AURORA | Human trafficking in Colorado is not some shadowy crime confined to distant places, and it rarely looks like the dramatic abductions portrayed online.
Instead, federal and local investigators say it often unfolds through manipulation, familiarity and unmet needs, frequently going unnoticed by the public, even when it is happening in plain sight.
“It’s not people being snatched out of parking lots,” said Federal Bureau of Investigation Victim Specialist Anne Darr, who works on Colorado’s Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force. “Trafficking depends on vulnerability, coercion and manipulation. You cannot control an unwilling victim.”
Colorado’s FBI-led human trafficking task force was formed in 2012 and initially focused on reactive enforcement, which included online stings targeting escort advertisements on websites like Backpage and Craigslist, Darr said. Backpage was shut down and seized by the FBI in 2018.
While those operations recovered victims, they often came too late.
“We were recovering kiddos who were 16 and 17, young adults,” Darr said. “The average age of entry into ‘the life’ is 12.”
To push back, she said they wanted to find kids aged 12 to 15 at entry levels to do preventive work.
In 2015, agencies across the metro area adopted a “high-risk victim model,” she said, forming multidisciplinary teams that include law enforcement, child welfare, prosecutors, health care providers and victim advocates. Arapahoe and Adams County sheriff departments have special human trafficking investigation units. Douglas County, and Aurora Police, also have victim units that specialize in human trafficking. They all work with the FBI as well.
Human trafficking police statistics statewide, according to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, show that in 2023, 87 people were charged with sex trafficking and 26 people were charged with labor trafficking. In 2024, 73 people were charged with sex trafficking, and 22 were charged with labor trafficking and in 2025, 78 people were charged with sex trafficking, and 20 people were charged with labor trafficking.
Human trafficking of minors is now defined under Colorado law as child abuse, allowing information-sharing that was previously restricted and requiring mandatory reporting to child welfare, Darr said.
“A trafficking victim has contact with professionals an average of nine times before someone recognizes what’s happening,” Darr said.
Awareness
Aurora Police Sgt. Joseph Sullivan, who supervises a trafficking-focused unit, said public awareness is important, but it must be paired with context and proximity. Basically, don’t assume and take charge without understanding.
“If you really believe that this is happening, and this person is a victim, and you want to do something, report it,” Sullivan said. “It’s never going to go wrong to report something, because whether the hotline or law enforcement, they will evaluate the totality of the circumstances and then decide the best course of an investigation.”
Reports made to hotlines or police allow professionals to evaluate the totality of circumstances and, if necessary, connect information across multiple incidents, he said.
Signs of trafficking and sexual abuse are usually evident through a lack of autonomy. People are unable to speak for themselves. They don’t have their own identification or their luggage. They seem to regularly have someone acting for them in public places.
Where trafficking goes unnoticed
“Most trafficking victims don’t understand or see themselves as victims,” Sullivan said.
Sex trafficking rarely begins with force or confinement, and that can make it difficult for many victims to recognize what is happening to them.
The typical social media post about someone trying to abduct women by putting something on their car is mostly a hoax, since “people can’t control the unwilling,” Darr said.
If there is something strange involving a car in a parking lot, it is more likely to be a theft or car-theft attempt than abduction and trafficking, Darr said.
Sullivan and Darr said that traffickers typically rely on manipulation rather than violence, building relationships that meet emotional or financial needs before the exploitation begins. Victims may be promised love, protection, money or a better life, and then these promises gradually turn into control, debt or pressure to engage in sex acts for someone else’s benefit.
Because that shift happens slowly, many victims do not initially see themselves as victims. Some believe they are helping a romantic partner, supporting a shared future or making their own choices. The phenomenon is featured in the movie “Tangerine.”
“Human traffickers are very good manipulators, and they are people geniuses,” Sullivan said. “They understand who’s vulnerable, and then they target what’s missing.”
