Transcript
Every year, thousands of students go on their first holiday abroad. Our 5 g roaming in 80 countries means they're connected as soon as they land. Just a reminder to wear sunscreen love because you're as pale as a ghost. Oh, and can you send me all your friends numbers because their mother's wrong to me and always keep your cat in your bum bag. Yeah. Every connection counts, which is why Ireland can count on our network. Vodafone, together we can. Subject to coverage availability. Limitations and terms apply. See vodafone.ieforward/terms. A warning. This episode contains discussion of sexual assault that may be disturbing. Listener discretion is advised. As a note, we reached out to Tim Ballard's attorney to request an interview. Our request went unanswered. And one last thing, after Tim Ballard left the anti trafficking organization, OUR, in 2023, it was renamed OUR Rescue. Its new leaders say they do not condone Tim Ballard's alleged actions while part of the old organization. The first time hairdresser, Keira Lynch, met Tim Ballard, she was brought in to help him prepare for one of his undercover operations. She was there in a professional capacity to cut and dye his hair, but Ballard had other things in mind for her. As Keira worked, she said Ballard talked himself up. He made sure to name drop his ties with former president Trump and apostle m Russell Ballard, a very high up figure in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, who is not directly related to Tim Ballard. He boasted about the children he personally rescued from sex slavery. Then he propositioned her, would she like to join him? If it sounded like a pickup line, that's because essentially it was, but it was for a pretend relationship. Ballard was asking Keira to pose as his girlfriend on his undercover operations to break up sex trafficking rings. He promised that this risky and salacious act was for the godly purpose of saving children from a terrible fate. There was a question behind Ballard's invitation, one that he explicitly asked other potential partners. How far would you go to save a child? The answer, as it turned out, was pretty far. This is The Opportunist, an original podcast from podcast 1. You're listening to the 4th episode of a 10 part series on Tim Ballard and Operation Underground Railroad. I'm Sarah James McLaughlin. In this 4th episode, I dive into the couple's ruse, a tactic used by Ballard in OUR where operatives pretended to be dating or married as part of their cover. I've spoken with several participants about their experience in the ruse, as well as experts with knowledge of how actual professional undercover operations should work. While Ballard marketed this tactic as a God given tool to break up trafficking rings, behind closed doors, the ruse appeared to have a much more sinister purpose. Every year, thousands of people go to their very first concert. Our boosted signal at large events means they can always call a taxi to get home. Mom? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was grand. Do you think you could pick me up? Every connection counts, which is why Ireland can count on our network. Vodafone, together we can. Subject to coverage availability, limitations and terms apply. See Vodafone dot IE forward slash terms. He said, so there's a tactic that we use, and it's actually really genius. It's something that I could never have come up with on my own. It came straight from God. He said it's called the couple's ruse. That's Sasha Hightower, a former operator for Ballard and OUR, whom I interviewed about her experience. We'll hear more from her later. But first things first, what is the couple's ruse? Well, who better to describe it than Ballard himself? Here he is in an Instagram post from September 2023. Hey, guys. I wanna tell you about a very important undercover tactic that we use that involves female operators. Based on the allegations that are flying around and the questions being asked, we've decided to tell you these tactics. So if I'm a man or when my operator's approached by a trafficker trying to put a child to to to service on that person or a sex worker and that man, that operator doesn't partake of what's being offered, they lose credibility. And so we came up with a concept that we call the couple's rouge or the couple's tactic, where you go in together pretending to be a husband or wife or boyfriend girlfriend. Now you go in, and one of you could could pretend that, yes, I I want to partake in this sex act with this woman or this child, but I can't because my girlfriend won't let me, but maybe we can do it later. So is that cool? Like, let's keep talking and and she'll warm up to it eventually. But the bottom line is we block for each other. So the trafficker sees the situation and recognizes that I have every excuse not to partake. At first listen, that might all sound pretty neat and tidy. But if you think about it for a little longer, lots of holes in the logic start to appear. For example, how does a man like Ballard, who's