Leading 70+ Undercover Missions to Rescue Children from Sex Trafficking

Introduction

Paul Hutchins [00:00:01]

He said, “that little girl on that phone looked just like mine at home.” He said, “I almost upholstered my weapon right there and took him out.” he said,  “but I knew if we did that, we’d lose all the other kids.” In fact when the trafficker handed me the phone he said, “this is princess.” In the movie, that’s the little girl they call Princess. We named her Rocio because my wife at the time was named Rocio. So that little girl that they were looking after, we named her because that was the culminating point of that rescue and why we were. I was like, “how much money do you need? What do we need to do? and he said, “She’s still a virgin. We just took delivery of some and she’s my gift for you for this party.” and he started talking about these horrible things I can do to this child and I thought, “oh my God.” I said, I thought, if we could get these children out before they were ever abused the first time that would be a miracle.

Mike DiCioccio [00:00:10]

Our Guest today is an executive producer of the box office hit Sound of Freedom that has surpassed over 150 million in ticket sales within its first month. He played a key role in the undercover rescue mission portrayed in the film and since that time he has led over 70 undercover rescue missions in 15 countries. He is the founder of the Child Liberation Foundation and has dedicated countless hours and donations to making an impact in the fight against child trafficking. He has countless accolades honoring him for a service and especially his huge heart. Welcome to the show real life superhero Paul Hutchinson. 

Paul Hutchinson [00:01:51]

Thank you Mike. Honored to be here.

Mike DiCioccio [00:01:54]

Thanks brother. I appreciate you. A lot of people love watching their superhero movies and I love all that stuff too. I grew up on Batman. A great film franchise, but I’ll tell you what, watching The Sound of Freedom and seeing these real life missions, I just wanted to honor you first for what you’ve done in real life. The movie’s awesome and we’ll talk about that in a second but I want people to know after they listened in this interview and they really love your story and they want to take action they want to do more and and actually be a part of this they can check out Liberating Humanity podcasts that’s your show and on Instagram it’s at @liberatinghumanity and I got that clickable in the show notes for everybody who wants to dive more into Paul’s story. Congrats on the massive success The Sound of Freedom and I just want to say this in my opinion, it truly is one of the most important films ever made. That’s not an overstatement, ever made and I’d like to thank you again for making that happen and obviously those real life missions so thank you.

Paul Hutchinson [00:02:53]

Thank you Mike. It was our purpose, day one was to create a movement. I told him listen, I’m not going to be the primary investor in this film. If it’s just going to be something that’s going to make us a bunch of money that’s I’m not interested in. This has to create a movement. So we have had interest from guys at Sony and Lionsgate and Paramount in the story itself but they wanted full control. The ability to do whatever they wanted with the storyline and they could have done some dark things with it. They could have make it whatever it was but we needed to have the heart there, we needed to show what was happening with these kids because back in the 1700s there’s a guy named William Wilberforce and he was a wealthy well-connected, well-spoken businessman who had seen children in chains but he couldn’t take everybody there, he couldn’t take them all in the slave ships and so he figured out ways to show the people really what was going on and he was a driving force to eradicating trafficking. So, I believe that what this film is going to do in our day 

Mike DiCioccio [00:04:04]

And I’ll tell you what, you have been doing that. It’s obviously popular at the box office but what’s really cool is those that are seeing it like myself turn around real quickly, share it with their friends, and their family have the important conversations at dinner time. That needs to be happening and it’s really encouraging that conversation. I did a solo episode about that. I just want the audience to know, go back a couple episodes and you can tune in to really what I thought about the movie but I do want to share something with you, I think you’ll appreciate especially being a producer. I saw the movie in its second week and I saw it at 9:45 PM, which I don’t think I’ve ever gone to a movie at that hour on a Thursday night and I thought I was going to be among a handful of people. Packed. The theater was packed. Literally the only rows that were available were those like ones that would kill your neck, the front row, like that was the only empty seat in the house, was like the chiropractor seats. That you’re guaranteeing that you’re gonna need to see your chiro the next day. So that was awesome to see and then I’ll just share a quick moment with you. So actually went to school studying film and so when I see a movie, my family hate, my friends and family hate going to the theater with me because I’m always analyzing the cinematography, directing, editing this story and I just wanted to let you know, this is not just one of those, it’s an important movie but yeah, it’s just kind of like a B movie or you know, it’s a documentary, it could have just been on a streaming app. This is really well produced. The acting is great. Shout out to Jim Caviezel and the rest of the guys, I mean, I don’t care who it was, it could have been someone that had three seconds of screen time they were fantastic. The children were great in this movie. So I want to give that, but the thing that was weird about it, is after the movie ended as great of a movie as it was. Now, you’re infuriated, you’re devastated, you got hard and it’s a real feeling. So it’s like, that was a great movie but “oh my God now I’m hurting.” I literally sat in my chair and I prayed yeah and I asked God please, allow me, I’m a pawn on your game board. What are you gonna do with me? Do whatever you want, you just have to let me know because I’m not smart enough to figure it out but God put me in the right spot and I did that episode because I felt called to do it and after my Monday email release went out, shout out to Todd our mutual connection, who connected me to you and I feel like God closed the loop because I asked for some exposure on this and who better to give the information from someone who is there personally, who’s on the missions, who was a part of the film. So that’s my little kickoff to this episode. I do have some questions prepared but yeah that’s a very real thing man 9:45 at night. Packed.

Paul Hutchinson[00:06:46]

I’ll bet yeah, people clapped at the end and you don’t hear that very often at a movie.

Mike DiCioccio [00:06:51]

Nobody got out of the seat immediately. I think they were just hit with that wave of reality. So, I want to go before the movie, before people start to hear your name. I know you’re a successful business person. We can talk about that if you’d like but when was this first moment that this hit your heart, like inspiring, to get involved and go on these missions. Do you remember when?

