular sort of geographic net. Here's what we found is in most of these rescue operations, that about half or more of the children were from that country. We're brought in from super poor areas, that the parents were duped, whatever they were brought in. Half of them though that were were brought from other places. In fact, that that first rescue that was depicted in in the Sound of Freedom, I was sitting there on this chair and these traffickers brought out these four virgins, scared to death. One of them was an 11-year-old boy brought in from Haiti. They gave him cocaine that morning because he was so scared. I mean, what what kind of effed up monster thinks that that's attractive, right? It it it it's it's it's sickening to me, but these children there were there were children from Asia, there were children from from Dominican Republic, children from Haiti, children from all over there. In fact, the last one that I did before I came out from being undercover, I was in Ecuador. And most of the kids that they brought were were trafficked in from Venezuela because there was a there was a lot of upheaval in the country and there's there's poverty that's there and and it's super easy for these traffickers to go in and bring these kids into other countries promising them a job and of course their job is being trafficked. Yeah, when everyone's starving and will do anything for food, the vigilance that you're going to have against your child being trafficked is going to go through the floor when you're trying to keep food on the table. Okay, so you get this phone call, your business partners think that you're a crazy person, uh you decide that you're going to go to Colombia 2 days hence. Uh for actually first off, you mentioned that you had a background that predisposed you to be able to be in kinetic or high-pressure situations. What's that background? Yeah, a couple things. I we found that our best undercover operators are not and we had special forces guys with a lot of them, which is great, but the best ones were ones that were highly trained in in hand-to-hand combat. Are you Are you familiar with Krav Maga? I am. Yeah, so for your listeners who don't know that you know that other other martial arts, karate and and whatnot, bow to your sensei, three points when you kick them in the leg, Krav is brick to their head and go home to your family, right? It's Israeli special forces hand-to-hand combat and it's it's the most lethal on earth. What Every move, they don't breathe, they don't see, they don't walk. I can take away a gun faster than they can pull a trigger every single time. And and it's that kind of of training that you have to have when you're in that situation. You don't have guns and night vision goggles and and and a spotter. You just don't. You know, you're face-to-face with guys selling you eight-year-old children that would kill you in a heartbeat if they knew who you really were. And so, being able to be super and and and a lot of it We never had I I I served on 70 undercover rescue missions. Not once did I have to use I was going to say, did anything ever get kinetic? Oh, things things got super dangerous, super dangerous a couple times, but not to the point now. We had four traffickers that actually ended up dying on missions, but they were they were killed by each other, by other traffickers in which Yeah, that's exactly. Right. Like, that's all right. We'll we'll take care of that. So, but there were some super dangerous situations, but never to the point where we had to be involved. I was I was sitting talking I was standing on a on a sidewalk talking to one trafficker in Latin America. We called him Diablo. He had devil horns that were tattooed on his forehead. And there was another trafficker we had connected with earlier. We called him Candyman. He had a a candy shop and he was selling he was making his big money selling kids, but that's how he's connecting with people and customers. Well, well, Candyman saw me talking with with Diablo. And I've got video of this. He he he walks right up to him and I kind of step away and boom, he clocks him, throws him out in the middle of the street. They're beating the out of each other right there in front of us over this turf war because Candyman was like, "No, these guys are going to They're they're going to When we go into a city, we want to make sure we connect with every single trafficker that's there, so we don't just take out one or two and the others fill in. So, we're in there long enough and they always start fighting with each other. Okay, so you've got this background in hand-to-hand combat. That means that you're going to be able to at least control yourself parasympathetically when the confrontation perhaps happens, but like I It doesn't matter how many decades of Israeli special forces fighting practice you've done, you're not trained. Like, you're not trained for this. I'm sure that you've had some coaching to deal with mergers and acquisitions and hostile takeovers and stuff for your business, which is also, you know, I got some communication and I've spent time in boardrooms and blah blah blah, but none of these things are anything close to uh special forces, uh information technology, surveillance, counterterrorism, none of this. And they've given you 48 hours and during that time you need to get yourself over there. So, talk us through the story. You're you're you're on the plane, you're heading down there, you arrive. What happens next? Actually, I was supposed to fly right into Cartagena. Well, I there was a layover in Bogota. And during the layover, I was supposed to get into Cartagena that night and the the meeting with the traffickers was the next morning. Well, I get into Bogota and something happened that canceled the flight going into Cartagena and and everybody was pissed. Like, we're in the airport. Now, realize this, I had come from a wealth conference, right? I had I had thousand-dollar cufflinks on my on my cuffs, right? I was a target and at the time at the time Bogota, Colombia, it was $25 is what you needed to to pay somebody to knock somebody off, right? So so if if I looked like I was worth any more than $25, I was a target. So, I'm in a I'm in a custom suit. I've got I've got a custom cufflinks. I've got a my Gucci bag. I was going down there on purpose dressed as this wealthy guy that was going to pay for this thing, right? And they canceled the plane. Everybody's pissed and throwing things and mad that they canceled it. I'm like, "Okay, this airport's not safe and and if it's not going out there, I need to go get a taxi." I go outside. I get this this taxi and he looked like he was legit. I says, "Hey, take me to the Marriott." Boom, he passes the Marriott. I'm like, "All right, what? The next exit next