Elisabeth (00:00)
Okay. So last week Scott sent me a Slack and said, quote, as I’ve worked on some YouTube things, I have actively tried to avoid the short I made me about the trafficking OnlyFans house so you can shock and appall me on camera with that info. It feels a little absurd to be thinking that way, but hopefully, it makes good enough content that it informs other people.

Very thoughtful and insightful of you to share your distress with others.

Scott (00:33)
Yes. Also happy to avoid bad news when I can.

Elisabeth (00:36)
But alas, here we are. Well, so I just want to give you a brief overview, and then I want to talk more in detail about this case because it’s important and interesting for lots of different reasons.

So last month, a SWAT team arrested a 21-year-old by the name of Nikita Tucalo on four counts of human trafficking, money laundering, and leading an organized crime ring where teenagers were coerced into participating in sexually explicit content for profit. Now, two other men, ages twenty and twenty-two, they are anonymous, ’cause they have not been charged or arrested yet, but they have been accused of being involved with this. And the police say that additional arrests are likely.

Scott (01:25)
Jumping right in. This is going…that’s a lot to process. That was diving in faster than I was like mentally prepared for. Okay. So one person’s been you said case, and I was thinking, is it like a case is in we’re examining this like a case study? No, it’s like a

Elisabeth (01:30)
And it Yeah, yeah. An arrest. A case. Yes, full case.

Scott (01:51)
A legal case. Criminal case. Wow. Okay. What, so one person’s been arrested?

Elisabeth (01:53)
Yes, yep. Two others have been accused but have not…no action’s been taken against…

Scott (02:02)
That’s the only part I’m like latching on to, but the bigger headline is probably like trafficking happening currently on OnlyFans.

Elisabeth (02:13)
Yeah. Yeah. So, a criminal case, yeah, related to human trafficking, money laundering, organized crime ring related to sexually explicit content that young people are creating. And then additionally, the perpetrators are also young people. So that’s interesting to note. So, some background that’s helpful for this case. When the SWAT team arrested this individual, they had raided this house.

People are calling it a mansion in Washington because it is a very large property, kind of in a nicer area. But background. So, before the arrests and raids happened, multiple neighbors had filed complaints, and the police had received over a hundred emergency calls related to parties that were being held at this property. So these parties were promoted on social media, they required paid admission, and attracted hundreds of young people. So hundreds of people were coming to these parties on the weekends. And a lot of these complaints were related to underage drinking, assaults, and other issues of that nature.

Because of those complaints, the police were able to launch an investigation because there were concerns that human trafficking was happening at that location and involving underage teens. So that’s sort of everything that was happening behind the scenes before all these allegations came out and before the police started really investigating, like publicly.

I think it’s important to note that these individuals had a reputation. They were displaying their wealth, displaying the luxury, and this sort of glamorous lifestyle. And I think that’s important to note before we get into what happened, you know, with these girls.

Scott (04:06)
important because of like just the they were using that as like promoting the parties of like look at all the cool things you could come do at this or whatever.

Elisabeth (04:17)
Yeah, so it’s a Yeah, like luxury property. There is a McLaren there, which, if you know anything about cars, that’s like one of the most expensive cars you can buy. And I guess I’ll just say here, so charges outline a sophisticated recruitment network of young people. So again, like kind of 20-year-old-ish, who would persuade teenage girls to participate in creating sort of sexual content on the promise of big money.

They were told that they would have complete autonomy to choose how explicit their content would be. So swimsuit pictures or like, you know, wearing shorts, but were then coerced and forced into creating pornography for these other people’s profit.

And so sure, you come into this situation, and you’re told that this is how it’s gonna be, and you consent to this very narrow situation that you’ve been told, but in reality, that’s not at all what they experienced. And so just because they initially consented to, you know, what was, you know, lie they were lied to, but that’s what they consented to. That does not mean that they consented to again all of this abuse that we’ll go into together.

Scott (05:27)
Yeah. Ugh.

Elisabeth (05:29)
Yeah. Ugh is correct. So some of that abuse, and what it actually looked like for the girls, trigger warning for anybody. Yeah, just know that. So these I side note preface, ’cause there were some people who were confused about this on social media when we had initially posted about this.

