Crime Junkie - MISSING: Natanalie "Naty" Perez

Episode Date: January 2, 2023

Natanalie Perez was chasing her dream of being a singer when she fell victim to a violent sex-trafficking ring in Florida and disappeared in June of 2012. More than a decade later, her family and investigators from the Anti-Predator Project are still trying to find her…or find out what happened to her.If you have information about Natanalie, contact the Anti-Predator Project hotline 24/7 at 305-796-4859. You can also call that number for help if you think a loved one is being trafficked and you don’t want to involve law enforcement.Or you can contact the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s 24 hour hotline at 800 843-5678 for any information regarding Natanalie’s disappearance. If you or someone you know needs help, call the National Human Trafficking Hotline 24/7 at 1-888-373-7888 (TTY: 711) or text: 233733To learn more about human trafficking, check out the U.S. Department of Justice Office for Victims of Crime website, which includes resources for victims and survivorsFind out how to recognize the signs and help victims of human trafficking at the U.S. Department of State website or polarisproject.orgCheck out 20 ways you can help fight human traffickingDid you know you can listen to this episode ad-free? Join the Fan Club! Visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/ to view the current membership options and policies.Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit: https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/missing-natanalie-perez/

Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Brett. At any given time, millions of people across the world are victims of human trafficking. Traffickers prey on adults and children of all ages, backgrounds, and nationalities in big cities and small towns and everywhere in between. January is National Human Trafficking Prevention Month. So today, we want to tell you about a young woman who was chasing her dreams when she fell victim to a violent sex trafficking ring in Florida and then disappeared. There is almost no media coverage on this case, and because of the secretive nature of trafficking, lots of the details are murky.

We're actually only able to tell her story thanks to her family and a private investigator named Trent Steele from the Anti-Predator Project, which is a nonprofit that works to find missing people and human trafficking victims across the country. We've worked with Trent before, and he's actually the one who brought this case to our attention. This is the story of Natanali Perez. It's around 2 a.m. on February 14, 2012, when a man named Roberto Jr. gets a frantic phone call. It's from his cousin, 19-year-old Natanali Perez. Natanali, or Nadie, as everyone calls her, is really upset. She tells him that she's just been assaulted and she needs him to come pick her up at this luxury hotel in downtown Miami,

not far from his apartment. Now, as unexpected as this middle-of-the-night call is, it's actually a call that Roberto Jr. had been waiting for, because lately, the whole family had been worried about Nadie. She moved to Miami like a month ago, and since then, they've hardly heard from her. She doesn't even post on social for them to follow her like she used to. And the few times that they do get to talk to her, she's not bubbly or happy like normal, and she's also dressing differently, like in these fancy, expensive outfits with wigs, which was a far cry from the jeans and t-shirts that she used to live in.

Basically, her family's been worried that she's caught up in something, but she's been so evasive lately that they kind of just decide to wait for her to reach out to them, so this is the call that they've been hoping for. Roberto Jr. springs into action, waking up everyone who's staying at his apartment that night, which was his brother, a roommate, and his girlfriend, and they all head across town to pick Nadie up. They find her waiting outside of the hotel, and she's obviously been in some sort of altercation, like there's this big chunk of hair that's been ripped from the back of her head, she's got blood on her face, and even her fingernails are all torn up.

So obviously, they ask her, like, what happened here? And she tells them that she got into a fight with two other people that she'd been staying with at the hotel, a 26-year-old woman who we're going to call Crystal, and a 30-year-old man that we'll call Sam. So they both attacked her? Well, the way she tells it, it sounds like she and Crystal started arguing, and then Sam assaulted her, like even grabbing her by the neck when she tried to leave, and she says that Sam took off after the fight, but Crystal is actually still up there in the room. Now, just for context, Nadie's cousin actually knows Crystal and Sam,

because Crystal is Roberto Jr.'s ex-girlfriend. He's actually the reason that Nadie and Crystal met in the first place. According to an investigative summary from the Anti-Predator Project, Roberto Jr. says that they broke up because Crystal had a horrible temper and she would get violent, and it wasn't until after they split that Nadie and Crystal became friends. And, you know, maybe Crystal needed a friend then, maybe it was a way for her to get back at Roberto Jr. or stay in his orbit, who knows. But he always thought that the timing of their relationship or their friendship was suspect,

so he didn't like that they were friends. And he especially didn't like that she roped Nadie in with Sam, so depending on who you ask is either a ruthless big-time criminal or a low-level nobody who associates with ruthless big-time criminals. I feel like at that point neither of those are someone I want my kids hanging around, so... No, no. And listen, this was a case that we had our reporter Nina on, so I was like, listen, just go take a look at this guy's record. Like, no, he said, she said, they said, like, how bad is he?

That fucking background check that we ran on him? Do you want to guess how many pages it was? I mean, like, 10 or 12 seems pretty extensive. 46 pages. Oh, my God. I mean, it stretches back to when he was a teenager. He's been arrested on charges involving everything from armed carjacking to kidnapping, to aggravated assault, even drug possession.