Paul Hutchinson [00:07:21]

I’ve been very involved with child-related charities for many many years. I was on the Make-A-Wish Board of Directors for seven years. I had served in a lot of different child related charities and I received a phone call almost exactly 10 years ago from our attorney general in Utah. Shawn Reyes and he said, “Paul, I know you’ve helped a lot with child charities. He said, I need it. I want to introduce you to somebody, he’s a homeland security agent. He’s found about 20 children in Cartagena. We need to raise some money to pull these kids out and get them back to their families.” And I thought, like, “what are they doing in Cartagena? He says, “they’re being trafficked.” I’m like, trafficked? What’s trafficked? What does that mean? I didn’t understand and he said, “well they’re being sold for organ harvesting, sold for sex.” I’m like, children? I mean, who would pay for that? it was beyond my comprehension that would even happen. Then he introduced me to this homeland security agent and he told me the story of these kids and how he had been involved in taking down pedophiles and I’m like, this is making me sick to my stomach but, you know, if my goal is to have a positive impact in the lives of children with the different charities I’m doing what better impact than to pull them out of hell and get them back to their families. So I helped to introduce them to some people bring in some money and then a bit later I got a phone call from Tim. He was in Colombia and he said, “Paul I’m here in Cartagena there’s not just 20 children, there’s more than a hundred, there’s more than 50 children in Cartagena, more than a hundred children in other cities that we’ve connected with.” He said, “we have a plan, I think we can rescue 100 children on the same day at the same time but I need your help in a bigger way.” And I’m like, “Well how much do you need? He said, “I need you. Can you be in Colombia in two days? He said that the head trafficker has a piece of property that he wants to develop into a child brothel sex resort hotel. He needs a few million dollars to do it and this guy has connections with these other traffickers including this female who’s running this fake modeling agency that was like a Miss Cartagena and we need to be able to get her and these others together and the only way we can do it is if you fly in and you tell this guy “Listen, I’m willing to fund your deal under one condition, we have a party in a couple weeks. I’m going to bring my rich friends. You show up with all the inventory that you have and these others, you show up with at least 50 kids. I’ll pay for your resort.” 

So two days later I’m in Colombia.

Mike DiCioccio [00:10:09]

I want people to know too, who haven’t seen the movie, this is a little bit of disclaimer that this is a real scene, this really happened and it was depicted in the film, in a really well done way, but I just want people to know this is real. So either if you want this fast forward. Actually I’ll tell you what, if you haven’t seen the movie press pause on this podcast go see the movie and then continue watching it. I’m getting Goosebumps because this Rescue Mission you’re talking about was so amazing and it was like people were celebrating this when it went down and how you guys did it, but I’d love you to share how you orchestrated it. 

Paul Hutchinson [00:10:49]

Well, two days later, I’m in Colombia. I’m literally face to face with the most evil people on the planet. Now, of this almost 70 additional rescue missions I did later, I was Paul Stone, Paul Steele, Paul Black. I had an undercover profile. They didn’t have time to put that together. Day one, I was Paul Hutchinson. I was myself, I went down as me. My background is I’m the founder of a multi-billion dollar real estate investment fund. Now, Tim knew I had some background that made me somewhat safe in a dangerous place. I wasn’t just some rich dude coming down to whatever else.

Mike DiCioccio [00:11:29]

Did your family know what you were doing? By the way, like I don’t know your family.

Paul Hutchinson [00:11:31]

Not at the time, my mom would have killed me, but I will say my business partner, my two business partners and one of them was there when I took the phone call we were in Atlanta Georgia and he’s like, “Okay.” An hour later I got a call from John. John’s the co-founder of the fund with me. John called me up and he said Paul, have you thought through this? He said, this is really dangerous, you’re set. You could sell out today, buy an island and be happy the rest of your life. And My answer was this, I said, “John, would I really be happy if I bought an island, if I bought a yacht? I said, if I was doing something else dangerous tomorrow, if I was climbing Everest, you and I would have the same conversation. He goes, yeah we probably would. I said, when I’m 95 years old and I’m looking back on my life and I say I climbed this mountain and I built this multi-billion dollar company and I helped rescue this many children from slavery which one of them matters? And he said, yes, I understand Paul, you’ve got the skills they need in the background. I’m in Colombia, two days later. I’m in this meeting and halfway through the meeting, one of the traffickers leans forward and he goes “Pablo, I have a gift for you.” and he hands me his phone and there’s a picture of an 11 year old child. 11 year old girl, on his phone. He said, “This is Princess, she’s still a virgin, we just took delivery of some. Now, in the movie, the homeland security agent gives me a picture, my executive driver and this picture made me have that commitment to go in real life. I was already there. I was face to face with the traffickers and seeing that picture galvanized my commitment. I’m like, “oh my God this is really happening. 

Mike DiCioccio [00:13:30]

You also had to stay in character and not tip off the fact that you were impacted in an emotional way you had to be like, yeah, Bring It On. Where’s the inventory?

Paul Hutchinson [00:13:40]