In some cases, questioning by law enforcement or advocates becomes the moment victims begin to understand their situation. In other cases, officers will encounter a victim in the child welfare system and later connect them to trafficking.
Both the Aurora and FBI trafficking specialists compared the dynamic to domestic violence, much like how abuse victims who stay with harmful partners, trafficking victims may return repeatedly, rationalize exploitation or defend the person controlling them. It’s almost a form of Stockholm Syndrome, with fear, emotional attachment, drug dependency and isolation all reinforcing that cycle, they said.
“You don’t wake up one day and decide this is the life you want,” Sullivan said.
That lack of self-identification is one reason trafficking cases are so hard to uncover, and why repeated, patient outreach is often necessary before a victim is ready to accept help, Sullivan said.
“That’s the problem with trafficking, whether it’s sex trafficking or labor trafficking. It happens, but it’s really hard to get the people you need to cooperate to make a case work,” Sullivan said.
While sex trafficking receives most of the public attention, both Darr and Sullivan said labor trafficking is also widespread. Much of their work involves helping the most vulnerable groups being children, but they sometimes deal with labor trafficking as well.
Common indicators include confiscated passports, employer-controlled housing, withheld wages and extortion threats tied to immigration status. It can also happen to people who are not immigrants but are still exploited by an employer.
Fear of deportation or retaliation often keeps some sex and labor trafficking victims from seeking help or contacting police.
Trafficking in Colorado and Aurora
Darr said most recruitment now occurs online through social media such as Discord or Instagram and messaging apps, where traffickers pose as romantic partners, friends or people presenting opportunities such as modeling, acting or other chances at a “better life.”
Recruitment can occur in popular kid games such as Roblox, which is currently under investigation for a child-grooming sting.
Concerned parents can visit the FBI’s “Parents’ Guide to Internet Safety” to learn what to look for.
Once recruited, victims may be moved between cities or states. Colorado sits within a broader trafficking circuit that includes Texas, California, Oklahoma and Nevada because of its interstate highways. Darr said that the “Johns,” or the people who purchase sex workers, are also known to pay more in Colorado than in other states, making it more common for some traffickers to transport victims here, especially to the East Colfax Avenue corridor.
They’re transported because you can sell a drug and guns once, but a person can be sold over and over again, Darr said.
One case in 2020 in Arapahoe County involved two runaway 14-year-olds, one of whom was in foster care, who were recruited online by Kenneth T. Noel, a man in Texas, with the understanding that they were going to Las Vegas to be strippers. The man was caught for a traffic violation, and an officer noticed something was “off,” with the girls not being related to the man and the fact that they were bragging about becoming strippers.
The case was recently prosecuted by 18th Judicial District Attorney Amy Padden, with the help of Darr. The young girls were able to recognize that something was not right when they mentioned to the officer that the man assaulted them the night before. Noel received 35 years in prison because the victims were able to cooperate. One victim is now married and a mother.
In the Denver metro area, street-based exploitation resurged after the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly along East Colfax Avenue near Yosemite Street, an area known as Colorado’s local “blade” or “track,” terms used by law enforcement to refer to sex work strips of roadway, within a 50-block range.
Despite local perceptions, Sullivan said most individuals working Colfax did not freely choose that life. Sometimes sex workers will work without a pimp, but in almost every case, there is someone who got them into the business.
“Very rarely is it just someone deciding to do this randomly,” he said. “There’s someone who manipulates people into this world.”
One of the most alarming trends Sullivan and Darr mentioned was cases where parents or relatives exploit children for money or drugs.
“These cases are discovered, they’re not disclosed,” Darr said. “For (the victim) to be able to put that trust in their law enforcement, detectives and investigators, and then in their federal partners, is crucial to be able to combat this problem and recognize that it is a problem here.”
The youngest victim Darr said she has personally encountered in Colorado was a 9-year-old being sold by her parents for drugs. Some advocacy organizations report victims as young as 3 years old.