Like, you name it, it's on those 46 pages. Yeah, a little bit of everything. Now, he was acquitted on some of the more serious charges that he faced, and a bunch of others were dropped. But he has been convicted of some violent crimes, and his current probation term stems from social security fraud and identity theft. So, Dude had at least four different aliases complete with different birth dates. And he even had three different social security numbers.

Oh, my God. So, I don't know how much of that that they knew, right? Again, I think they had just heard rumors. But to your point, this is not the guy that you want hanging out with anyone you love, much less like your kids or your relatives. Yeah. So, after they get naughty in the car, they're relieved to hear that she wants to report the assault to law enforcement.

So, right away, the whole group goes down to the city of Miami police station, and officers actually accompany them back to the hotel so they can talk to everyone involved. Now, by the time they get back, Crystal is actually down in the lobby. And Sam shows back up soon after. But he tells police that Naughty was the aggressor. He says that they had been hanging out for a couple of weeks, and when he brought Crystal around, she got jealous and tried to punch him,

so he just restrained her. That's when Crystal jumps in and backs up Sam's version of events. She blames the fight all on Naughty. And since the stories are conflicting, nobody gets arrested. Instead, police basically are like, listen, everybody needs to clear out, go your separate ways for the night, like sleep this off, whatever. Right, right.

Now, it seems like Naughty had been staying with Sam, so her cousin and his brother decide to drive her back to their parents' place in Sebring, which is like three hours north of Miami. And their parents are basically like Naughty's parents, too. They essentially raised her because her mom struggled with substance use disorder for years. So, after her cousin drops her off, Naughty sits down to catch up with her aunt Maria. And that's when the floodgates open.

She's finally ready to talk about what's been going on for the past month, starting from the day that she left home back in January. Maria knows how excited Naughty was to go because she wanted to be a singer, and Crystal had promised to introduce her to a bunch of people in the music business if she came to Miami. And honestly, this seemed legit because Crystal herself had recorded songs and was even featured on a Grammy-nominated album. Yeah, like pretty legit.

But when they get to Miami, Crystal brought her to this huge house party where Naughty and another young woman were both beaten and raped by several men. And right after the rape, someone, and Trent thinks it was Crystal, but someone took Naughty's ID and birth certificate, so she was stuck. I feel like it's so easy to hear these horrible situations and think like, well, why didn't Naughty just like, peace out? But without an ID or a way to get a new one without her birth certificate, she really was trapped.

I mean, that's never easy. Naughty goes on to tell her aunt that from then on, she and the other women were basically sold to wealthy men throughout this city. They would work out of nightclubs and these high-end hotels and through classified ads on the website Backpage. She says that Sam is one of the people who helps run this whole operation and he, along with other people in this network, controls practically everything she does, like who she speaks with,

what she says, how she dresses. And when she would push back against the trafficker's demands, she'd be drugged and beaten and starved. Maria is listening to all of this, I mean, in shock and horror. She wants to contact police right away, but as soon as she even brings up law enforcement, Naughty panics. I mean, she had been angry and upset enough to get the cops involved back at the hotel, but now that she's had a chance to kind of cool down, her anger has faded

and she feels exactly how she usually does when it comes to Sam and that whole crew, which is just freaking terrified. Well, and not to mention, even when she did get the police involved before, nothing happened, they didn't believe her. Right, but this is also different in her mind because the fight back at the hotel was about Sam and Crystal, but the people that she would be throwing under the bus now, talking about this whole trafficking operation, are powerful people.

I mean, she tells Maria that some of the men she's routinely sold to include police officers, lawyers, judges. So, Naughty is worried that if she talks to authorities, she and her entire family could be in danger. Now, Maria sees how scared and traumatized her niece is. She knows that just forcing her to report this isn't going to help right now. And honestly, the most important thing to her is that she's just here, she's home, she's safe, but it's clear that she's not the same.

Naughty's mom, Anna, notices that her daughter can't stand to have the TV or the lights off. Her phone is like glued to her hand, like she's afraid to put it down and that she won't even go to sleep without it right next to her bed. After a couple of weeks, like maybe two or three weeks, Crystal actually pays Naughty a visit at Anna's place where she's been staying. Crystal has Naughty's birth certificate and ID with her, but Anna doesn't realize the significance of this because Naughty hadn't told her about all of the trafficking and abuse,

she had just told her aunt. All Anna knows is that something is wrong. Now, even though Crystal brought her ID and birth certificate, she doesn't give Naughty her documentation back. And I don't know what Crystal says to her, but what we do know is that Naughty abruptly tells her family after this visit from Crystal that she's going back to Miami and she leaves with Crystal that very day.