married and a member of the LDS church, justify fraternizing with child sex traffickers or pretending to be married to someone else? But Ballard had an answer for that, kind of. Here's Damian Moore, a journalist for American Crime Journal, who has done extensive research on Ballard and OUR. Yes. According to Ballard, he had gotten special permission from m Russell Ballard to do these things only just because they are rescuing the children. President m Russell Ballard died in November of 2023. We will dive into him a little bit more later on, but just know that he was one of the most important people in the Mormon church and was a huge supporter of Tim Ballard. So m Russell Ballard, he no relation to Tim Ballard again. He is the president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles for the LDS Church, Church of Jesus Christ and Latter day Saints. That's essentially, basically the second in command of the church. We're talking essentially like the pope of the LDS Church at the time. This is someone at the top of the church. These are considered a prophet. So Ballard had clearance for his couple's ruse technique from high ups in the church. But more than that, he claimed to have divine inspiration and the approval from God himself. Here's Keira Lynch, whose story I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, describing her understanding of the couple's ruse. And that it was inspired by God, and that's why he's able to go and do that and be that way with other women because it is inspired by God and their saving children. And it's actually a very, like, quote, unquote, very spiritual experience. And Sasha Hightower again. That was my life. I I was actually very committed to that religion for quite a while. And so when he spoke about, you know, this is straight from god and this is sanctioned by elder Ballard, I in the teachings and the way that I had understood, was, oh, well, then that can't be led astray. So that, in a nutshell, is what the couple's ruse was or at least what Ballard said it was, but why was it used? Here's Brea Reiter, a former marine and licensed clinical social worker who volunteered with OUR back in 2020 and 2021. So the way that Tim presented it, when I, to quote him, I would have to use, pretty inappropriate language. So he he says that the woman is there because it allows for the, for her to put a stop to the male undercover undercover workers from actually touching any of the trafficking victims. So to act as, in Tim's words, a c**k block. Okay. So it's like a buffer. It's it's a way for them to be skeevy, but not too skeevy? That's how he presented it. Also, enough you know, and then secondarily, a layer of just that sometimes women there are a lot of women in the trafficking world. Many women go from being trafficked to remaining in that world, and going from, you know, victims to abusers. It's not uncommon at all. And sometimes women can talk to other women more easily. Sometimes women can interact with children more easily. So it was also couched as, like, you know, there could be situations where having a woman undercover agent would be helpful. There you have it. The female operators were deployed to be a church sanctioned divine c**k block and potentially a sympathetic ear. So that's the what and why, and there's also the how of it. Ballard was quick to tell potential recruits that the couple's ruse wasn't just a free for all. There were rules, namely no kissing on the lips, no touching or exposing each other's breasts or genitals. OUR even had operators sign an agreement to this effect. I've seen a copy of 1 and it doesn't look super official. It's literally half a page long, but it's right there in black and white. So there was an effort to at least appear like they were keeping things above board. Although, interestingly, the agreement doesn't specifically forbid operators having sex. Maybe Ballard was building in a loophole. Anyway, once the rules were established, they helped lower the women's guards, made them feel like engaging with Ballard was safe, and once Ballard sealed that impression, he was able to push things really far, really fast. For example, he asked increasingly personal questions. Sasha Hightower, who was a survivor of sexual assault before joining OUR, shared one of Ballard's lines of questioning. He asked me about my relationship. He asked me about my beliefs. He asked me about my past. He asked me more about the trauma that I experienced. He asked me about my dreams, my goals, what did I wanna do? After pushing for emotional closeness with Sasha, she says Ballard quickly pushed to physical closeness and forced intimacy. He took me into his private office, and he shut the door behind us. And he went over and, like, stood at the desk and was just kinda leaning up against it, talking to me, and just really getting to know me. He said part of this is that he and I had to create actual chemistry so that when we were out on the field, traffickers wouldn't suspect anything. I was, like, on this