Seven people have been accused in relation to an alleged sex trafficking operation that, according to Alabama officials, ran out of a specific bunker and involved children up to 3 years.
The case includes charges of rape, sexual torture, kidnapping and trafficking of people, and the officials claim that the abuse took place in an ash block building in Brent, Alabama, 50 miles southwest of Birmingham, said the Sheriff of Bibb County, Jody Wade, at a press conference on Wednesday.
He called the alleged abuse and torture “the most horrible thing I’ve seen” perpetrated against children.
“I know that God’s forgiveness is unlimited,” Wade said. “But if there was a limit, I think we have reached it.”
He said that sexual abuse ring operators accused people who came to the bunker and abuse the children, adding that the operation may have won $ 1,000 per night.
“Sometimes the children were there, tied to a post that was there, tied to a bed that was there, or in a chair that was there,” Wade said. “Sometimes there would be several people who would come and victimize these children every night.”
An image of the interior of the bunker, launched by the Sheriff’s office, showed a dirty mattress in a corner, a folding chair and a fan.
The Sheriff also claimed that the children were sometimes drugged “to make them a little more sleepy and a little more satisfied.”
An animal shock necklace was used to punish children, according to complaints obtained by Birmingham NBC News WVTM.
Wade said the suspects include relatives of some of the 10 alleged victims, who are between 3 and 15 years old.
Children are in state custody, said Robert H. Turner, Jr., the district prosecutor of the 4th Judicial Circuit of Alabama.
The Sheriff said that the operation seems to have gathered around 2022, and that officials began investigating in February after state officials of child welfare alerted Bibb County authorities about the possibility of abuse in a house near the bunker. The children did not live in the bunker, said the sheriff.
Wade said that a drug trafficking investigation may have delayed the case of sex trafficking.
“We had a little waiting until we could rescue these children,” said the Sheriff.
At least two of the arrests were made in April, Sheriff’s office said. Several defendants have confessed the crimes described in the charges, said Wade.
The seven face a mixture of positions that include rape, sexual abuse and sexual torture of a child, human trafficking, sodomy, kidnapping, bestiality and animal abuse, according to criminal complaints.
It is not clear if all the defendants have obtained a legal advisor.
“We are diligently investigating all potential clients and gathering evidence to build the strongest possible case,” Turner said.
Turner said they are probable arrests and additional charges.
“We anticipate that the new names that have emerged during the course of the investigation will also be presented for consideration,” he said by email on Friday.
Wade also said there could be more victims.
National Security research is working to determine if there are possible links with a national ring of sex trafficking managed by gang, Wade said. The agency did not immediately respond to a comment request on Friday.
If you are a child who is being abused or knows a child who can face abuse, call the girl’s national child line at (800) 422-4453, or go www.childhelphotline.org. The states often have direct lines of child abuse, but if you suspect that a child’s life is in imminent danger, he calls 911.