So basically Trent, who again is the PI, thinks that Sam and Crystal threatened Naughty and her family and they used photos and videos that they took for her back page ads to blackmail her. From what Trent was told by Maria, it sounds like Crystal even threatened to tell their whole town that Naughty was a quote-unquote prostitute. And basically she was saying that she, Crystal, had been set up by Naughty, not the other way around.

And Naughty thought that no one would believe her or accept her if they knew what was happening. Well, and those are common tactics, like using fear and shame to control victims. Absolutely. And actually, you bring up an important point. Some traffickers do use physical force, but honestly, most of the time, the manipulation they use is psychological.

Trent says that he's often asked why victims don't escape when they have a chance. Like, why don't they run away? Why don't they call 911? But it is just not that simple. So when Naughty is telling Maria that she's leaving with Crystal, Maria is begging her niece to stay. But according to a National Center for Missing and Exploited Children blog post by Patricia Davis, Naughty tells her, quote,

they touch my body, but they can't touch my soul. So Naughty leaves with Crystal and they eventually move in with Crystal's sister and her teenage niece who lives in the little Havana section of Miami. But not long after they move in, Crystal's niece disappears. The teen is gone for a couple of weeks before she's picked up by Miami police. She tells them that she was kidnapped in traffic out of a barber shop. She says that she was kept blindfolded a lot of the time,

so she's not sure where the barber shop is, and the only thing she knows about the guy running the operation was that he was Puerto Rican and he's a barber. Wait a minute. Is Crystal involved in this? I mean, what are the odds that this just randomly happened to someone else in her orbit? I thought the same thing, and I actually asked Trent about that, but he said that he can't find any direct link between Crystal and her niece getting trafficked.

But I mean, keep in mind that Florida ranks third in the country for trafficking and Miami-Dade is actually the number one area in Florida. Okay, but it still seems like a wild coincidence. Yes and no, right? I agree that it's like two people, and if it were to happen to you and I here in Indiana and we're living this low-risk lifestyle, maybe, but they're operating kind of in this orbit around these people, right?

Crystal, we know Crystal's hanging out with Sam who's involved in this, so I don't know if it gets more likely if that's who you're associating with and then that's who you're kind of bringing into your circle and your family is getting exposed to these people. Right, like if the Venn diagram starts to exist because of that, yeah. Right, and here's the thing about this whole thing. It's kind of hard to nail down firm details about the situation or even anything else that's going on,

because Nadia's cagey on the phone with her family. She won't really say who she's with or what she's up to. It seems like almost like someone's monitoring her calls every time she is able to talk to them, but during this time after she leaves and she has some contact, we do know that a few important things happen that spring. One is we know that Nadia starts dating a guy in their apartment complex named Arlex Linares, and things get worse and worse with Crystal.

Like they had begun arguing a lot. It sounds like Sam was pitting them against one another, so Nadia decided to move in with Arlex. Now, I'm not sure what happens to the apartment. Maybe Arlex was just staying at someone else's place. Maybe his lease was up. I don't know, but they don't stay there. They start staying at various pay-by-the-hour motels along Southwest 8th Street, which the locals call Caiocho.

And these motels are well known for trafficking. So is Arlex trafficking her now? Also the question I had, I actually asked Trent about that, he said he's not 100% clear if Arlex was trafficking her. But because that's what the motels are known for, he said that he believes it's likely. Okay, then is Crystal totally out of the picture at this point? No, although we don't know where she is staying at this point.

As far as Trent can tell, she's bouncing around Miami for a bit, but she does keep tabs on Nadia. And meanwhile, Arlex does a quick bop in and out of jail in like April and May for violating his probation. Cool, cool, cool. It doesn't seem like this guy is squeaky clean either. Not at all. He's actually got a few convictions including, I think one was for firing a weapon into an occupied building.

He's also been investigated for at least one domestic violence allegation, but at this point I think he's on probation for drug possession and he was basically caught driving with a suspended license, hence the violation. But he's out of jail by the time Nadia calls her grandma on May 27th and she calls her because she has some big news. She might be pregnant and she and Arlex are planning to leave the city and move to Sebring. Now a couple of days after that,

Nadia calls her mom, Anna, to see if she can wire her some money on the first of the month. She's almost out of minutes on her phone. Anna agrees, but on Friday, June 1st, she actually misses a call from Nadia and it doesn't end up happening. The next day, which is Saturday, June 2nd, Anna's phone rings again and this time she answers even though she doesn't recognize the number and it's a good thing that she does because the person on the other end is Arlex

and he's got some disturbing news. He tells Anna that he and Nadia were in their motel room on Friday night and someone called his phone looking for Nadia. Basically, the caller wanted to meet up with her so she left, but then she never came back and she didn't take any of her stuff with her, just his phone and the clothes that she was wearing. Wait, who called? Did he know? He says he doesn't know who made that call,

but honestly, maybe there wasn't even a call because get this, the same day he also reaches out to Nadia's sister and according to an article from Nick Mac, he tells her a completely different story. He says that he and Nadia got into a fight and that she was just gone when he woke up. But listen, no matter what story he told to whoever, once the family knows that Nadia is MIA, Anna tells him to go file a missing persons report with Miami Police, which he does at 10.50pm.