exit." I'm like, "The Marriott, okay." He goes, "No, no, hotel hotel, right?" He takes another exit and this is a shitty part of town. I'm talking There there's there's prostitutes and I'm dressed like the biggest target on the planet. And there's there's big thugs that are saying He goes, "Hotel hotel." telling me to get out. I'm like, "No, there's no way in hell I'm getting out." He had I'm sure he had to deal with those guys. Fortunately, I had donated a bunch of money to the to the police department and helped them with some things and I got an honorary colonel badge, right? It's a freaking badge badge, right? I'm digging through my bag. I pull it out and I'm like, "Policia, Marriott, ahora ahora." Now, my shitty Spanish, right? Telling him to take me to the Marriott and he's like, "Okay." So So, that was my first experience in Colombia dressed like a target. Of course, that next morning and we get to the Marriott, there's guys with full automatic weapons out in front as guards. I mean, this is a serious place. In front of the the elevator going up, there's guys with automatic weapons. And so so the next morning, I get back to the airport, fly in and and I'm thinking the whole time. I'm thinking, "John was right." You know, my business partner, have you thought through this? I'm thinking, "Yeah, that was that maybe I should have thought through this. That was that was super dangerous already in in being this position." And the reality is they didn't have time to set up on that first operation. Now, the 60 plus after that, I was Paul Stone, Paul Black, Paul, you know, all of Paul Steel undercover profiles, everything set up. They didn't have time for that. We had 24 hours from the time that he was showing the traffickers, "This is the guy that's going to come and fund this." I went down as Paul Hutchinson. That by itself was dangerous, right? Super dangerous. And so, you know, they they pick me up at the airport, these two Navy SEALs, big-ass dudes, you know, they're my show bodyguards and my real bodyguards in a fully armored car. I'm like, "Damn, this is this is sketch." And and we pull into this restaurant and there's this balcony that's overlooking the beach and we're parked there on the beach and these guys are, you know, show, they're going out looking around, but the traffickers are looking from the top with the undercover CSI agents and whatnot that are up there. And so I get out, I walk in and these guys are they're pissing themselves. They're like, "Yeah, this is the guy that's going to fund our missions and whatever else." But I'm like I'm in a dangerous place. If if if if they The only thing that really kept it going was the fact that they thought that their whole world was going to be made right by me. You know, there's there's no reason to take me out there because I'm going to fund their project and they're going to be making tens of millions of dollars a year off these Americans that were coming down. So, that's the only thing that really kept me safe in that situation. Negotiated with them, sat there. Halfway through the meeting, one of them In the movie, this is depicted with me in the in the Mercedes where where my driver gives me a picture of this 11-year-old girl. In real life, I was already there. I was sitting across from the traffickers. And this one, he was so excited was willing to take a look at the project. He goes, "Pablo, I have a gift for you." I said, "Really, what's your gift?" And he hands me his phone and there's a picture of this little 11-year-old girl. He said, "This is princess. She's still a virgin. She's 11." He started talking about these horrific things I could do this little girl. And that galvanized my commitment to to In fact, the Navy SEAL that was standing right behind me, he's like, "Ah, I need to go take a look at the restaurant, whatever, make sure everything is all safe." Later when our debriefing, he's like, "You know what? I almost unholstered my weapon right there and shot him in the head cuz that little girl looked like my little girl at home." And I realized that if I if I broke my my undercover, I we could lose the rest of those kids. I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, that's great. That's what we want." And then he's like, "Yeah, we just took delivery of some." And I realized if we can get these kids out before they're ever raped the first time, that would be a miracle. And I said, "Fuego." I said, "You have more virgins?" He goes, "Yeah, I got three or four more." I said, "You have to bring those to the party, too." He goes, "Oh, no, they're too expensive." Too expensive? I'm already paying $25,000 for this party. I'm paying $500 per child for 50 children just for 2 hours in the afternoon with them. He goes, "Jefe, you already paid 25,000. You want to F the other virgins, it's going to cost you extra 2,000, maybe 5,000 for that little one. It's going to cost you maybe 10,000 more." I was so pissed. I'm in I'm in a I'm in a really expensive suit, and I'm like and I'm like, "You don't think I can afford an extra $10,000?" He's like, "Oh, no, Jefe, no." I said, "I want every one of those virgins at my party. They damn well better be virgins when they get there. They're not for you, they're for me and my guys. You understand?" He goes, "Oh, yeah, Jefe, I understand." This stupid smile on his face. So, 2 weeks later, we fly back in. The guys meet with US Embassy, the Colombian federal agents, and that's that's where this thing happened. So, you're not uh were you involved? Did you need to be back there at all when stuff was going on? in because I'm having the party and they they need to see that I'm there with my with my guys and they're going to bring the kids and so we rented this island. There was this private island out away and we we they we told the traffickers meet on the on the the the the bank area um on the the on the mainland with all the kids. They showed up with 54 children. Almost every one of them were under the age of 16 years old. Many of them were kidnapped from other countries and I'm sitting there, you know, pretending like this is my big party. Now, my buddies for my party are all former special forces guys and stuff that are all hanging around, but I'm sitting there. These guys showed up with these kids. We put the kids in a in a safe place in this kind of cabana area in the house and we have this table outside and we're sitting there negotiating with these guys. And we have undercover cameras to be able to catch everything they're saying because we don't want the children to ever have to stand trial and and testify. We need a and that was a dark conversation. Super dark because we have to get them to say why how old the kids were, what they were willing to do, where they got them, all of this stuff in that conversation so we could and and it was really really dark. In fact, we had a a situation that was that was super dangerous. We were supposed to order tequila. Once we had all the information, we're like, "Order tequila." And that that was the sign where, you know, we had they had 40 federal agents that were on this case. Four of them were posing as our maids and our waiters and our cooks. You know, the rest of them were there to storm the party. You know, they weren't very good cooks, but they're armed, right? And and we're supposed to give this this signal to them and they're they're supposed to come out and and call and 2 3 minutes later, they're supposed to storm it all. So, as soon as we have all the information, we're like, "Okay, tequila, let's order tequila, let's get the party started." Boom, we order tequila. 