What was crazy Mike, is that I had a navy seal standing right behind me. He was my real bodyguard and my show bodyguard. He was standing right behind me when this trafficker handed me this phone and he goes, I need to go check out that restaurant to make sure everything’s safe and whatever. ” He watched later when we were doing the debriefing, he said, “That little girl on that phone looked just like mine at home.” he said, “I almost upholstered my weapon right there and took him out, but I knew if we did that we’d lose all the other kids. In fact when the trafficker handed me the phone he said, “This is princess.” In the movie that’s the little girl they call Princess. We named her Rocio because my wife at the time was named Rocio. So that little girl that they were looking after we named that because that was the culminating point of that rescue. How much money do you need? What do we need to do? and he said, we just took delivery.  She’s still a virgin, we just took delivery of some and she’s my gift for you for this party and he started to talk about these horrible things I can do to this child and I thought. Oh my God. I said, I thought if we could get these children out before they were ever abused the first time, that would be a miracle. And something he said made me realize, he had more than her. I said, “Fuego, you have more virgins?” Oh yeah, I got three or four more. I said, “you have to bring those to the party as well, you’re bringing them too.” He goes, Oh no, we can’t do that. I’m like, “what?” He said, “They’re too expensive.” I’m like, “dude, I’m already paying 25,000 for this party, paying 500 per child for 50 children just for two hours in the afternoon with him. He goes, “Jefe, you already paid 25,000. He says, “you want to F these other virgins it’s gonna cost you extra 2,000 maybe 5,000 for that little one, it’ll cost you maybe 10 000 more.” I was so mad Mike, I had a nice shirt on, I had a 50,000 watch on. I’m like,” yeah, you don’t think I can afford an extra ten thousand dollars? He’s like, “oh no Jefe no.” I said, “I want every one of those virgins at my party, I said they damn well better still be virgins when they get there. They’re not for you, they’re for me you understand?” He goes, “oh yeah.” 

So that was my first encounter.

Mike DiCioccio [00:15:52]

You played that up. That was so incredible that you had that composure and thought like, I gotta play this guy and what would someone in this role be, the real person that would be making this decision, how would they react ?

Paul Hutchinson [00:16:04]

But really, I was mad for real. I was mad at him, I was like, how do I let this mad emotion show up here. 

Mike DiCioccio [00:16:15]

You took that and you generated into this other emotion which was incredible.

Paul Hutchinson [00:16:19]

Yeah, that was transformational.

Mike DiCiocco [00:16:22]

Again everybody that’s watching this should have already seen the movie so continue to share because to hear it from you who actually was there. It’s incredible.

Paul Hutchinson [00:16:30]

Is not gonna ruin the movie and that the fact that Tim halfway through the movie is like, okay I’ve got it. He’s calling his wife on the phone. He’s like I’ve got to leave my job and I need this money for this and I can pull this off if I can convince Pablo. Now, understand this. In the movie there are hundreds of people involved, that we had to condense all of their involvement deck into a few characters. I wasn’t the only guy funding this operation; there were guys like Glenn Beck who came on board and brought his people and contributed money. There was a lot, even the rescue mission itself, we had eight different rescue missions that we compiled in together. The one in the jungle, we weren’t after that little girl,  we had already found her, she was there at the party but that was another one that we had in a whole different country, an entirely different team that went in and dressed as doctors etc to be able to make that work but everything really did happen. These were just different missions.

Mike DiCioccio [00:17:31]

Can you share. A lot of people, if they haven’t heard this yet, I think it’s just really interesting and you’re on the edge of your seat when you’re watching it but in real life I want people to understand what was going on. So you’re posing as this Real Estate Mogul that’s got all the money and you’re going to build this hotel in Colombia, right? That’s essentially going to be like a sex hotel for children and the people come in from all across the world with money, and this is what they do in this place and you’re playing an office, I’m the guy funding it, bring me the goods and now they’re supposedly bringing the children to this island, which you’re turning into the biggest child rescue mission in history and so this is all going on but it doesn’t necessarily go just every a b c d gets checked off, there’s a 45 minute delay where you have to buy time because the actual rescue boats were delayed because of a sleep-in or something can you talk about?

Paul Hutchinson [00:18:41]

Yes, the most important alarm of their lifetime they slept through.

This won’t hurt the movie because this part wasn’t depicted in the movie. So, we’re on this island. The guys met with the U.S embassy and the Colombian federal agents. They had provided 40 agents for us. Our maids and our waiters and our cooks, they’re not very good cooks, but they’re armed and a bunch of them are there to storm the island at the right time and the right time was when we ordered tequila. We had undercover cameras to make sure that we captured everything that the traffickers were saying because we didn’t want the children to ever have to stand trial and witness against them. So we’re having this, they bring 54 children, and there’s two other cities with simultaneous operations. 54 children there in Cartagena. We put them in a separate place in the house so they wouldn’t have seen the guns and all this stuff going on. We’re out there at this table negotiating with these guys. The darkest conversation you can imagine, asking them why the children were there, where they got them, what they were willing to do,  dark conversation and then we have all the information, we ordered tequila. Boom, two minutes later the agent’s supposed to come, two minutes, five minutes, ten minutes, it was 45 minutes later, before the agents came. We found out later that some lady, part of the child protective services, slept in through alarm, whatever, it was long but we didn’t know that at the time, all we knew is that we ordered tequila, time for the party to start, time for the agents to come in and arrest us all. 

Mike DiCioccio [00:20:10]

What were you thinking at that moment? Were you thinking maybe they got captured or something or people figured them out?

Paul Hutchinson [00:20:15]

Yeah, we don’t know.

Mike DiCioccio [00:20:17]

You must have had a bunch of things rolling through your head of why there’s a 44. 

Paul Hutchinson [00:20:20]

We had no idea. The homeland security agent, he steps aside, we had a bunch of people that were you know praying for us and helping us and whatnot and he texts one word to the group and it was, “Pray.” People were like, pray for what? We don’t know, but it was a dangerous situation. The traffickers are like, okay time for the party, one of them gets up and says all right here’s the cocaine, let’s start doing the cocaine, one goes I’m gonna go get the kids and bring them out, we couldn’t do that.

Mike DiCioccio [00:20:51]

How do we delay this even further in 45 minutes is a long time. I mean people, if your meal comes up 45 minutes later at a restaurant that feels like an eternity. I mean you have 54 children’s lives on the line plus you and your team there that this whole thing could go wrong and there’s a gun, it could end up in a gunfight. Now the scene when Tim Ballard who was Jim Caviezel’s character. He had a gun pulled on him and then he had to kind of defuse the Situation. Do you know if that was actually true?