As far as I understand and what’s been reported on, the girls who were involved with this were perhaps, like, coerced into it, or pressured into it while they were underage, but were participating after they had turned eighteen. All of the news articles referred to these girls as women. And so I will be referring to them as women. But I do understand that they are teenagers and just want to make that clear for people who are sensitive about that.

Okay, anyways, so these women worked for periods of a few months up to one and a half years. So that’s basically how long it had been going on for. They were forced to create content for up to 20 hours a day, which is insane. And then, along with that, like chatting with people, because you know, this content was being distributed to platforms like OnlyFans, Chatterbait, Stripchat, these sites where there is sort of a personal element, and so it was filming content and then being required to spend hours communicating with these people who were subscribers and paying for.

So, a lot of time, and as soon as they had agreed to kind of be on board with this, Nikita and, you know, these other alleged perpetrators took control of their passwords and their accounts. So these women had no idea how much money they were making. They had no access to their accounts or what it was that they were posting. And detectives found several checks and bank accounts containing hundreds of thousands of dollars. So again, these women were promised up to $18,000 a month, but only ever saw maybe a thousand dollars a month.

One girl said that she was gifted $32,000 by a subscriber and then received a beating when she tried to hide the payment and turned the money over, and she said, quote, I let them because I was scared, I thought I was going to get killed, to be honest. So that’s a big part of the reality. Like, that’s not what they signed up for.

Scott (07:58)
What wow. Okay. I’ve only seen headlines about some of this other stuff. And again, I try, and stay out of a lot of it for my own sanity, but the idea of like managers, like managers on OnlyFans managing people’s accounts. I’ve wondered about how that’s just a, you know, a little tweak on prostitution. Like, they’re managers on OnlyFans, but they’re basically pimps? Like I don’t…and from that example, it sounds like that’s exactly what’s happening. Like that stuff is happening and people are the people that are paying for subscriptions or are sending those gifts are not aware at all that they’re paying some random guys that are the ones trafficking those women.

Elisabeth (08:58)
Well, in sort of an interesting and kind of dangerous business model for a platform like OnlyFans, we see a lot of times that the understanding is that it is an ethical site because there’s not a middleman. It’s, you know, they it’s sort of advertised as the creator posts directly to the platform. And so, therefore, you know for a fact that you are getting content that was ethically and consensually produced because it goes directly from the creator to you, the consumer.

Scott (09:27)
Yeah, but obviously not.

Elisabeth (09:28)
Right. Like this is such a good example that yeah, you can’t know the circumstances around the creation of content. And it’s dangerous to assume that you do, because again, people go on to OnlyFans. And you know, we’ve seen a bigger turn in attitude recently of people who do recognize that there is abuse and exploitation that happens in the industry. And so they turn to platforms like OnlyFans to try to be more conscientious of their choices and try to, you know, be more ethical in that way.

Which, you know, we’re glad that people are considering those things. But then it’s dangerous to go to a platform like OnlyFans where they say, yes, like you’re getting content directly from the creator, because a lot of people don’t even think to consider that there’s another option that there could be some abuse or exploitation happening, because that’s not what’s being told to them, you know?

Again, this is a case where we’re seeing very clearly that lots of money was made watching content that was not consensual. And in fact, a lot of these women, again, they say that they followed along because they were scared of being killed. Women report being strangled, slapped, threatened with guns, spit on, and beaten. One woman described being forced to crawl naked on the floor, quote, like a dog with a gun pointed toward her head.

The women say that they were given Adderall like candy to keep them working. One victim said that she tried to leave and all of her belongings were sent to Goodwill, and she was left with nothing at a supermarket, just wearing t-shirts and a short and had nothing else. And so we see, you know, we can look at this case now with this understanding, and we can look back and say, that’s too bad that that happened, and that’s too bad that women were living in these circumstances, and you know, but you can’t know that these things happened when you were watching the content six months ago.

Scott (11:33)
Yeah. I don’t know what I was thinking when I saw the video that you posted talking about this initially, and I was like, I won’t watch that because I know we’re gonna talk about it. I did not expect or think that it would be this bad like that bad. Mm-hmm. I don’t know what I don’t know why I would think that, or what I was thinking in its place, but that man.

Elisabeth (12:01)
Yeah. Wow.

