A Bob Jones University alumnus spoke to students at a Criminal Justice Association forum, Feb. 3, about his experiences fighting human trafficking in South Carolina. Sterling Crowder, who graduated in 2021, serves in the 100th Platoon of the Greenville Police Department.
As a police officer, Crowder fulfills various roles, including certified firefighter and licensed drone operator. He also is certified to perform the PIT maneuver; the Precision Immobilization Technique is used to stop cars with minimal risk in a pursuit. However, Crowder’s passion is combating human trafficking. He got his start when his chief assigned him to the east side of Greenville, where he solved several drug and narcotics cases.
“We made some good dope cases,” Crowder said, “but somewhere in there I started thinking to myself, ‘I’m finding this dope, but where is the dope coming from?'”
That question led Crowder to the world of human trafficking, a billion-dollar operation that often involves the illegal trade of guns, drugs and counterfeit purses as well as sex slavery. At the forum, Crowder explained how human trafficking became a major problem for the country, including the state of South Carolina. Greenville County has the greatest number of human trafficking cases in the state, he said.
Contrary to popular belief, most of these slaves are not the kidnapping cases from Amber alerts. Crowder said that most cases are actually false labor trafficking, where migrants are tricked into coming to the U.S. for jobs, only for their visas to be stolen. Many migrants are blackmailed and manipulated into prostitution. Sometimes they go unnoticed because police do not recognize them for who they are. These operations often are rooted overseas in Asian crime syndicates, with American nationals managing businesses as fronts for the trafficking, he said.
Crowder shared a recent case where over 150 law enforcement agencies and police departments participated in “Operation Coast to Coast,” raiding massage parlors suspected of being fronts for traffickers. While the authorities were successful, they found deeper ties to Chinese organized crime than they had expected. While the massage parlors were shut down and the victims rescued, the investigation is still ongoing.
Crowder said that it’s difficult to stop the traffickers, since they continue to work right outside of the Greenville Police Department’s jurisdiction. However, as Greenville locals and county officials become more aware of the problem, Crowder has hope that all authorities can work together to curb human trafficking.