Paul Hutchinson [00:21:22]

No no there wasn’t a gun that pulled out there. The traffickers didn’t show up with their attorney, Those are things that happened in some other missions that they brought in somebody else that wanted to do some stuff with the kids etc. that didn’t happen in that Columbia, However, we needed to have. (In fact they brought all the kids at the same time) but we needed it to show that delay, that really did happen there. There wasn’t a gun that was pulled there, however the traffickers did get up and say, “okay it’s time for the party to start.” And so, we’re like, What do we do? and this is a time where I believe that it was divine intervention that I was there, not because I’m anything special, I mean these Navy Seals can kick everybody’s ass but the fact that I had negotiated hundreds of business deals and written out business plans and I’m like wait wait wait wait guys, you know what, you just proved to me that you could provide what you said, you could provide, you got all those kids in they’re, awesome. you bring them out, you bring the cocaine. I’m going to be effed up for the next few days. How about we do this, we’re all here right now, why don’t we figure out a deal, bring out a notebook and a pan and I started asking them questions, I said let’s write out this business plan right here. This is where we got a lot of the information for the movie and everything else was this conversation where they were telling us in detail where they were getting the kids, what they were willing to do with them, where the money was coming in from, where their clients were coming, all of this stuff. It was a really dark conversation and what was scary about it is that that business plan was penciled. Easily pencil,  meaning it was in the black, like week one. 

Mike DiCioccio [00:23:17]

It was like them talking about a game of football. This is what they talked about and lived it and no concern just they were penciling in like a business like you and I talking about real estate.

Paul Hutchinson [00:23:31]

Yeah, they’re like this is, “How much is it gonna cost for us to bring in a little Colombian girl and this is what it cost to bring in a little American girl right and this is what it cost to bring in a boy and that yeah we have to give them drugs and stuff so they don’t cry.” I mean, it was like they were just talking to it, this business, this is how we do our business, here’s how it works.

Mike DiCioccio [00:23:48

Right. People need to hear this and understand this is real and it’s happening too in the U.S and we’ll talk about that in a moment, but to continue to share the story, I want everybody to hear it from you, so you buy some time, you’re kind of using this business deal to slow the process down and then when did you know, hey this is actually happening.

Paul Hutchinson [00:24:13]

Well. I had to extend it out more. I got the traffickers arguing with each other, I actually said okay, I’m gonna fund this but I want 55 percent, you guys divide this up, I  think you should have 35 and then they’re all fighting with each other about who gets equity in this new company, and then boom. All of a sudden 45 minutes late,  after we’re negotiating, all of a sudden the Agents come and start coming in from all sides, guns drawn, on the ground, on the ground, they’re throwing us all on the ground. I’m down on the ground, I’ve got Sean Reyes, he’s an attorney general now in Utah, he was is acting as my bodyguard we call them La Sombra, like Shadow and he pulls me down to the ground, we’re laying there on the ground with hot sand and ants and stuff and the traffickers are all thrown on the ground and they think that we’re getting extradited to the US down trial. We’re all getting arrested.

Mike DiCioccio [00:25:04]

Super important that you do that too because suddenly they can’t put a.. they just assume that you’re still one of them and that you’re getting arrested too, otherwise they pin your face and your backstory and they wouldn’t get fooled twice, so you have to put this charade.

So you guys do that you’re getting tossed onto the ground and your heart’s got to be beaten through your chest and everything else.

Paul Hutchinson [00:25:25]

The thing that changed my life the most was after we were thrown down and they were interrogating the traffickers and the child protective services people came in with the children and then they took the traffickers away on handcuffs and then they came in and led us out of ours you know, let us up and I went with one of the operators his name is Scott. We went to go grab our bags that were in this portion of the house, the house was kind of this grass roof type of a thing and we were in this this back area, you could hear over the wall, you could hear what was going on in the bigger room and the child protective services people were in there with the children and you could hear them laughing and singing. Now, less than half an hour before I could hear cry in there because one of the traffickers had gone in to bring out some of the kids to show them and they were so scared and that crying and then that difference of the laughter and the singing, that Sound of Freedom was the most beautiful sound I ever heard and I turned into Scott.

Mike DiCioccio [00:26:39]

That’s the name of the film.

[00:26:42]

Yeah. Some people might not understand why it’s called that and that’s a very real moment.

Paul Hutchinson [00:26:42]

It transformed my life, it transformed everything.Just hearing that I started crying and they weren’t supposed to tell the children that we were good guys but somebody must have said something because one of the girls, the same one that he showed me on his phone, the same one that half an hour before they had prayed it out in front of me and was standing in front of me with tear stains on her face, she would stand there by the window, her hand was on the window, she was crying again but she was smiling and waving and she said in her broken English she said, “Thank you.”

Mike DiCioccio [00:27:19]

Wow, that’s awesome. 

Paul Hutchinson [00:27:21]

I turned to Sean, I said “bro, I spent my whole life making rich people richer, I wanna make a difference, what do I do? I can write you a check and that’s when he explained to me guys like Jeffrey Epstein and others, he said there’s a lot of demand for this that comes from these ultra wealthy massive ego guys who he said, don’t be offended by this Paul,  but they talk and dress and act like you. He said, that’s what the traffickers are looking for. He said, “I can’t teach my navy seals how to wear a 50,000 watch and four thousand dollar suit and negotiate a multi-million dollar deal and I don’t know of any ultra successful business owners who’ve had the training that you’ve had. If you’re willing to be the bait, I’ll change your whole life.” And at that point Tim wanted to go public. We needed to have somebody be the face that go on CNN, ABC everything else and it would be dangerous for somebody to actually have their face out there and be deep cover in finding the traffickers and what it would be super dangerous and so it was agreed that I would take down all of my social media and everything and I would get rid of any visuals of myself online and work with the navy seals and these guys and continue to do operations and then Tim and others would come in with the cameras and film and tell the stories of what happened for the next number of years and that began my journey of being a part of this greatest work I’ve ever done.