By then, it's been more than 24 hours since he said he's last seen Nadia and if the police report is accurate, Arlex tells an even different story to officers than either of her family members got. He tells them that he and Nadia had been staying at Burke's motel for the past couple of days. That's one of those places on Cahier Ocho. Now, this time in this version, he doesn't mention any fights. He just says that she left on foot Friday night at around 9, wearing a black shirt and jeans. He says that she was planning to go to a friend's house, but he doesn't know who.

He said that she took his cell phone with her, but it's off now going straight to voicemail. And he told them, at least what it says in the report, is that he contacted everyone he could think of and nobody knows where she is. And listen, I wish I could give you even more details about what steps police take at that point, but the response from authorities is underwhelming to say the least. Since Nadia is over 18, there doesn't seem to be much effort put into finding her. But Nadia's family doesn't wait around. A couple of days later, they head south to Miami to get her stuff and to speak directly with Arlex in person

so they can try and find out what the heck is going on. What's their impression of him? Like, is he giving off weird vibes or anything? Well, I mean, this is the first time that they're meeting him. They know that he and Nadia were dating because they had just seen photos of him, but it wasn't until Nadia went missing that they ever even, like, spoke. So they don't really have a basis for comparison, if that makes sense. But what Anna does say is that when she goes and talks to him, he seems really upset, like he's crying and everything.

But Nadia's grandma can't help but wonder if he's crying out of sadness because Nadia disappeared, or if he's crying out of guilt for having done something to her. And ultimately, unfortunately, they don't learn much from him. He never brings up the possible pregnancy or the move that they were supposed to make to see bring, and the only thing that her family manages to retrieve is her purse, which only has a couple of items in it, like her Florida ID and a Social Security card. And then they get a couple of shirts that smell like they haven't been washed recently. I think there was, like, a bank deposit slip and a blank check.

But what is weird is that when Arlex met up with them to hand all of this over, he was actually with a friend of his, a man who says that Nadia's purse was at his house. So it wasn't at the motel? Not according to Arlex and this friend of his. Basically, the friend tells her family that Nadia left it at his place, but there's, like, no explanation about when she supposedly left it there or why she was even at his place in the first place. Well, did Arlex find out that the purse was at this guy's house?

He told the family that none of her stuff was there. I have too many questions. That's what I don't know. In his third story that he tells police she goes to see a friend. Is this the friend that she goes to see? None of that is ever cleared up. I have no idea when he found out where the purse was, how he even connected with this guy, how they put two and two together.

And Nadia never goes anywhere without her purse. So this random dude having it makes zero sense to her loved ones. But in that moment, though, I mean, they're just so grateful to have it back that they don't really push. Like, they're not asking the questions we are. I think they just want to, like, get the stuff, get out of there. They're not, like, ready to throw down with a confrontation. But they do know that something must be wrong.

But the problem is they seem to be the only ones who are concerned. They call the human trafficking hotline, but according to Highland's new son reporter, J. Myzel, they don't get a response. They try to get a local TV station to do a new segment on her, but it doesn't happen. Maria meets with a Miami detective who tells her that the best thing for Nadia would be if she got arrested for prostitution. And, like, I think Maria was probably, I mean, more horrified than I am when I heard that. But she's like, are you freaking kidding me?

The problem with all of this is that she knows that Nadia was forced into all of this. She is not a sex worker. She was trafficked. And to hear police say, well, like, here's hoping she gets arrested. That's the best case scenario, like, nothing else we're going to do. Like, that just doesn't fly with her. So they have to do what they can to find her on their own. They search the streets. They hand out flyers. They even hit the glitzy nightclubs that Nadia was known to frequent to ask around about her.

And sometimes they just sit and observe. And when they do that, they're scouring social media, looking for clues. Nadia's sister even tries pressing Arlex for answers. And these conversations get pretty intense because Trent says that Arlex gets defensive and tells her that Nadia may be drugged and, quote, unquote, involved in prostitution. He also implies that Nadia might have been in another state or even another country, which naturally is only making her family's suspicion of Arlex grow. And they certainly don't stop looking at him once Nadia's grandma hires a private investigator,

because when he interviews Arlex, he hears yet another version of the night Nadia disappeared. And this version is kind of close to the first one that he told, but also still different. So in this story, Arlex tells this new PI that they were in a motel room that Friday night when his phone rang, which again, this is like the first story he told. Yeah. He says the caller asked for Nadia. He hands her the phone and she starts having some kind of heated discussion. And then she goes outside. Arlex says that he kind of like tagged along after her

and he sees this car pull up to the curb in front of the motel. He says I can't see the driver, but there was a female in the passenger seat. And even though he didn't get a good look at her, he thinks that the female was Crystal. So he said at that point, Nadia got into the waiting car and they all drove off. And that was the last that he saw of her or his phone. Okay. So now we have a car involved and Crystal is back in the picture and we're just now hearing about it. Right. And despite all of these troubling circumstances, Trent says that to his knowledge,