2 minutes pass, 5 10 15. It was 45 minutes. Now, in the movie, we depicted it like they were waiting for the other kids. The in reality, the kids were already there, but 45 minutes later before the agents actually able can can can We found out later that it was it was a somebody from the child protective services, the boss of all of them that slept through her alarm and missed the boat coming out and she's like, "No, we can't do this thing without me there." We're The problem was we had just started the party. Tequila. It's time to bring out cocaine and the kids and everything else and we have to figure out how to delay for 45 minutes. So, what did you do? Well, this was Now, I'm I'm not tooting my own horn, but this is where it was a damn good thing that I had done a bunch of mergers and acquisitions and business stuff, right? Because they they get up and one says, "Oh, I'm going to go get the kids. I'm going to go get the cocaine." I'm like, "Shit. And we can't do that, you know." So, I said I said, "Guys, guys, guys, you know what? You bring out the kids and the cocaine, I'm going to get up for the next 2 days. I'm not going to be able to think. I'm going to have such great time. But, you've proven to me what you said you could do. Our deal was this, we're going to have a party, you show up with the inventory you have, if I'm happy with that inventory, I'm going to fund your project. So, let's let's figure that out right now. Somebody bring me a a notebook and a pen." Boom, they bring me a notebook and pen. And I start drawing out this business plan. Chris, this is where it got dark, right? Cuz this business plan penciled and it was it was terrific. I'm like, "Okay, so with this business plan, we drew out what the what the resort was going to look like." I'm still delay delay delay, where's the freaking agents, right? And then I'm like, "Okay, let's let's put together a spreadsheet here. Let's let's talk about the cost of goods. What is it going to What does it cost for you to bring in a little Colombian girl? Oh, $2,500, we can get one, you know, okay. What does it cost for an American? Little blonde girl. What what's that going to cost? $25,000. I'm writing these numbers down, right? And then, I don't know how dark you want me to go, but but okay, I'm I'm going there. I'm like, "Okay, so you're charging me 2,000 to 5,000 dollars for these virgins, right? Are you just me over or or is that really what you're charging?" They're like, "Yeah, yeah, that's what we really charge." So, I'm writing these numbers down. I say, "Okay, after you rent them out the first time, then how much does the cost go down?" And then the female trafficker, the one that in the movie was the one that was running the the the modeling agency, she says, "Oh, no." She said, "We can we can rent them out more than once as a virgin." And I'm like I'm like what I'm like got my pants on I'm like what what what what do you mean? She said about $200 for an operation to sew back their hymen. And I'm like, "What?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I mean, not only are they selling these children like they're cattle, they're talking about things like that. And I thought, "What has the world come to where any person on the planet thinks that that's okay?" Any person on the planet. And so, I'm like, "Okay, that's getting heavy." So, I change the subject. I'm like, "Okay, I'm still delaying. I'm like, okay, you know, I'll fund your your modeling agency. Let's talk about that. Tell me the details." And a lot of the stuff that went into the movie was from that conversation, the details that we got of where they were getting the kids and how they brought them in. Finally, I mean, it was half an hour into it and I still hadn't with agents hadn't come. Finally, I said, "Guys, you know what? I like what you're where you're going with this. You've proven that you can do it all. Anything I invest in, I want control. I'm taking 55%. I'll give you the money." I said there's another 45% and I pointed at one of the guys, his name was Eduardo. I said I said, "You you get You've done most of the work. I think you should get 35. The other guys can split the other 10." And then they're like, "Huh?" I says, "You know what? Why don't you guys figure it out? I want to I want to pencil this right here. I want to put document whatever it is we're and they argued these traffickers against each other for the next 15 minutes until the agents came and arrested everybody and threw us all on the ground, but that was that was sketch. And it was a damn good thing that I knew what I was doing when it came to writing out business plans. What what is it like when the armed forces finally get there and blast through? Like, is it just the the highest adrenaline that you've ever felt? Chaos. Chaos because they've got they've got live rounds, right? And and they're they're pointing them at all of us. And the bad guys have to think that we were arrested and taken to the US to stand trial, right? They can't think that we were even involved. And so so, we had Sean, the Attorney General. This was before he actually became AG. He was standing right behind me. He was operating He was We called him La Sombra, the the shadow, right? He was really my translator cuz my Spanish sucks. And and he he and as soon as they all came in, he he takes me to the ground to protect me, you know, as my protector or whatever as my and and he's we're laying there on the ground in the sand. Ants crawling over the top of us. They're throwing all the traffickers down. Everybody's getting handcuffed and we're laying there as they're interrogating them and it's it's going on and on. Now, they take the traffickers off the island. And and but the traffickers see us being laid down and and then the child protective services people are in with the children. And then I we we able to get up and I went into the the side part of the house where where some of our bags