Well, I’d love to ask you a little bit more about that ’cause obviously the qualifiers of sex trafficking are force, fraud, or coercion, or if someone under eighteen is involved. And so we see a lot of times cases where it’s coercion, and it’s not this really dramatic version of trafficking that a lot of people have an understanding about. Like, you know, on Taken.

And of course, that does happen, and those cases are just as serious, but again, you know, people who are coerced or are threatened or manipulated into these situations, that is still trafficking and should still be treated the same way. But this is one of those cases where it is blatant in your face that this was not consensual, this was abuse. It’s force, fraud, and coercion.

Scott (12:55)
I think, I don’t know, I see the comments that people make where they don’t understand why those women don’t just leave. Or that, you know, they would have made different decisions or whatever it is. And I think, you know, in that situation you’re not, I don’t know. They’re not making it from a healthy place to start. They’re, you know, they’ve been, like you said, they’ve been given Adderall so they can keep working, they’re exhausted. And so to just say that, well, these women should have left feels like when you’re just sitting there fearing for your life because a gun is pointed at you. Are you able to make a real choice for yourself?

I think about those comments, and I think those people are just maybe they’re idealizing themselves or they just don’t really understand, they don’t understand the situation that you’re actually in in that. That seems impossible. I’m not gonna make a good decision if somebody’s pointing a gun at me. Good is the wrong way to say it, but I’m not gonna make a I’m just gonna make the immediate survival choice.

Elisabeth (14:15)
Right. You’re in a situation where it’s not safe to say no, or it doesn’t feel safe. And I think a lot of us, it’s like I’m lucky enough that I’ve never been put in a situation where I have to, you know, where I would know what I would do in a situation where a gun’s being pointed at me and I’m told to do this thing. I’ve never been put in that situation. And so I’m not gonna sit here and shame women who have made decisions that were gonna keep them safe and protected.

And I think it’s important in these situations also to maybe question why is it that we’re focused so much on how victims respond to abuse and exploitation rather than focusing on the exploitation and the exploiters who caused that harm to begin with? Because if they hadn’t of put those women in that situation, then those women wouldn’t have been forced to make a decision that you as a commenter sitting at home disagree with.

Scott (15:12)
It’s, and yes, absolutely. And on top of that, from what you started with in the beginning, it sounds like I don’t know if I don’t want to speculate a bunch, but I don’t know when these, you know, whatever, the recruitment process, these relationships started, but you said it that there were all of the content was of l you know, people of age right after. So the recruitment process probably started right after they turned 18. Is that what you said?

Elisabeth (15:44)
Yeah, the four victims who have come forward so far say they were recruited when they were seventeen and persuaded to make content on their eighteenth birthday. So it’s legal, or legal in the sense that they are of legal age. But yeah, to your point, this process started before they legally could give their consent and before yeah, like no yeah, most people wouldn’t know what to do in a situation like this, and especially not teenagers.

So, yeah, so I think it’s important in cases like this to stay focused on the abuse and the abusers. You know, and give empathy to victims and recognize what they’ve been through, and again, consenting to something is not the same as consenting to all of this that happened to them.

I think one of the reasons why this particular case has gotten a lot of traction is because it does have a lot of those elements feel more scary or feel you know, no one wants to hear that teenagers are being, you know, threatened with guns and told to film this content for profit.

But yeah, at the time of this recording, Tucalo has pled not guilty in his first court appearance and is being held on a five-million-dollar bail with concerns over witness intimidation and access to resources to flee the country. So again, while this case has not been fully prosecuted and processed in the court systems. But I think that’s good that tells you how serious this case is. A five-million-dollar bail is a lot for them to give just after an initial appearance. So again, the focus here should be on the individuals and the systems that allow these types of abuse to occur.

So, and then I wanted to ask you about this too, because just thinking about why this case has gotten so much traction, I wonder if there’s a connection between how much OnlyFans has been sort of normalized and even glamorized in media, and you know, you see headlines all the time of people who are making just like crazy absurd amounts of money.

Do you think that success, so to speak, of this particular scheme was due in part to how normalized and glamorized this type of work has become? Because you think about those girls initially, again, they didn’t agree to everything that happened to them, but they were persuaded to create some sort of sexual content in exchange for money. So do you think that that plays a role here in allowing these types of schemes to be successful?