Arlex is never really interviewed by detectives, at least not beyond that like one page statement that he gave when he reported her missing. But to be fair, it's not like Arlex is the only one that her family was eyeballing at this point. They've also got Sam on their radar too. Now at the time that Nadia was missing, he was actually in jail for probation violations. See the 46 page background check that I mentioned above. Right. And we know that just because Sam was in jail, it doesn't mean that he didn't orchestrate something,

maybe with help from Crystal. And Sam gets especially suspicious to them when in mid June, more charges are filed against him stemming from an incident back in January involving another woman. And the whole situation like these charges, what that stems from, it's so familiar to what happened to Naughty. And Britt, I actually sent you everything that Nina found on this. And do you want to give us the lowdown on like this separate case involving Sam? Yeah.

So he's accused of false imprisonment, tampering with a victim and battery. And then there are court hearings on this in July. And the woman, let's call her Jane, testifies against him. And I'll give you some of the highlights. According to a transcript, Jane tells the court that she and Sam met last fall through a mutual friend. He was charming and they started a sexual relationship. He even went with her to her family's house for Thanksgiving. But his attitude changed fast because by Christmas, when she told him that she needed money for her daughter,

he suggested sex work and she took his suggestion. But the thing is, she didn't get to keep the money. Instead, she had to turn everything she made over to him. He showed her how to post ads on back page. When men would respond to ads, he'd tell her what to say to them. He'd ride in a car with her when she went on calls and he even built her out of jail when she had arrested. At that time, he was staying in a luxury waterfront condo in downtown Miami, and Jane moved in with him after the arrest.

She says other women kind of came and went, all of whom were involved in the sex trade, and all of whom were giving him money. Surprise, surprise, Sam's Mr. Charming facade disappeared real quick. He was always angry or agitated. And on January 12th, he saw a text on her phone about her plans to leave him and he flipped out. He smashed her phone on the floor and then threw it off the balcony. As she tried to pack her stuff, he followed her into the closet. He threw hangers at her and pushed her.

He smacked her and spit in her face, and he wouldn't let her leave the apartment. And when she finally did make it out, she called police. But Sam had already left the building by the time they arrived, and as far as I can tell, he wasn't arrested. Now, Sam tells the court that Jane is lying. He admits that he gave her some advice about sex work. He knew a few things because of his quote unquote run-ins with escort services through his previous job as a driver. But he insists that she didn't give him any of the money she made

and that he never helped her set up ads or go on calls. He also denies ever being violent towards her or any woman for that matter. And he says that it was Jane who started the argument that day in his condo. She had wanted a serious relationship and he didn't. And she got jealous when she heard there was another girl involved. Which is again, like, is this sounding eerily like the beginning of our story, right? Yeah, yeah. So he testifies that he told Jane to leave the condo.

They had some sort of an argument over like a valet parking ticket for a rental car that they shared. And then he got in the car and left and he hasn't seen or spoken with her since. Now, the interesting thing about this is the judge overseeing these hearings happens to be the same one who sentenced Sam in the identity theft case a few years back. And she doesn't buy any of his story. She says his time in prison didn't change his attitude at all the way she hoped it would. And he may not have battered Jane until she was black and blue, but he did commit a classic act of domestic violence.

Ultimately, Sam is guilty of eight of the 10 violations he was charged with, including false imprisonment and battery, and is sentenced to another two years in federal prison. But one thing I do want to mention here is Nadi doesn't come up at all during these hearings. Which actually isn't surprising though, right? Like every judge can make their own ruling, but I can see that being prejudicial. So yes, this feels like the exact same story. They're in like a luxury high rise. She is potentially going to leave.

She gets assaulted. They call the police. He says it was her because she's jealous. But technically because he's never been like charged with anything with Nadi. Right. And in her case is not the one being tried here. I can see them being like, you can't like bring this in. That's too prejudicial.

But here's the thing. Honestly, even if it was deemed relevant and they were allowed to bring it in, I'm not sure the lawyers would have even known to bring it up because no one outside of her loved ones seemed to be talking about Nadi at all. Like again, remember that like the police officers were just like, go your separate ways like the end and the media still at this point. Like there is nothing radio silence when he is going through this trial. So that's where Sam is. He's going through that in August.

Detectives do get a tip that Nadi was spotted at the Dolphin Mall. This is a basically like a huge shopping center in Miami. Police tell NBC six reporter Justin Finch that they're following up on the tip, but there's not much information about the alleged deciding like whether or not police think it was legit. And they never ended up finding her at the mall. But then a new lead quickly drops in their lap thanks to Nadi herself. You see, back in February before she went back to Miami, Nadi gave her mom, Anna, an SD card.