were. And I'm getting one of the bags and one of my operators was there. And because it had a grass roof on this this building, you could hear what was going on in the other rooms. And you could hear the kids in there. And they were laughing and they were they were, you know, joking with the the child protective service were trying to calm them down. And that sound of freedom versus the crying that I heard half an hour before, that was the most beautiful sound that I ever heard. And I started crying. And and I turned to the operator and I said, "Wow, I said I spent my whole life making rich people richer. I want to make a difference." I I I'm all Obviously, what what's what's happened with these young children is that they've been psychologically manipulated in a in a variety of ways to get them to um collaborate or or at least not not protest. Yeah. How do you or the child protective services people get past that level of manipulation when trying to convince the kids to now trust you as not someone that's again, this is just the next set of traffickers that are going to sell me to some some other awful person? Well, first of all, the kids in all the missions that I've done, the kids don't know that we were the good guys, you know? And we have a whole separate team that goes and helps them with the rehabilitation and and and working through that. I will say that's where the real rescue is. Pulling them out of hell is the easy part. Pulling the hell out of them, that's the hard part, you know? And helping them heal. And I will say that you put these kids in a healthy home that has the love that they need. We have a we have a wonderful organization that we partner with. So, my foundation is the Child Liberation Foundation. You can go to liberatechildren.org and find us there. But we we partner with a number of other ones and there's one I love. It's out of Guatemala called the Hope of Life Foundation and they've helped over 30,000 victims recover. And their model is beautiful. They they have this property that's way away from the city and they have this farm in this ranch area and then they they they have poor families, a mom and a dad and maybe one child or whatever that can't afford living where they were and then they have wealthy donors that'll come down and say, "Okay, I'm going to build a house. It's only going to cost 10 grand for a beautiful two or three bedroom house there." And they bring this family in and they say, "Okay, here's the deal. We're going to give you a house and we're going to give you a job and we're going to give you three more children." Right? And so there's these children that have been taken from these horrible situations and instead of just putting them into a foster home or what and you know, something that's going to be perpetuating the problem, they put them into a healthy home with a healthy family that can give them the love they need and then of course you've got the therapy and the psychology and everything else is part of it. The hard ones, Chris, are the ones that that here in the US, this is the hardest ones. The ones that were abused by their uncle or by their dad or were sold by their mom when they were younger and then their entire life they've had to hold this in and they've built these layers and layers and layers of protection around themselves and then finally they get to the point where they're talking about in 10 years of therapy, they're still having a hard time breaking through it. In fact, the average age of somebody that about child abuse that they went through, the average age is 52 years old. That's my age. You know, I have grandkids. They've they've spent their entire life dealing with that kind of trauma. So helping them work through that, that's a whole different ballgame. You put these children in a healthy home, it's amazing how fast they can bounce back. That's crazy. So okay, you do this first one and that seems like a real baptism of fire to be the first mission that you go on. Why or how do you decide that you're going to continue to do this? I understand the motivation, right? Like I I'm all in and and this thing's terrible and I can enact change and so on and so forth. But you're supposed to be a businessman. You're supposed to have responsibilities, you have a family, kids, you know, other to do and now you've got to what? Like just Bruce Wayne Batman your life in half and and and go off and do this stuff. How does How do you fit it in? How does it all that integration work? So I'll tell you a quick story. I uh about a year or two into doing the rescues, a few years into it. I I I had gotten a divorce. I was with I was dating a girl that I ended up marrying later, but I I was dating her and and she had we're getting pretty serious and she had a little nine-year-old and 11-year-old boy of her own. And she said I I'd come back from one of the pre-ops and a week later I was going down for the actual sting, the operation and she said, "You know what, Paul? I've been thinking about this a lot and I I if we're going to make this work, we you've got to change that. This is this is I just I have so much anxiety every time you go. I just can't do it." And and you know, I I felt compassion for where she was coming from because yeah, I'm sure that was super difficult. But her her two boys had a little girl that was from the neighborhood that was playing. And I think her name was Jessica and I I said I she was in the other room. I said, "Hey, Jessica, come in here for a minute." She comes in. I said, "How old are you?" She said, "I'm 10, almost 11." I said, "What do you do for fun?" She goes, "Well, I I I ride my bike. I like to sing. I like to dance." I said, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" She said, "Maybe be a dancer, maybe be a nurse." Beautiful dreams for 11-year-old child, right? I had her go play in the other room and I turned to my girlfriend and I said, "The children that those traffickers showed me yesterday were her age. And if I don't go back down, somebody very likely is going to buy them. And can you imagine the lives that they live? They deserve to want to enjoy riding their bike. They deserve to want to grow up to be a dancer or a nurse. And just because those kids maybe their parents don't have the resources I do or the background, doesn't mean they love them any less. Or even if the kids' parents weren't involved, which happens, it doesn't mean that that child is worth any less than any of the other ones. So you had to make a lot of sacrifices personally in order to be able to keep this thing going. Okay, so what were the most dangerous situations that you found yourself in? I mean, it doesn't sound like that first one was completely undangerous. You're being thrown on the ground, there's live ammunition, there's a lot of problems and complications, but was there something where you thought this could really really go nuclear pretty quickly? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So the first year and a half I was going in as Paul Stone, right? Paul Stone is a wealthy playboy. I've got pictures of Lamborghinis, Ferraris, whatever else and and that was actually fairly safe because once I showed up, the undercover guys were already with the guys. They said, "Listen, Paul Stone's coming with his party. No knives, no guns, no problem, you know." And they had it pretty controlled. We've got a lot of guys there. After about a year and a half, I was asked to start doing deep cover. And it's dangerous for the wealthy guy to do deep cover. So I had to change my profile. Instead I'm working for a rich guy, right? And so I'm I'm now Paul Steel and Paul Steel is working for a guy with money named Mateo and he's So I then, because I had I had done enough of these things, I then started going in 2:00 in the morning downtown Port-au-Prince, Haiti connecting with the worst part of humanity that are selling a year old kids and and finding where they're holding because our goal is to get to where they're holding them. If it's not just taking down the pedophiles, not just taking down the pimps, but we've got to get to their suppliers that that are physically controlling the kids because then I can geotag the location of where they're keeping them or they bring the children out so that we can then do the sting and rescue them from there. So that's the goal is to get to the bosses' boss. And I was in I was in Latin America. I met with this guy, super dangerous man. He's 6'3, killed lots of people and and and everybody cowered to him, everybody. Uh the everybody, all the drug dealers stuff, "Yeah, yeah, this guy is the boss. This guy is the boss." Well, connected with him, told him, "Listen, I'll pay you couple hundred bucks each time you you I can't My boss will kill me if I taste the candy, but I have to verify you have the candy. So I'll pay you if you show me where they are." Well, he showed us some kids. We knew that he was legit. The next morning he calls, "Pablo, I have to show you something. I have to meet. I have to meet." I said, "Okay." So we we meet. He says he jumps in the car. He says, "All right, we got to go somewhere. We got to go." I said, "We going to go see some more kids. I'll pay you some more money if you show me your where where you're where you're keeping the other ones." He goes, "No." He says, "You know I'm the boss." He says, "You know I'm the king, right?" I said, "What?" He goes, "I'm the boss." I said, "Oh, yes, very obvious you're the boss of this whole city." He goes, "Every boss has a boss and I'm going to take you to see my boss. He's in charge of and and this guy was man in charge, right? I get out of the car and this guy's talking back and forth, super dangerous conversation. He says he says he said, "Give me your business card." I pull out my business card, my undercover one, Paul Steel. He looks at it, he says, "Tell me your phone number." Now if I didn't have Now we saw at least three in this one. I met with him later, there was eight of these these guys that were watching us that were had guns behind that that building, everything else and he says he says he said, "Tell me your phone number." And I had it memorized just like that. He says, "Tell me your address." And then he says, "Show me your phone." And I pulled out my phone. He says, "Show it to me." So I I show my phone to him. And he dials the phone number that's on my undercover to make sure it's ringing to my phone. And it rang. And he smiles. He says, "I like you." He ended up bringing 24 children. He was he was the king. He was the boss of that whole area. The federal police said that they'd been trying to get in touch with him for 3 years. And I got his phone number in 24 hours. So but that was super dangerous. If I didn't have that number memorized, if I didn't have all of the things set up properly where my undercover phone was ringing to that, uh we would have been done right there. What were the places you went to? You mentioned uh an area of Haiti there, but I imagine it's been uh like a world tour of the most destitute, awful locations for this sort of stuff. What are some of What are some of the others that stand out? More than half the children that were rescued in Thailand were sold by their own families. Super just poverty there and and feeling like, you know what? The if you're you're going to be better off in a brothel and we can now have enough money to be able to pay for the food for our kids. That was super sad. Um there were a lot of children, lot of children in the island of of Haiti is also shared with the Dominican Republic. And the DR, um there was there we did a lot of operations that were there in the Dominican Republic and there was a lot of very very young kids, very very sad situation there. All over Latin America, um some of the best law enforcement I've ever worked with is the the guys in the federal police in Mexico. Uh we followed a bunch of leads there in Mexico from different areas and trafficking to other beach areas for the Americans. Um we've we've been in in Nicaragua and uh been in in Costa Rica. Um we've been on a lot of areas of Latin America, down in Peru. How uh Ecuador. How did you avoid getting into it? It just seems like, you know, you do this 70 times You do anything 70 times, things are going to go wrong. You You know, the first one that you ever did, it's 45 minutes waiting. Given the people that are doing this aren't exactly going to be uh the most balanced in the world. They're not They're not They haven't got to the position that they're in because they're reasonable. Um it just seems surprising to me that you managed to get through so many operations without like beyond someone getting punched in the face, like without We had one of our operators got stabbed 27 times. Um we had another He he lived through it. He was in Dominican Republic. Um he was just fighting. Now, they they count every single little poke as a stab, you know, when they're doing the taking you to the hospital afterwards, but uh we had another one in um who we had we had got to pretty high-level political leaders in this country that were involved. I'm not going to say the country, but pretty high-level political leaders that were involved and uh had taken down some corrupt judges and whatnot and and our top operator there that was working in the federal police. Um ended up dying of a heart attack the same week that three other political uh enemies were died of a heart attack. And so, you know, I I count that as a as a tragedy tragedy of of one of our one of our operators as well. How much of