“They were at a hotel, and they threw up an advertisement on Craigslist, and they were seeking drugs,” Darr said. “Basically, they were willing to sell their nine‑year‑old daughter in exchange for getting their drug habit met. Probably one of the most horrific recoveries that I’ve ever had to do.”
Indicators and red flags
Aurora Police currently focuses its trafficking investigations on sex trafficking involving people aged 21 and younger, prioritizing juveniles due to limited resources and the long-term harm of early exploitation. Much of the work Darr does with the FBI is the same.
“A lot of times these cases are very much masked by domestic violence or sexual assault, and so it’s kind of looking beneath the surface of some of those hidden red flags and factors and asking more questions,” Darr said. “A lot of times, these cases come to the forefront because of that education and kind of preventative awareness piece.”
Between 60% and 70% of trafficking victims have had prior contact with child welfare, according to The National Foster Youth Institute. Nearly all have histories of abuse, neglect or instability, both Darr and Sullivan said. Children who have run away are significantly vulnerable to trafficking, with one in six runaways becoming likely victims of human trafficking, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Even children overdosing on heavy drugs can be a red flag for trafficking since drugs are a common way for traffickers to control their victims.
“Unfortunately, we’ve seen a couple of times where kiddos have overdosed and died because of what their pimp has given them, which is also their drug dealer,” Darr said. “I would say addiction is probably one of the most (controlling) of methods that they use to be able to keep those victims under their control.”
Cases often originate from patrol officers, runaway reports and patterns identified across investigations, Sullivan said. Federal law requires runaway incidents involving children in state custody to be reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
“Runaways are running from something or running to something,” Sullivan said. “If all their needs were being met, they wouldn’t leave.”
Darr talked about a recent case she is completing in Denver where a pimp beat a 15-year-old runaway girl living in a motel on Colfax nearly to death because she refused to work for him.
They were able to charge the man with attempted murder and first‑degree assault. The trial is coming up in Denver at the end of March on those charges. She said that this was a case that initially looked like a domestic violence or assault case, and was later realized to be trafficking.
Stacking drug charges against the pimps feeding underaged people drugs is one way they can hold people accountable if they are unable to prove trafficking.
Prosecution and punishment
Colorado has some of the strongest trafficking statutes in the country, Darr said. Trafficking a child is a Class 2 felony with mandatory prison sentences, and one recent case resulted in a sentence exceeding 400 years.
Colorado’s statutes are so strong that many cases are charged at the state level instead of the federal level, Darr said.
Still, Sullivan said sentencing outcomes do not always match the severity of crimes involving children. Non-violent cases where people exploit children can be eligible for probation and early release.
“I don’t think punishments are harsh enough for people who exploit children,” he said. “Some of these crimes are probation-eligible. That’s hard to justify.”
Darr said that successful prosecutions often depend on victim cooperation, which may not come for years. Also, some victims may not want to cooperate or may not think of their trafficker as an abuser or exploiter.
“That delay makes cases harder to prove,” Darr said. “But documentation matters.”
A Senate Bill called “Commercial Sexual Activity with a Child Offenses,” introduced this legislative session, could make it easier for prosecutors to crack down on people soliciting, facilitating or engaging in commercial sex acts with children, with lengthy prison sentences by redefining and reclassifying the crime. Sullivan said there are fears it could be tempered before it passes.
When in doubt, report it, they said.
Reports can be made anonymously and evaluated over time, even if a victim is not ready to come forward.
For help or to report suspected trafficking:
Colorado Human Trafficking Hotline: 1-866-455-5075
National Human Trafficking Hotline: 1-888-373-7888 or text 233733
In this article, the prosecutor can choose state or federal charges. The state punishment is more severe. And that is ok.
Why is more severe municipal shoplifting punishment —as opposed to state level punishment— considered a problem by the state judiciary? Seems sensible to allow local communities to set their own level of tolerance for shoplifting, speeding, littering, soliciting, or any other offense.