Nadi said that it was important that her whole life was stored on that card. And she asked her mom to hold on to it for safekeeping. Anna had like stashed away in like this like little trinket. She honestly forgotten about it. But on August 18th, which happens to be Anna's birthday, she's looking for something else and she finds this SD card again. And so, I mean, her heart starts to race. I mean, this tiny thing could hold some big answers.

So, Nadi's aunt Maria calls the Miami PD about the discovery and on Monday, September 10th, detectives come to retrieve it. While they're in town, they pay a visit to Crystal, who appears to be living there again with her mother, and they interview her for like two hours. But that's when things take a very abrupt and very bizarre turn. Because on Saturday, September 15th, Crystal's mom contacts Maria and tells her that Crystal has been abducted.

Crystal's mom says the day after Miami police interviewed her daughter, so that would have been Tuesday, September 11th. Crystal packed some suitcases and left the house with a man and a woman in a tan SUV. She told her mother that she was going to Miami to perform in a concert. And a couple of days after that, Crystal called and said that she was going to perform in Puerto Rico. Then she called another time with like this jumbled hard-to-follow story about some woman following her through an airport. And even earlier that Saturday, her mom says that she got the most alarming call yet. Crystal told her mother that she needs help.

She thinks she might be in Puerto Rico, but she can't be sure because quote-unquote they had disabled the GPS on her cell phone. And she's trying to send photos of her surroundings, but they had also disabled her phone from sending pictures. Who are they? People from SAM's operation? I don't know. Crystal does name one guy who she says is like facing decades in prison for computer hacking. But again, these stories are like completely disjointed. It's so hard for her family to make sense of them.

And her mom tells Maria that Crystal sounds like she might be drugged or something. So once she gets these disturbing calls, again, her mom thinks she's been drugged. She doesn't even know if she's, you know, in the continental United States, whatever. So her mom reports the situation to police and officers call Crystal's cell phone. And when they call, they actually speak with her. And Crystal admits that she did tell her mother those things, but she now says she's completely fine. She's like, I'm not in any danger, not being held against my will. She's just staying with a friend in Puerto Rico.

I mean, that's great and all, but it feels guarded or not fully transparent. Kind of like really safe vanilla things to say, you know, like, yeah, I guess could she be saying all this because someone is listening in on the call? I mean, it's totally possible. But here's the thing is like she actually does come back. And once she's back in Florida, she apparently tells the FBI that everything that happened was just some kind of misunderstanding, like a bunch of friends playing a prank. I have a feeling that the FBI doesn't like pranks.

Yeah, like your prank has gone too far if police are involved. 1000%. Here's the thing. Prank sounds like fun diversion might be the word because Nadi's family thinks that that's what this was. That this this was a ploy to create a diversion that makes crystal look like the victim. And this brings me to something important that I think needs to be said. Trent believes that crystal probably was Sam's victim at some point. Studies from the UN's office on drugs and crimes found that most human trafficking victims are women and girls,

but about 30% of sex trafficking investigations and convictions also involve a female offender, which is a large portion, especially when you consider that females only make up about 15% of offenders in other crimes. And so Trent says that he's rarely handled a case in which a female recruiter wasn't initially victimized herself. Well, some women are probably doing it just to survive or limit their own exploitation. For sure, although in many cases, they're still being sexually exploited by their traffickers, even as they're simultaneously victimizing others. And what's heartbreaking and f***ed up is that traffickers also use these women kind of as legal shields to protect themselves from getting in trouble. And I'm not excusing any involvement Crystal may have had with recruiting Nadi or being involved in whatever happened to her and everything that came after it.

I think that Alexander Baxter puts it best. She's a criminologist from Australia. She did a piece that she wrote for a nonprofit news site, The Conversation. She said that when victims become perpetrators, their victimization does not excuse their offending, nor does their offending erase that victimization. So I just wanted to point that out because, I mean, this is an incredibly complex issue and I want people to understand what to look out for. Yeah, I think a lot of times we hear trafficking and our minds go to that sort of anonymous Facebook post warning about different tactics that traffickers might be using to snatch up victims from the gas station or the grocery store. And it's not that those things can't or don't happen, but in a lot of cases, it's way more nuanced. There's grooming and gaslighting and deception, isolation, so many mind games that really get and keep victims in place without any hope of ever getting out.

Yeah, and you know, before I educated myself on the issue, when you said trafficking, I had this idea of literally all these women and young girls being shoved in the back of a semi or a shipping container and they're being kept at this house, you know what I mean? But the more that I've learned about this, the more that I've talked to actual survivors of trafficking, people can go home at night to their own home in their own bed and still be trafficked. It's a crime hidden in plain sight for sure. Exactly, and I think that's why it has become so prevalent is because we're looking for this like super dark, deviant thing and it's happening like in our own neighborhood right next door, you know what I mean?