Mike DiCioccio [00:28:58]

You are the right man. God put you in those boots for that mission for that moment in time and you were the right guy because you had that experience, you could play the role, you could react when someone was saying no, you want all that and you can afford it and like you were the guy who could deliver that confidently without much acting and not blow the cover and so this is just another God moment on the show of like a godwink that says it’s happening in front of you got to pay attention. He will lead us to our moments that he has for us and it’s just really cool to see that you that wasn’t once.. even if it was the only time you ever were involved that’s still great. Well, I will say that 70 missions are similar to that.

Paul Hutchinson [00:29:47]

And every one of them wasn’t logic and protocol that helped us find the kids, it was divine guidance, every time and when I got brought in with new teams, I would say this, “Guys, if I’m going to be a part of what’s going on here, you need to understand how I see this,  this isn’t a religious conversation but you need to know that I believe in God and most people believe in a supreme being some call it the universe or the cloud whatever, God exists and cares more about these children than you and I ever could and knows exactly where they are,  so if you’re okay with it, I’m going to start out by asking for some help.” And we felt guidance every single time because when you’re going to the pit of hell, this is dark, this is dark stuff. If you don’t have a solid foundation of light and truth and love and a connection with God it will destroy you. 

Mike DiCioccio [00:30:55]

I was gonna say break you, but that’s not even destroying you absolutely and it’s a heart compass, opposed to a brain compass. It’s good to pull from both of those, but it’s really interesting to hear a lot of times people say, “try to keep your heart out of a big decision or business deal because emotions can get the best of us.”But in that time your heart compass was the only way and through God’s guidance was the only way you can, that was it, that was the light literally like following a candle in the darkness, light in the darkness another great Segway Prageru is a great show that shows a lot of the the great missions too. We’ll talk about that in a second but I have a serious question to ask and I’m wondering if what the producers the director of the film and anybody who’s involved with the film, if you guys worried about any backlash  from the traffickers, from pedophiles, any retaliation are they going to harm the children more because they know that this movie came out? Maybe they do something like an Fu to your foundation. Was that a concern and have you heard of anything? I hope nothing like that’s going on?

Paul Hutchinson [00:32:07]

Unfortunately, when you’re fighting evil, they do evil things to fight back and probably one of the most difficult decisions that I ever made was four months ago when I decided that I was going to have a bigger impact in fighting child trafficking by using my voice and the stories of being there than by continuing with the undercover rescues, it would have been safer for me to continue to go into the pit of hell and do undercover stuff and be completely anonymous but I had so much pressure, not only from people but God kept saying Paul, over and over again, I said, can it just be about the message? I don’t need to be the messenger, I can pay for them, I can, I just finance a movie and have it, have him be Pablo. The world doesn’t have to know that Pablo is Paul Hutchinson. Why do I need to have my voice? Why and I was told listen, I put you in those positions so that you could share the stories and bring people to that place where they could see the depravity of human nature and where their choices are leading them so that you can help people step back and say; What do we do to fix this? What do we do to stop people’s addictions? What do we do to stop the violence? What do we do to stop the generational trauma that’s happening within our own homes? All of these things that are contributing to the child trafficking problem. You can say okay, now that I have your intention because I’ve been there, you’ve seen the movie now, let’s talk about this, How do we heal? How do we heal humanity? How do we work through that? And so.  

It wasn’t a choice, I was told very clearly Paul, I don’t care if you’re so scared you’re pissing all over yourself, this is why you’re here, this is what you have to do and so it was. And to answer your question too, we were just recently in Latin America and we were promoting the movie and we or on TV and a bunch of other stuff and the day after we left, there was a very public kidnapping, where it was very obvious that this was a Fu to the establishment to the government, to the guys who are standing up to the movie and now I do believe that’s going to do way more good than but way more good, we’re gonna save way more kids.

Mike DiCioccio [00:34:36]

if you cower then like okay, well, it’s a movie but what it really is a movement and it’s really the one of the biggest moments in the history of humanity of exposing this evil thing that wasn’t getting talked about at kitchen tables, I say that but it’s like it feels very 1950s for a family to be around everybody’s, but to have the conversation with family it could be a text message, it could be sharing. I’m going to see this movie on your Instagram reels or your feed or your stories or whatever, the conversations happened, there’s news outlets and stuff even though they were delayed in covering it, which has you and I go hmm.. what’s going on over there, why are they not wanting to talk about this film, that’s interesting and I’ll leave it at that but it was. So, the movie is so important that it happened and I think if you, I’m not trying to answer the question for you, I’m just I really didn’t know where this conversation was going to go and I’m just thinking in a moment to share with our audience that and if you’re ever dealt with a situation where you’re like oh I think I’m going to kind of like not deal with this because the backlash could be worse than what I’m trying to do well, guess what? they win. The pedophiles and all these evil people just get to keep doing it because they’re like oh we scared them off. So I don’t think,  like you said,  I’m glad that you answered it though, I wasn’t sure what you were going to say but thinking about it, we cannot slow down, we have to double down and continue to fight the good folks.

Paul Hutchinson[00:36:05]

We’ve all heard the saying, “The only thing required for evil to flourish is for good people to succeed.”  And all of us can do something now, you’re not going to have an audience full of people that goes undercover in Latin America and goes being Rambo and taking down the traffickers, that’s the worst thing that you can do. 

The best thing that you can do and this is going to surprise people okay, here’s the best thing you can do to fight this, go hug your kids. People are like, oh we need to go rescue that. No. Listen, the things that are depicted in the movie really happen, however, the percentage of children that are taken in a container into another country, that’s pretty low. The majority of trafficking are from broken families, foster homes, runaways. So keeping a close-knit family is the best way to keep your children safe and there’s a lot of grooming behaviors that happen right underneath parents noses, where you need to have a relationship with your children that is such where your daughter or son can come to you and say, “Hey dad, I feel uncomfortable when I hug uncle Harry.” or “I don’t feel good when I go over to my friend’s house because her brother touches me and wraps my back in a weird way.” or “my babysitter, she’s showing us pornography and she says that I should trust her more than you.” These are all grooming behaviors that we need to identify and trust that our children are in tune as well. 