little couch bench thing, and he sat next to me, and he just kept me talking. And so I was talking, and as he was listening, he, like, scooted over and, like, nuzzled his, face into my neck and my chin. And my my body, like, immediately had, a I would call it trauma response, honestly. But it just kinda like, just this jolt. And the thought that I had was maybe he's testing me. So he's probably just testing me. Okay. Because I had no reason to believe that this man who goes to rescue women and children would do anything to me. So just keep talking. So I kept talking, and then he kinda, like, caressed my thigh, and I just kept talking. And then he stopped, and he kinda got frustrated. He's like, why are you not doing anything? I'm like, what are you talking about? And he's like, why are you not reacting? That's when I had said to him, I had said, I'm an actress. I don't even practice kissing offset. Like, if I do kissing scenes in my films, I will only practice with the camera on me and people around. This is where things start to get really weird and uncomfortable. And after all the women operators we talked to, we saw a blatant pattern emerge. When a female operator pushed back after Ballard crossed one of their boundaries, he would remind them of the mission of saving kids, insisting that it was a life or death matter for them to appear as though they had chemistry. He's like, well, see, the problem is we have to know that we have chemistry. Otherwise, if we're not if this isn't convincing enough, then we're gonna get outed out there. And do you know what they like, that we're gonna we could get shocked. And then he brings it back to the bottom line, which is something I heard from other women as well. Basically, he said he's not going to take her out on a mission and waste donor money if she can't be convincing. And he told me that he tried to take a woman out once. They got all the way out there flights, place, everything, and she couldn't do it. And he said that was donor's dollars wasted, and that was a failed mission of women and children we couldn't rescue. And so in that moment, I was kinda like, oh, crap. Okay. Well, I don't want that. Everything that I wondered or had a question about, he had an answer for in some way that would speak to my my logic that would defy, like, my intuitive wonders. When it came to recruiting female operators and addressing their concerns, it seemed like Ballard had an answer for everything. But there were still bigger questions about how these operations would actually work. Would the operators be trained? Would they get special equipment to protect themselves or to gather evidence on these trafficking rings they were meant to be breaking up? Would they get a disguise like Ballard's to protect their identity? Basically, the answer was no. Every year, thousands of people go to their very first concert. Our boosted signal at large events means they can always call a taxi to get home. Mom? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was grand. Do you think you could pick me up? Every connection counts, which is why Ireland can count on our network. Vodafone, together we can. Subject to coverage availability. Limitations and terms apply. See vodafone.ieforward/terms. Back to the story. So once Ballard had made contact with a potential female operator, put the moves on her, and got her on board with his couple's ruse, then it was time to take the show on the road. That meant getting ready to go to a foreign country, often in Central or South America, and engage with people they ostensibly suspected of dangerous illegal activity. Naturally, Naturally, you might think that there might be some pretty robust research and training before a mission like that. And under normal circumstances, you'd be absolutely right. I spoke with an expert in this area, Lindsay Moran, a former clandestine officer for the CIA and author of Blowing My Cover, My Life as a Spy. And let's say, like, in some rare circumstance, there is a woman who is not trained like that and would need to be a part of this team, how long would her training take until it was okay for her to go out on an operation? If you're using a foreign agent or a foreign source of information to conduct an operation, to go undercover, their safety is of the utmost importance to you. So you're not gonna send, a young woman into the lion's den with no training. That's how things should be done to protect the agents in the field. But as you can guess, that's not how Ballard and OUR did things. And he's like, this is where you look for hidden cameras. I'm like, okay. What do I look for? And he said, look for a reflection in the walls or in plants. That's all. That was the training. We've not found any evidence that OUR had any standardized training in place. Here's investigative journalist Damian Moore again. There was no standard operating procedures whatsoever with OUR. It's just, things are kinda made up on the whim. Generally speaking for OUR, it was a pretty quick turnaround from being