Human Trafficking—Informants

The FBI is not the only federal law enforcement agency facing trouble with its network of informants. Kong Sun Hernandez, an informant for US Border Patrol agents, pleaded guilty to one charge of transporting a person in furtherance of prostitution.^[1] Her boyfriend, Tae Hyu Shin, also pleaded guilty to the charge.^[2] Between 2001 and 2003, Ms. Hernandez worked for the US Border Patrol as an informant on human smuggling activities at the US-Canada border, but on the side she recruited Mr. Shin to help her smuggle Korean women into the United States to work as prostitutes.^[3] Some of the women were brought into the country through a group headed by Young Pil “Ricky” Choi, the leader of a Los Angeles-area prostitution ring, who was convicted earlier this year for his smuggling activities.^[4] The story has an ironic twist: Ricky Choi was convicted with evidence provided to the government by none other than Ms. Hernandez.^[5]

Transportation in Furtherance of Prostitution
The charge to which Ms. Hernandez and Mr. Shin pleaded guilty, violating 18 U.S.C. § 2421, is by no means the only human trafficking or smuggling statute that the federal government can use to prosecute a person suspected of trafficking in persons for sexual activity. 18 U.S.C. § 2421, which is part of the Mann Act (also known, oddly, as the White Slave Traffic Act), makes it a crime for a person to knowingly transport a person in interstate or foreign commerce with the intent that the individual will engage in prostitution.
Violating this statute can be punished by a fine, imprisonment for up to ten years, or both. Per the terms of the pleas agreement, Ms. Hernandez will serve no more than one year in prison and pay a $5,000 fine, and Mr. Shin will serve no more than three months in prison.^[6]

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[1] US Attorney’s Office, Press Release: Two Federal Way Residents Plead Guilty in Connection to Human Smuggling Ring, Sept. 14, 2005, available here.
[2] Id.
[3] Id.
[4] Id.
[5] Gene Johnson, Border Patrol Informant Pleads Guilty to Smuggling Prostitutes, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Sept. 14, 2005, available here.
[6] Id.