Paul Hutchinson [00:37:47]

I have a book that’ll come out later this year. We’re doing one on some of the operations but later one called “Are You Listening? with my hand on my heart” not with my hand on my ear but on my heart because every operation, it was following that still Small Voice of Truth that was leading us and every single person including our children, even more so our children have the ability to really sense things that are out of alignment and so being able to help them trust that and see that and be guided by something much greater than what we can even guide them with is super important. These are all things that we can work through and the other thing to understand is this and I think this is super important, for years I thought okay, my goal is to eradicate child trafficking. When I’m sitting on that chair,  on the island, they preyed to this little 11 year old, that they showed me on the phone and she’s standing in front of me with tear stains on her face. I made a commitment at that moment to myself, to God and to that little girl, that I would do everything I could to eradicate that evil from the face of the Earth. And so here 10 years later, last year I was looking at the numbers I realized there’s more children being sold today than there was 10 years ago and I’m like, Paul, if your goal is to eradicate child trafficking you’re not doing a very good job because every time we win and we pulled 20 children out of hell, yes, we’re making a powerful impact in the lives of those children but if not enough was being done to fix the demand, another 20 children were being sucked into the deepest recesses of hell. So, we changed our approach. A lot of the Navy Seals that we pay for their operations now they’re going in and they’re just arresting a whole bunch of pedophiles, as well as finding the kids but for me I’m like, okay, how can I use my voice to fix this? Where is the demand coming from? Now, Here’s something that’s going to piss some people off and other people they’ll get an aha moment about it, people ask me, they say, “Paul, How can you go face to face with somebody selling you a child and not have them see the anger and the hatred in your eyes?” And my answer surprises them. There’s a part of me that has compassion for them. “You can’t have compassion, they’re selling you a child.” No. I will do everything in my power to ensure they never touch another child again and hurt another child like that. However, what I wish more than anything is that I had a time machine, I can go back 10 years, 15 years, 20. whatever it was, before they ever hurt a child, and find out what was going on in their life that made them think that was a good road. It was likely that they were raped themselves as a child, it was likely that a thousand bad things that happened to them, that doesn’t make it okay, because there was probably another thousand bad decisions that they made that got them to that point, but what if we could catch them back then. Now we don’t have a time machine but what we do have is hundreds of millions of people on this earth who have dealt with trauma as a child or who have been addicted to porno***hy and are going down the road of child pornography, whatever it is, we have a lot of people. And I love the sign of the broken chain link. The end of that link, the very end of that chain is abuse of a child. We don’t even want to get close to that. How many links of the chain can we fix way back here that we can help people heal before they ever pass their trauma onto others, before they ever let their addictions affect other people. That. We focus on that. We will save millions of children 

Mike DiCioccio [00:41:47]

Guys go back and listen to that last 10 minutes again. That’s the most important 10 minutes. I’ve done 200 episodes, the most important 10 minutes that I’ve ever had on the show. I saw you talk about that in another interview and I’m glad you brought it onto this show because it’s like not everybody saw that other one, maybe my audience is tuning in to you for the first time. What you just said there is so important that you get to the root cause of it. Now, I went through a divorce and after it happened a lot of finger pointing and I always said,I wish, we could have got to the root of it, if people could see the root of it or if somebody’s acting out, this child’s acting out in school, you get mad at him, the parent gets mad at him for the act,  this principal disciplines them because of the act, you don’t know the root of it, for you to stand there and say you had to find this compassion within that person, the same way that God, Jesus would for us when we do the wrong thing because we are all human to different levels certainly, I hope never to that level of the person you’re talking about and to have compassion for them because you know this person for them to act this but as a human being they have a heart in their chest even though it doesn’t seem it, they have a brain because they’re walking around so they’re functioning and if they have those two things, everything else seems to be connected for them to act this way there’s a guarantee that they were abused in some other way too. Now, that doesn’t justify abuse, so now, I’m going to abuse 12 kids because I was abused once. That’s not what we’re talking about, what we’re talking about is preventing the initial harm and cause for the reaction. And that doesn’t get talked about enough at all in any situation, business too. The business is failing and you’re pointing fingers at the new CEO, ten years ago, all this stuff was going on that caused the fall but he’s the guy getting pinned. So what you just said there Paul, I appreciate you sharing. I’m holding back tears right now, because that was very powerful and here’s the great news guys. To ever guys and gals tuning in, thank you for being with us. Paul has a podcast out and he’s getting on stages and I want you to share where more people can hear and see your word about leading people in this way, so we can prevent this from happening and we can remember to hug our children and I got my daughter this weekend and I think we’re going to have our first conversation about her telling me. She’s eight years old. She needs to be able to tell me if something happens and how do I get her to be able to share something devastating with me and feel comfortable enough to do that and that right there I think is a thing parents need help with because we don’t know, how do we tell our eight-year-old daughter that there’s evil people in the world that could hurt her and or these people might be friends relatives. The program you’re going to after school. We don’t know where this can come from and happen but we need to be able to be proactive so we can take care of it before it happens. So Paul, I do have to do one thing I know you have to run. We’re going to give our sponsors some love, we’re going to come right back with Paul and we’re going to hit this thing home, because this conversation is one that needs to be happening and I’m going to probably have you on the show again at some point. 

Mike DiCioccio [00:47:31]

All right we’re back in action with Paul Hutchinson and remember you can connect with him on social media check out his incredible podcast Liberating Humanity all the links are in the show notes. Check out his other videos. Again if you haven’t seen Sound of Freedom pretty sure at this point you paused it and went back to watch the movie. If you haven’t yet, I believe it’s still out. So, when this episode airs which is going to be in late August potentially early September, it should still be in the theaters, if it’s not, I don’t know what you guys are doing because it’s been like the number one movie at the box office and it will be Angel Studios will be releasing it so, they can stream it. Awesome. Shout out to Angel by the way, they did The Chosen.