an emotional toll did all of this take on you? It's heavy. It's heavy when you know, when you're when you're in that level of darkness, it's super heavy. And um and I'll I'll just I'll just tell you I what happened in about 7 years ago, I had been doing operations for 3 and 1/2 years. About 6 6 and 1/2 years ago, and one of my operators came to me and he said, "Paul, do you trust me?" I said, "Yeah, I trust you 100%. I mean, we're doing this." Now, I was living in this I was still Paul Stone, you know, I wasn't Paul I wasn't Paul Hutchinson. I was Paul Hutchinson, right? I had this huge lifestyle. I had the best stories on the planet, you know, I could It was just that that energy, right? And and it was cool. I was using this big ego to help go rescue kids, but from a heart standpoint, I had dysfunctional relationships. I was I was on my my halfway through my second marriage on the way out. I mean, it was just super just dysfunctional as a whole. And and and it was it was that toll was taking place on some of my operators as well. And one of them came in and he said, "Paul, he said, 'I know that you've been searching for something that can help a lot of these trauma victims, especially the adult ones who have been holding it in for a long time.'" He said, "We found something and I think it's going to help you as well." I'm like, "I don't need help. I'm Paul Hutchinson." "No, you will." And I uh I was invited into my first guided meditation plant medicine journey experience, and it changed everything for me. It transformed my life. It helped me sh- I had all of these just just negative emotion that was just bound up inside me, and I was able to let it go, let go of stuff from my own childhood, let go of stuff for that were you know, it was created from my own arrogance, my own ego, and and let go of a lot of that negative energy of being in the pit of hell. Did that make you less effective at your job afterwards? The more I did, the more I couldn't do it. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I can't I I I I just Yeah, I I've now um you know, I did I did some rescue missions last year, but that was almost a 3-year hiatus from the time that I had my last ones before that. And I was in Ecuador last year, and I had I had changed so much from the man that I was 6 years ago that being in that darkness and seeing that, I thought, "This is a reason why I decided to go public." I thought, "There's got to be a better way. There's there's something that I can do to use my resources, my voice, my experiences to to end child trafficking that doesn't take me into that. I can I can for the rest of my life, I can share these stories of being in the pit of hell, but I don't have to go back there. And I can fix it from this angle instead." Yeah, if if uh the like postmortem on going and doing an operation is that you need to a course of ibogaine and ayahuasca to be able to get through it, then I I I don't know. I feel like yeah, the there's It's a it's a high personal price to pay. Um one of the things that's obviously very interesting about The Sound of Freedom is how controversial its release has been. It's caught an awful lot of press. Why do you think it is that it was so controversial for what is a relatively non-political movie? Yeah, um we had pushback from the beginning, Chris. We had we we we went in right from the beginning, we went into guys like Paramount and Sony and Lionsgate and had the story of that rescue. And they they were interested, but they but they it came with conditions where they wanted full control. They could have They could have had one of my operators touching a child in the middle of the operation and just make it you know, uh stuff like that that No, that's not what it's about, you know, we wanted to have it from the heart. So, we we we we knew that it had to be self-funded. And so, I put the first money in to me to to do all the script and everything. And then even after that from uh creation of the the movie itself, we knew that those guys wouldn't do the work that that we needed have done. So, we we painstakingly found the very best guys to do it. And then the movie was finished 5 years ago. 5 years ago. And we were ready for distribution, and we ended up getting pushback everywhere at the the traditional distribution models. The only way we were able to bring it to the world is to go around the existing system, right? The existing system of control that is put in place by big media, big tech, and big Hollywood to control what kind of stuff is being put into your mind and your kids' mind, we we had to go around that. And so, going through Angel Studios was was something where we could go from the people for the people, right? Where it was supported with this grassroots movement and this pay-it-forward type of a thing is is is what really worked. And so, I will say this, um there have been there have been things where some of the actors have have have been very very political in the last few years. You know, Jim Caviezel is an amazing amazing actor. But in terms of of of taking a broad swath through the population say, "This is something we can all get behind." It doesn't work if you're if you're talking about adrenochrome and and QAnon and things and whatever else, right? And so, so my answer to that is this, you know, I I uh I see myself as a conservative, you know, and I I've I've voted that way most of my life. But this is not a political issue. This isn't a rich versus poor, this isn't a black versus white, this isn't a right versus left. This is about the children. And until we can come together on that, then we're going to continue to have these problems. And so, it it shouldn't be political, but unfortunately, some people see it as that. Is it a red flag given Hollywood's history with people like Jeffrey Epstein and stuff like that? Obviously, the conspiracy theories almost write themselves with a a film like this about a topic like this not being green-lit. And yet, you know, for every conspiracy theory, there's probably a a perfectly legitimate uh reason for why this film wouldn't uh be able to be worked for whatever reason. Well, well, have you got a grander conspiracy in your head? Yeah, so so pre-launch, I could probably get behind the the notion that, "Hey, uh I don't think this is what the public really wants, and so this is So, pre-launch, I could understand that some of them were turning us down because maybe it wasn't something So, I could maybe look at that, but now, post-launch, with the massive success and that the fact that the masses are wanting to go to it and it's it's gaining so much momentum with these guys now blatantly coming out against it, you have to ask yourself why. Okay? And I'll tell you this, it's not just the children in Colombia that