Scott (18:40)
Yeah. I think that blows my mind about OnlyFans is that it’s all promoted on other social media platforms. So yeah, like kids on social media also see this content. Like it’s everywhere and you see it, you see people talking about how much they’re making and whatever else, and alluding to, you know, the lifestyle that it leads to or whatever. It’s yeah, when you’re a teenager, just turning eighteen, like trying to figure out what you’re gonna do in life, how you’re gonna make money, what you’re gonna do to be able to, you know, jump up to crazy a crazy number for income immediately. If you could build that kind of following or whatever. It, you know, it seems I can understand how that would be appealing. I think it’s really scary to think that that’s accessible…not just accessible, but like algorithms are actively promoting it. Like, how much do we think that we have we’re in control as we scroll through any social media, and how much are we actually not, we’re being fed what the algorithm wants to show us.

And so whether that’s, you know, you’re a teenager getting suggested content like this and you start to see it as a viable career, or you know, you’re a guy trying to not watch porn, but you’re on something else, and the algorithm is dictating what you see, and it’s I don’t know.

It’s just a crazy thing to think about. But I think we think we’re in control, maybe more than we are, or we think that places are safer to exist online than they actually are.

Elisabeth (20:48)
Yeah. Which I think is kind of, again, going back to a big theme of yeah, like you can think that this content is safe or consensual because it is everywhere. You see it in your feed on Instagram, and they wouldn’t show you stuff that’s, you know, maybe not coming from a safe place, and you go on OnlyFans because you’re getting content directly from the creator, but you can’t know that, and it’s dangerous to assume so.

Scott (21:21)
Yeah, you assume that Instagram is safer, especially because there’s ads on TV that’s like Instagram for teens. But wasn’t there…I saw on the current events channel recently that was like, said something, I think it was about meta, and it was the only thing consistent about the way nudity is moderated on Instagram is its inconsistency. I think that was some that was the headline.

Elisabeth (21:49)
Right. It’s flagged sometimes, but then other people get away with it and, yeah, I know. It’s it gets messy and it’s tricky. And I think, you know, we’re an organization that is trying to educate people on these things so that we can protect and support women like this who have experienced exploitation, but also preventing it in the future, helping others to recognize the relationship and connection between watching and fueling a demand for pornographic content, and then, you know, people meeting that demand with the supply that is unethical or non consensual.

So, we have in July, every year, we have our big Stop the Demand campaign. Can you just like in two sentences, explain what that campaign is, why people should care about it?

Scott (22:38)
Yeah, Stop the Demand is, I guess, our shorthand for stop the demand for exactly this type of exploitation. Pornography is the second most common form of trafficking, and I didn’t before I started working here, I didn’t realize the connection between this type of exploitation and pornography.

I think a lot of people think about pornography in the way that it would affect them personally or their relationships, but they don’t think about how it was produced or the people involved and the consequences for their life. Like it has such a larger effect in our world of and and on people out in our world that is real and tragic, and to stop contributing to the demand for for this type of content to be produced, because the only reason it’s made is because people are paying to watch it. Like, if they couldn’t make money, if these traffickers couldn’t make money off of that content, would they be doing this? No.

Elisabeth (24:00)
Right. Yeah. And if you again, we know that this is a big topic, maybe a new topic for some of our listeners, and so again, this whole campaign is a month-long campaign. Follow us on social media because we’ll be posting articles, carousels, stats, current events, things related to this to help you understand and consider these things.

We have a landing page which Scott was able to create for us, which has links and resources to a lot of information, interviews, et cetera, things that you would it would be helpful for you to know as you’re learning about these things.

Scott (24:41)
Really good information, whether you are personally trying to stop watching porn or it’s affecting people in your life or whatever, just to know how far the effects of it go, I think is really to have all the information, is empowering and helps you make good choices for yourself, which, you know, hopefully benefits others way down the road in terms of stopping the demand for this kind of stuff.

Elisabeth (25:12)
Word. So stop the demand. Check it out.

Scott (25:17)
Yeah. It’s Ftnd.org/trafficking is where you will find all that information.

Elisabeth (25:23)
So join the fight, stop the demand for exploitation, and say no. Time on Say no. Yeah, w our catchphrase, one of Say no to porn.