Human Trafficking Victim Hid In Houston Airport After Flight From Lubbock

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A woman was rescued from human trafficking in Houston after an aviation employee recognized warning signs of human trafficking.

According to KHOU, a woman traveling from Lubbock to Houston was able to hid in bathrooms at Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport until she was rescued by authorities. Monica Phillips is an employee responsible for security and information, part of her job is to take calls. Back in June, she took one that didn't seem right.

“Friday, June 2, I took a call from a man who claimed he was looking for his 52-year-old mother,” Phillips said. “He said that his mother had boarded a flight in Lubbock, Texas bound for Houston on Sunday, May 28. And that he hadn’t heard from her.”

Phillips said that was the first red flag about the situation that she spotted. She wondered why the caller waited five days before to call the airport about his mother.

Phillips then transferred the call to the Houston Police Department. Later, she followed up with HPD who told her that the caller refused to file a missing persons report, which was another red flag.

“I knew something wasn’t right about his story,” Phillips said. “I had this gut feeling that this was a case of human trafficking.”

Days later on June 7, showed up to work and saw a person not being able to fully communicate with Houston Police Officers. The woman spoke Hungarian and Phillips told KHOU that she had a feeling this was the woman who a man had called Phillips about on June 2.

That's when Phillips went and grabbed someone with United Airlines who she knew spoke Hungarian.

“I have a friend with United Airlines who speaks Hungarian. We got him involved to translate. What we gathered from her story was, she traveled from Lubbock to Houston with two men on May 28. The trio was ultimately bound for Europe. When they landed at Bush Airport, she got away and was hiding in the terminals,” Phillips said. “I can’t begin to imagine how scared she was. To be in a new city, unable to speak English, hiding for your life in an unfamiliar airport.”

HPD alerted U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers to their investigation. Investigators discovered the two men had the victim’s passport. She checked a bag in Lubbock but was not able to get it in Houston.

The woman was taken to the hospital for medical attention.

It's an amazing story that you can read more about at KHOU and a reminder that human trafficking is happening everywhere.