Paul Hutchinson [00:48:14]

They’re just so amazing. You know what I love about them, Mike, is that this movie was brought to the people by the people. There’s this Grassroots movement of good people with good hearts that are like, “you know what, I’m not interested in Hollywood dictating what I can and can’t see and what kind of crap they’re gonna feed to me.” In fact the interesting little history you look back on with Angel Studios. They had some legal battles in the past guess what they were, they had created some software that allowed good people like you and I to filter some of the crap that was coming in, if we had watched a movie, it was a regular movie and maybe had some sex and violence and whatever else and we’re like, that’s a great movie other than some of that crap. I’d like to be able to edit out some of that and still watch the film in my home with my kids. That gives us the ability to filter what we want to filter, not who big media. It’s great Angel Studios, they’re Vid Angel whatever they had before they got sued by Hollywood because they were giving you and I the ability to filter the crap out. It’s amazing to me if we take a look at the big picture of the guys who didn’t want this film to come out. Of the guys who were cut. I mean, we were turned down by Studios that decided that they wanted to bring you movies like cuties. They were sexualizing 10 year olds but they’re turning down Sound of Freedom. Are you kidding me? And so, it’s beautiful to see the movement of good men and women who are saying, “you know what? I’m going to share this, I’m going to share this with my friends, I’m going to use this as a motivation. Yes, it’s a dark subject but we have to see it so that I can be motivated to have that conversation with my eight-year-old daughter. So I can keep her safe, so that we can make the world a better place. 

Mike DiCioccio [00:50:15]

Yeah. You and I know some of the companies involved. I mean, you could say it, if you want, doesn’t bother me but there are some really large organizations that turn an eye to this, they turn a cheek to this, they literally shelved the movie. I mean, you’re gonna name them names it starts with a D and it’s one of the biggest film studios in the world and they had the opportunity to release this like Angel did and they could have put a great thing out but they chosen it to and I don’t understand the evil that it would take to not, like, to decide to do that and it hurts because I grew up with their movies. Everybody did. And it’s like I want when I watch a movie and I still watch some of them you know we’re talking about Disney, folks if you didn’t figure it out and like you know going to the parks or watching Toy Story with my daughters is still fun but it doesn’t sit the way I wish it would and it doesn’t make sense that it doesn’t sit well. And so I don’t know what happened there. I’m not a conspiracy guy and we don’t really get into that on the podcast.

Paul Hutchinson [00:51:21]

I want to read you, the fact is.

Mike DiCioccio [00:51:25]

Yeah read me something but I just want to finish my thought and say if Angel didn’t really save the film. We may not be having this conversation.

Paul Hutchinson [00:51:30]

We wouldn’t. The film was for years for five years I thought, am I the only one that thinks this is a good movie? Why is nobody wanting to take distribution? Do they know something I don’t about what the general public of the world wants to see? Because to me this is super special but maybe that’s just because I was there. 

Mike DiCioccio [00:51:55]

What’s funny Paul is there’s people that news outlets, notably, mean, that’s kind of tongue-in-cheek. Anyways but the articles that were written about this movie that were saying that Jim was involved and what is it q9? I don’t even know what, they’re trying to make it political. This is not a political issue, this is a people issue. Number one that was my message in the solo episode but the thing is, whatever that conspiracy group is, I don’t think existed, when the movie was made with Jim. So the fact is like they’re trying to paint this thing and it doesn’t even add up on a timeline and it’s such BS. So anybody who’s wondering like, I heard that my buddy told me that, don’t watch that movie because it’s a conspiracy theory. like go do yourself.

Paul Hutchinson [00:52:45]

There’s some crap that came out last week or a couple weeks ago about, one of the investors was arrested for being involved in a child kidnapping. well guess what? I wasn’t one of the investors. Like  there was just like five of us in the beginning but when Angel wanted to take…

Mike  DiCioccio [00:53:04]

And you were there from the jump.

Paul Hutchinson [00:53:06]

I’m the primary investor. I’m the first investor in the film but Angel Studios has this crowdfund type of thing, where you put in a hundred dollars up to a thousand, whatever and just be a part of the distribution. They don’t vet everybody. They’re like, “yeah if you want to be a part of this, if you believe in what we’re doing great then what we give you in return.” He was one of almost 7 000 people who decided to donate a few hundred dollars or whatever else, so this crap. you can’t pin that on the movie or the movement. 

Mike DiCioccio [00:53:37]

It’s so disgusting people trying to pin or like to spend energy and time to find bad and such a film that’s trying to do so much good. It’s like what are you doing? The only thing I can assume you’re doing is that you’re trying to help the other guy and the other guy is like the freaking devil in human form. So what do you like? Is that who you’re supposed to show? Because if you’re not telling us that directly your actions are telling us that direction. You said you had something 

Paul Hutchinson [00:54:07]

So, you’ve got the Barbie movie that came out almost the same time as Sound of Freedom. Let’s just do the comparison, why is the Barbie movie being heavily promoted and praised by the mainstream media while this same mainstream media undervalues demonizes and tries to silence the sound of freedom despite it being a box office success? Simple, it’s because of the message. So Barbie’s message men are useless, the traditional family is irrelevant, what makes a woman a woman is her physical beauty, anyone can be a Barbie even a man, Dr.Barbie is a trans, the future is feminist and sexually diverse, women are the heads, men submit, the key catchphrase, “she is everything, he is just ken.” Which is a euphemism for he is just good for sex. The Sound of Freedom message, parents are essential, traditional families are essential, real men and women defend the innocence of children, the future depends on moral men and women of faith who have the courage to protect their own homes and the children who grow up within them, the key catchphrase, “God’s children are not for sale.” There’s the difference right there.