So anyway, all this time, Nadi's family has been desperately trying to bring attention to her case. Maria writes a letter to the editor of a local newspaper about human trafficking and they launch an awareness campaign around Nadi's birthday in October, but nothing works. The media, national and even local outlets barely glance at the story and the more time passes, the more discouraged her loved ones feel. But in November of 2013, they feel a rush of hope when they connect with the anti-predator project. By now, the family has had a falling out with the first investigator that they hired, but they still need help. Plus, PIs can cost thousands of dollars, but this organization offers their services at no cost to families in need.

That's why when we talked about the Alicia Navarro case, we actually sponsored an entire year of their operations. So their team was ready to hit the ground running, but as soon as they did, they started hitting a lot of brick walls. Take Nadi's financial activity. She had opened a checking account with Citibank just two weeks before she disappeared. She had all of her statements mailed to her aunt's house so her family has them and they faxed them over to Miami police back in August of 2012. Now, what if anything police did with them? I don't know. But when the PIs combed through the records, they discover something shocking. Someone closed out Nadi's account in like mid-July of 2012, which is well over a month after she disappeared.

How? I mean, if it's not Nadi, wouldn't you need like a driver's license or something to close out an account? Okay, this was actually a surprisingly difficult question to get answered. But long story short, what we learned is that to withdraw money in person from a teller, you need some sort of proof of identity like a debit card and the pin number, your license, whatever. But a Citibank representative told us that you actually don't need to show ID to close an account, which I think is a little wild. The bank just basically asked you to verify some information. That seems like it's not what should be happening, but okay Citibank, yeah. If I show up at the bank, someone's like, yeah, they like closed down all your accounts,

but are you freaking kidding me? And here's the most frustrating thing for Trent and her family. It's that by now it's too late to get the bank surveillance footage from the day the account was closed. Right. Because the big question is, was it her or was it someone pretending to be her? And the other roadblock that they hit is reluctant witnesses. There are lots of people who won't speak with investigators at all. And like one of the examples, like I roll completely is during their first attempt to interview Crystal, she pretended that she couldn't even speak English very well. Eventually she like dropped the whole thing and she tells the PI that she doesn't know what happened to Nadi.

She says she's scared of Sam too and that Nadi's family is unfairly harassing her. She says basically she just wants to move on with her life. And the next two times that they even tried to interview her, she tells them in perfect English, mind you, that she has nothing to say to them. But they don't strike out with everyone like Jane, for instance. It's been a while since she testified against Sam at the probation violation hearings, but she's still scared of him. She tells investigators that he associated with powerful, dangerous people. But she has no doubt that he's capable of serious violence on his own, even murder.

She shares the story about how she opened a bottle of champagne without his permission one night, and as punishment, he dangled her over the balcony by her ankles. Oh my God. Now she says that she doesn't know anything about Nadi. She says their paths never even crossed, but she can give investigators some insight into how Sam ran part of his, quote unquote, operation. Basically, what she knew is that he would find out about luxury condos that were going into foreclosure and offer the owners a deal.

Basically, he would help get the place out of foreclosure if they let him stash women there for a while. Lots of the owners only use the condos for part of the year anyway, so it was like an easy sell. Okay, so like a vacation or winter home type situation? Exactly, and this is all going down like right around the foreclosure crisis, so I'm sure that he had a wide selection to choose from. He may have even done this with some bank owned properties. Trent thinks that Sam has some banking connections, so he used these million dollar condos the same way that he used cheap motels.

And to me, this could help explain how Sam was able to live in a luxury condo at the time when, according to his own testimony, he made about $800 a month as a cell phone salesman at a mall kiosk. And it might explain why he didn't know the last name of the man who owned the condo. So by now, Trent and his team have a theory. They think that Crystal recruited Nadi to Miami with the sole purpose of trafficking her once she got there. And they believe it's possible Crystal helped set Nadi up to get killed because Sam decided she had to go. Maybe he thought Nadi knew too much about his operation. Maybe he was afraid she was going to talk while he was in jail facing new charges,

which brings me back to Sam. PIs have been itching to interview him, so they show up at his job in September 2014. She's been released from prison like a few months back and he was selling cars at a Toyota dealership. So Trent tells Sam that their only goal is to reunite Nadi with her family. They're hoping he can point them in the right direction. And surprisingly, he actually is willing to talk to them and he talks to them for more than an hour. He tells the investigators that he did used to party with Nadi and Crystal and other women. They all did a lot of drugs, they had a lot of sex, but he reminds them frequently that he was in jail when Nadi went missing.

So he keeps saying, like, I can't be responsible for her disappearance. But since he wants to help them out, he's going to tell them what he thinks. He says that the sex trade is a very dirty game and knowing Nadi the way he did, he'd guessed that she was involved in it and she had a big mouth, he says. So he'd also guessed that she said something to the wrong person about talking to the cops and those people had to take care of it. That seems like a pretty specific direction for Sam to point them in. Well, especially because at that point, Trent hadn't even broached the topic of sex trafficking yet. Like he was kind of planning to ease into it.