are in slavery. It's you and I. It's the average adult that allows themselves to be controlled by this mass psychosis that that that a very few people have decided, "This is the agenda. This is what's going to be fed to you. This is what's going to be fed to your kids, and this is the road that you're going to slowly be led down until we get to this point." And and as soon as we take a step back and say, "No, we're not interested in that. We're not interested in in movies that are that are promoting things that are not in line with with my core values." Yet, we've spent so many years quietly stepping back saying, "Ah, it's not that bad. It's not that bad." And every time we say it's not that bad, it gets a little bit worse. And so now, this is coming out blatantly in their face, "No, this is something that we can all get behind." And they're like, "Oh, no, we can't we can't have that message out." What what do you think is the road that uh people are trying to be walked down here? Obviously, you've spent not only before you started doing this because of your wealth level, that'll have given you access to a lot of uh high-level individuals. Actually, this is this is let's ask this first. Outside of your time working with working with the child trafficking stuff, what are the sorts of people that you've met at the wealth level that you're at and above? Have you met any people who you've been scared of having the sort of resources that they do? You know, people that that achieve very very extreme wealth have done it for a particular reason. One of the things that is often a limiting factor for people with nefarious ideologies or or views about the world or plans that they want to enact is that they don't have the resources to be able to make it happen. And as you get toward the multi multi multi-billion dollar net worth individual, you end up with somebody who might very well have the psychopathology and essentially unlimited ability to make things happen. Have you met people in business meetings or at these conferences or at dinners that are terrifying to sit across from? What's that like? Yeah, I'll tell you a story. 2012, I had just surpassed $2 billion in assets under management. I was the number one performing real estate investment fund in the US and started getting invited to different conferences with the ultra elite. And I got invited to a very special one that the the top of the top of the top. We're talking multi-multi-generational billion-dollar families that are really pulling the strings. And um now, I know a lot of wealthy families that are really good people. But we're in this room and before and I was there supposing to I was going to speak about some of our investment strategies cuz we were doing really well. I mean, high double-digit returns. And so so uh but I was sitting there and this guy came up before I did and he he had a he had a spreadsheet and he posted up on the wall and it was population. He says that this, you know, where this population here, we're going to hit 8 billion people by 2024 and 9 billion here, etc. etc. And then he said he said the the um the problem is, he said the baby boomer age. We've known about it our whole life that starting in 2016 that the percentage of people that are over 65 years old and aging out of the workforce, he says it will become completely unsustainable. And and there's no way that we can sustain financially the people moving out of the workforce, the it population, he said. And and it was a pitch. An absolute pitch for population control right there in front of these guys. The and I was saw it with my own eyes right there. And he he talked about how with the new medical advancements, how literally if you have enough money 20 years from now, and you're relatively good health, you can live to 200 years old, right? With the the medical advancements taking off like they are, etc. And then he says something about how the the the the ideal population for this earth is about 500 million. A 7 billion people less than we had at the time, right? And so so I'm I'm sitting there thinking, is everybody going to start throwing up here? No, he he got a standing ovation, right? That scared the out of me. Realizing that that there are people in that ultra elite mindset that just like that female trafficker was seeing those kids that could be sold a second time, you know? As absolute non-human. And I thought, how can you feel that way about your fellow man? But that's exactly what I saw first hand. Yeah, I have a friend Daniel who sat opposite somebody not too dissimilar. And this person was uh overtly talking about being an apex predator. He said, "When you're an apex predator, you don't care about the prey." And he was being sort of very uh callous about the externalities of whatever his business practices were or whatever his plans were for what he was doing professionally or personally or whatever it might be. And um yeah, it's it's interesting to consider what happens to the human psyche when you you have such a long ladder that we're not evolved to have, right? You know, we're in small groups within a tribe of 150, small groups of, you know, between 30 and 40, little little little pockets. And then to be able to go, "Okay, I can no longer be first out of 40, I can be like a hundredth out of 7.8 billion people." It's I I it's almost like a vertigo, but status vertigo. And I wonder what it does to the psyche of someone that wasn't built to uh well, in a well-balanced manner, be able to deal with that. Yeah. Well, it's it's one of the reasons why I was recruited to do the undercover work. Is unfortunately, you take you take guys who have had, you know, a shitty childhood and they got low self-esteem and a huge ego and a big checkbook and they pretty much conquered everything and they've gotten to the point where they are effing everybody and that doesn't really do it for them anymore. And so it's this this apex predator type of a mindset and it grows and grows into this point where they they think it's uh it's okay if I rape a 12-year-old. I was raped at 12 years old. What does that matter, you know? And that's that's that that that energy that unfortunately is the type of guys that are going down paying 50 or 100,000 dollars for one of these sex parties with kids in Colombia. That's why I was chosen. That's why it wasn't so strange for traffickers in multiple countries for the operators to come in and say, "Hey, there's this this profile of this Paul Stone and it's got all this stuff and he's coming down." Yeah, of course. Yeah, we've met with guys just like that. That's who that's who our clients are. So now, I'm not saying that it's just the rich guys who are the clients, but I but I am saying that that arrogance tied together with unresolved trauma, tied together with unlimited resources, you know, they say that that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And unfortunately, you got a lot of people that think that they have that absolute power. Mhm. What what is the current state of the world of child sex trafficking? I mean, you know, it seems like you guys have tried to work pretty hard at this. We've got this film that's come out now. In terms of operations, have you even made a dent or is this like trying to put put a sandcastle up against the tide? No, it's the opposite, Chris. So here's the thing. 