Mike DiCioccio [00:55:33]

Yeah, and we’re not even trying to shoot down Barbie or anything but the fact is that,  right before Barbie came out Sound of  Freedom had all these people trying to poke holes in it. for weird,  like you just outlined and had so many great values that came from it. I saw it personally, I felt it, I lived it, I was happy to share. I’m someone who,  if I experience a great product service, person, event I share it with everybody because I don’t want to be the only one that got to take advantage or not advantage but experience it, like if I got something good here I want to share it with the world and so that’s what I did with the movie but then Barbie comes out and it’s like, we’re not even trying to talk bad about it, it’s a movie about a doll but to get it all this praise and it’s such a shallow thing. Two weeks ago you were like knocking this other movie so hard it’s like you just outline it so perfectly. Guys it’s right out in the open okay, this isn’t conspiracy this is what’s really going on in the world. And so let’s wrap the episode up with this Paul. People are listening right now and they want to make a difference and you said, there’s the rambos of the world that may want to go out there and do that and I think obviously,  you said that jokingly but we need the rambos too. We need the people that are out there doing it because we need someone that is brave like you guys did in your missions but we also like there’s financial that they can go to. I want to make sure I give it to them the right way. So your foundation is called the Child Liberation Foundation and so we’re going to send people there. okay, but how else can somebody like me sitting in that movie theater that was so called to action. What can we do?

Paul Hutchinson [00:57:32]

There’s a lot of really good foundations. In fact you can go to liberatechildren.org and you can see a lot. We’re not selfish saying you have to donate everything to us and we’ll figure out what to do with it. No. We’ve posted a number of other really good foundations that we trust that are fighting this. You can donate to some that have a bunch of navy seals that are going in and busting heads and pulling kids out. You can donate to some that are doing a lot of the aftercare and helping heal etc. So there’s a lot of beautiful things that you can do there from not only donating money but there’s a place you can fill out some information about your background your skill sets, what you can bring to the table and you know, maybe you can go help build one of the healing retreats or one of the safe houses for the kids or there’s a lot of beautiful things that people can do to get involved and we’re providing a lot through the Liberating-Humanity website and hopefully I’ll have the Liberating Humanity without the hyphen. I’ve got a bit for that now but anyway, Liberating Humanity will give you a lot of additional tools to help keep your family safe. To help your family heal from trauma so that if something God forbid happened to a family member at some time, so that they can release that trauma and they don’t hold on to it where it comes out in anger or physical abuse or even sexual abuse of others. It’s so important that we help people heal and move past that. That’s what a future free of trafficking looks like is helping people heal today and so those tools are all things you can find on the Liberating-Humanity website and the ongoing podcast we have a lot of beautiful things coming out. We have some books that go into detail of the Child Rescue Mission so you can see what’s going on and how you can keep your kids safe as well as part of that.

Mike DiCioccio [00:59:20]

Wow. So incredible. I got that all linked In the show notes guys, so you can go there. Easy to find and I just wanted to remind people, when you experience it, when you see that film and watch it a second time, something will come to you and you’re gonna say, “I know how I can help?” but go to the website and then you’ll find there’s different opportunities, there’s different things you can do in your community. I had a podcast, so I was like hey  that’s the way I can immediately contribute and now obviously this financial contribution but I’m still looking for other ways. I don’t know if it’s an event. Maybe you and I can partner on something and just bring more awareness and bring more people some live Q and A. I know there’s a lot of people. I sent them to go see the movie, gave me positive feedback and they were super inspired. So I know that now when this episode drops, there’s so much more substance here because you’ve shared real stories and shared how people can help. So this is exactly what I was hoping for and you over delivered brother. So I just  love you brother and what you do, what you’ve been doing and continue to do is really special and I’m excited that I was a small part of it today. On this episode. Is there anything else you’d like to share before we part with our audience today.

Paul Hutchinson 1:00:40]

I’m just expressing gratitude for you in using your gifts and expanding this message to your audience. Our goal is to have a powerful positive impact in the lives of other people and understand this, back in the time of Abraham Lincoln, it wasn’t guys like us that were rescuing the slaves that created the biggest difference. It was people like you, it was the influencers, it was Harriet Beecher Stowe who wrote a book called Uncle Tom’s Cabin which was the media. Podcast of the age, where good people could read that and see what was really going on in the south. In fact years later when Abraham Lincoln met her, he shook her hand and said, “So you’re the little lady that wrote the book that started the big war.” We’re not here to start a physical war but we are here to raise the banner of the Sound of Freedom. The sound of freedom is not just that beautiful sound of the children as they were free in Colombia. The Sound of Freedom is a Battle Cry for all of us, who need to break free from addictions or from our past or from trauma or whatever it is and keep our children free and moving forward and not allowing this kind of an evil to hold them captive and to create this generational trauma moving forward. So God’s children are not for sale. Hold on to your kids. Hug them tight. Create a relationship. This doesn’t have to be you going to church every day but a relationship with God will direct your life in a way that will transform it and ensure that you can keep safe and keep your children safe as well.

Mike DiCiccio [1:02:19]

Yeah. So good man. Mic drop moment right there at the end. I enjoy talking with you and I just feel like I’m talking to someone who you know I have a lot of respect for and I really appreciate you sharing your message on the show. You said the word gratitude, I lit up like a Christmas tree because b.g.b.g is “the be great be grateful” that’s the messaging for the podcast. And I actually just want to say something. I have merchandise for the podcast and 100% of the profit so I have to at least cover the cost of the goods but anytime we make one cent above what it cost us to produce the shirt, everything is getting donated to different charities and I’m going to add yours to our list. Be great and be grateful thank you guys for being with us today whether you’re tuning in on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, however you got to us today. I know Paul’s grateful for your ears and eyes and sharing this message with people you love and care about, so they can then take action with their families and it starts at home. Thank you Paul appreciate you being with us today.