And Sam just, like, volunteered it. Yeah, like, unprompted and that's like, this is my top theory. So Trent goes and tells law enforcement about this conversation the next day and a federal agent actually goes and confront Sam. But now he's not in the mood to chat anymore. He just wants to know if they're going to arrest him. And when the agents ask him if he's done something to be arrested for, he says, you can talk to my attorney. So to Nadi's family, this is just another door slammed in their faces. But it still sounds like something that the police can work with.

I mean, they can work with this, but there's actually some stuff they've been working on in the background. There's a subpoena response attached to Nadi's bank records. And based on that, it looks like the Florida Statewide Prosecutor's Office opened an investigation in 2016. Now, what's really interesting about this is that generally that office only focuses on complex, large scale organized criminal activity. Oh, so something may be happening behind the scenes that we're just not privy to. I don't know. So going back a little bit, do we know if they were able to pull anything off that SD card Nadi gave her mom? Well, that depends on who you ask.

Anna told us that at first glance, all the files on it looked innocent, like Nadi posing for selfies or singing Drake songs, stuff like that. Then a friend of the family apparently found hidden files on it, including naked pictures of women who were being trafficked by Sam and his crew. But according to the Anti-Predator Project's investigative summary, the card was turned over to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Cyber Crimes Department, which said that they couldn't retrieve anything useful from it. And then Trent says that somewhere along the line, the card got lost. Which like, the whole situation is pretty confusing. I don't know what to make of that. I mean, again, you know, I'm a tin full of hat person a little bit, especially when you talk about like the larger conspiracy that may or may not be here. If what Nadi told her Aunt Maria was true, like, oh, there are these really high profile people, they're in police, like, did someone make this SD card go away?

Or, you know, is it as innocent as this SD card is microscopic and it's easy to get lost? I don't know. Right, right. As of right now, Trent says the case is in limbo, although his team is still working on it. It's part of why he wanted us to talk about the case, to get people out there talking. They still want to speak with Arlex, who was convicted just last year of drug trafficking and battery. He's actually set to be released from prison in 2026. So if they're wanting to talk to him, do they think that Arlex is involved with Nadi's disappearance, that he helped Crystal and Sam or even just did something to her on his own? They definitely think that he has more knowledge of the situation than he shared, but beyond that, they're not sure.

If anything, like, the thing that they're sure of is they're pretty positive that Crystal knows more than anyone else. Investigators can't even prove that Arlex and Sam know one another. Only Crystal is the one who has ties to every single person of interest in Nadi's case. I mean, she even has a link to this one really strange potential lead. So remember how her teenage niece was reportedly trafficked? She was held in that barber shop by that unknown Puerto Rican man? Yeah. Okay, so that niece says that while she was being held there, she heard the trafficker mention Nadi by name and that the guy had Nadi's purse. Now, just to note, Arlex's friend is Puerto Rican and he owns a barber shop and we know that he gave the family back the purse. So Trent thinks that maybe Arlex's friend that gave the family the purse and this Puerto Rican barber might be the same person, but like, I have no idea.

I mean, it's an awfully big coincidence that Crystal's niece goes missing while she and Arlex are neighbors. Oh, yeah, the neighbors. And then suddenly Nadi goes missing and her purse is in the home of this friend that has these characteristics, like the person that was with Crystal's niece. I mean, it's all... It's messy, right? And it's even more messy when you remember that the information from Crystal's niece is like third hand. She apparently told her family, who told Nadi's Aunt Maria, who told Trent. So I don't even know how reliable this whole thing is. And it's like this lack of information that is such an issue in so many of these cases.

Human trafficking is a crime that is often misunderstood and notoriously under-reported. And that's why it's so important for us to keep having it in the conversation, not just in January, but all year long. I will never forget and shout out to my friend Susie. She is a crime junkie. I love her. I met her when I was at the Malou Foundation, but she is a survivor of trafficking. And she's like, you would have never thought it was me. I came from a great family. I had just moved.

I was going to school. Like, it's not me. You think it's not going to be you until it is you. So we've got links to a bunch of great resources available for victims of human trafficking and people who want to learn more about it. That's all in our blog post for this episode. But I do want to share a key piece of information that Trent told us that could save someone's life. If you think a loved one is being trafficked and you don't want to involve law enforcement for whatever reason, you can contact the Anti-Predator Project for help.

They travel nationwide and Trent says their investigators have ways of covertly contacting potential victims. You can call their hotline 24-7 at 305-796-4859. And that's also the number to call if you have any information about Naughty's whereabouts or her disappearance. If Naughty is still alive today, she'd be 30 years old. She's black in Latina with black hair and brown eyes. She has pierced ears and a tattoo on her left wrist. At the time she went missing, she was 130 pounds and five foot one. To find all the source material for this episode, visit our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com.

And be sure to follow us on Instagram at crimejunkiepodcast. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Crimejunkie is an audio chuck production. So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?