10 years ago, when I was sitting on that chair and they presented these little virgins and they were scared to death and I made that commitment. At the time, there was approximately 8 million children that were being sold for sex. In the movie, we talk about over 2 million children a year being sucked in. Those are new ones that are coming in. The but the the numbers were approximately 10 8 million children that are being sold. The end of last year, I finished up some rescue stuff in in uh South America and I I I looked at the numbers. And statistically, they said there's approximately 10 million today. So if my goal was to eradicate child trafficking, I wasn't doing a very good job, right? Pulling 20 children out of out of hell. Yes, it made a massive difference to them. But then we spend the next 5 to 20 years dealing with their trauma and helping them. And because not enough was being done to fix the demand side, it created a vacuum. And another 20 children were being sucked into the deepest recesses of hell. So I took a step back and I'm like, "Okay. Well, undercover rescue's not fixing this problem. I've got to figure out how to fix the demand. What does that look like?" And for a while, I thought, "Well, maybe I need to go out against pornography." Because all of these guys start out with a hardcore addiction that that became harder and harder. Pretty soon they needed something younger and younger. But almost everybody listening to me has seen pornography. Just because you've seen pornography doesn't mean you become a pedophile. But but when you take a woman from a divine feminine to an object, you do start going down a dark road. Tied in with that ego and that arrogance and that commoditization, etc. However, even that is a symptom of a deeper problem, right? It's it's the fact that that we've we've allowed our our our media and Hollywood and whatnot to start feeding us and desensitizing us. I mean, are you kidding me? They're the they're Netflix allowed Cuties to be their TV series, yet they didn't want to take Sound of Freedom. Okay? Really? So you have to ask yourself, what kind of things are being promoted and why have we let ourselves go there? That together with with unresolved child trauma. Two out of three people who have dealt with massive childhood sexual trauma, two out of three become really good men and women. They dealt with their They they they use that as a motivation to to protect innocence at all costs. However, one out of three end up becoming contact offenders. And so people ask me a lot. They say, "Paul, how can you go face to face with somebody selling an 8-year-old and not have them see the anger and hatred in your in your in your eyes?" And my answer surprises them. I said I part of me really feels bad for them. How can you feel bad for them? They're selling you an 8-year-old. No, I will do everything in my power to ensure they never hurt another child again. But what I wish more than anything is that I had a time machine and I could go back 5 years or 10 years to the point before they ever ever hurt a child and figure out what the hell was going on in their life. They were likely raped as a child themselves. They had a thousand bad things happen and a thousand bad decisions that got them to the point where they thought that that was okay. And now, we don't have time machines. But what we do have is hundreds of millions of people on this planet who who are dealing with a level of crap in their life that if we don't help them work through it, we'll likely pass that trauma on to others. So if we can come from a place of compassion and love those kids, those teenagers that that dealt with that and give them the help that they need, I think we'll save millions of children. What's the next steps? What are you planning on doing to try and impact this further? What can people that are listening do if they feel compelled to contribute? Two things. I opened up a website literally last week called Liberating Humanity. Liberating-Humanity. And you can follow me on all my social media. You can just type in Liberating. I'm the first one that comes up. It's Liberating Humanity. Because that's what it's about. It's not just liberating the 10-year-old from the clutches of a trafficker. It's liberating humanity, which will in turn save those 10-year-olds before they're ever raped in the first place. That's my primary goal. You can go to liberatechildren.org and and get involved from the actual child rescue stuff. We're still funding operations of of guys that are going in and taking out pedophiles, etc. and are cleaning things up. But my goal personally, now that I've decided that that my voice is more powerful than than my body being undercover, and so being on podcasts like this one with your amazing audience, I mean, it's you being able to take your your lifetime of work of of accumulating this following and and being willing to bring me on and have me share my voice, my passion, my heart, I believe I believe that is going to help save children. I really do. I think that there are people who are listening right now that are like, you know what? Yeah, I'm I'm dealing with some stuff, whatever. Go get the help that you need. Come on to liberating liberating humanity and and and download some stuff and get some help so that you can work through your trauma because we love you. We know that that's super difficult to be holding on to that. So let's release it and and stop the generational trauma. Stop the demand side so that we can eradicate child trafficking. Paul, I love your energy. I think that you've made a an awful lot of sacrifices in order to be able to get this across the line. I really really hope that everything you do in future goes super well too. Everything that we've spoken about, everyone should go and check that out. I I I really do think that you know, it's a a problem that's been hiding in plain sight and you need a landmark event like the one that you've been a part of to to bring public attention to something that really needs it. Thank you. Chris. Honored honored to be on your show. If you enjoyed that episode, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks. And don't forget to subscribe.