Battling Human Trafficking with Big Data

Human trafficking organizations continue to expand their knowledge and usage of established channels for other common black market activities. As such, these activities can increasingly be combatted through sophisticated Big Data Analytics. This talk will discuss how we are mining such channels to isolate and identify adversary activity, especially as it pertains to global human trafficking and child sex trafficking. Specifically, we will discuss a number of real-world cases that have been solved through the combination of multiple large datasets, including geospatial information, human intelligence, financial transactions, social networking data, surveillance reports, and telco CDRs. The talk concludes with steps that the community can take to help prevent such exploitation.

Rolando R. Lopez is the Founder of Orphan Secure, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to combating human trafficking and more specifically child sex trafficking. He is a former FBI Special Agent and current International Security Consultant/Private Investigator with kidnap and ransom consulting experience. Mr. Lopez served in the El Paso, San Juan, and Dallas divisions, investigating drug trafficking, money laundering, police corruption, human trafficking, Russian/Asian organized crime, and Mexican drug cartels. He also served on all three field division FBI SWAT teams as an operator and sniper.

Upon departure from the FBI, he served as Director of Security for a world-renowned evangelist while gaining experience on five continents. He then served in roles at Bank of America as an Insider Threat Security Consultant, Senior Crisis Manager, and Global Counterintelligence Risk Manager. He is currently serving as Managing Director of KnR Advisors, LLC., a counter-kidnapping group.