recruited to being dropped into the field. From the time I met Tim, to the time I went out was 2 weeks. If you remember Celeste Borys from episode 1, she didn't receive any prior training at all. She was already on an operation with Ballard when he sprung the couple's ruse on her. And Bre Rider says she didn't get much more notice than that. After a day long audition that involves shooting drills and combat first aid, Brie was taken to a strip club where she was meant to practice the ruse. She said she was instructed to get up close and personal with OUR's director of security, Matt Cooper, sitting in his lap and whispering in his ear. After a couple hours, Cooper said she was good to go and Bree was invited on a mission to Mexico that was starting in just 10 days. This kind of laissez faire training wasn't just sloppy. It was incredibly dangerous. Yeah. It sounds like she could be a great liability to the rest of the team as well, not just as a danger to herself, but putting everyone in in danger. Absolutely. Like, if you bring someone who's not trained into an operation, I mean, that's just unethical. It's a it's a liability to the operation. That person is then a liability to themselves. They're in great danger. Any US government entity, the FBI, the CIA, Homeland Security, whatever, they are not going to put either their female officers or even female, agents or sources, undercover sources in that kind of position. It's completely unethical. So I don't care where he got his training. If if Tim Ballard was actually using those sort of tactics, that's like the the doctrine of Tim Ballard that has zero relation to any kind of training he would have received from the US government. Remember, part of Tim Ballard's allure was his portrayal as a superhero like operator. He started out at the CIA and had years of experience in the field with the Department of Homeland Security. The novices around Ballard looked to him as an expert in their leader. Everyone around Ballard was told to trust in Tim Ballard, but it was BS. So once the women had received Ballard's patented training program, or rather lack thereof, they were deployed to the field. Usually, this meant going undercover and visiting a strip club or massage parlor, sometimes locally in Utah or in countries like Mexico, Haiti, or Ecuador. Sometimes it involved masquerading as wealthy sex tourists looking for underage girls for a party. For these missions, Ballard would alter his appearance and assume his undercover persona of Brian Black, while the female operators went without a disguise. But besides the lack of training, there was another huge problem with these operations. Since founding OUR in 2013, Ballard had become a pretty well known figure, the face of an anti trafficking movement. So exactly how undercover could he really be? One of the things that really bothers me is that he's posting all of these videos on social media. He's putting his face out there. How could you possibly be covert when, you're you're just you're putting yourself out there. You know, if he's undercover, why is he out here in the media? And we're not just talking about, you know, he's he's the face of Operation Underground Railroad. He's been on Fox News. He's done mainstream interviews. He's done these major fundraisers with people like Tony Robbins, who is a major celebrity. He's known all over the world. So, yeah, with all the concern about covers being blown, why did Ballard keep putting his face all over the news and social media? That's not the typical behavior of an undercover spy. And I've interviewed undercover operatives for the FBI that worked on the human trafficking task force that just said, you know, you don't put your information out there. They're very selective, even about getting their photos taken at family events, things like that. Because if something gets leaked on social media, it compromises the mission, it could put your life in danger. Once again, there was the way that real operatives do it, and then there was Ballard's way. And the Ballard way was almost comical. No. He just dyed his hair and put on some tattoos and spray tanned. But you could tell that that was Tim Ballard? Yeah. Like, I'm sorry that I'm laughing, but I that was one of the first things that I thought was, oh, wow. Okay. That is not a disguise, but okay. It is kind of funny to imagine slapping on some hair dye and spray tan and then calling yourself an undercover operative. But what actually happened when Ballard took female operators on these missions was no laughing matter. I'm gonna let Sasha Hightower take things away and tell her story for a minute. And then we get onto the we get onto the, airplane, and that's when he was kind of giddy. He laced his arms through my legs, really close to my crotch, and was, like, nuzzling into me, and, like, put a blanket over us, and was talking really loud about the operation, just how excited he was about it. And I was just kinda like, hey, you need to be quiet because I thought this was, like, something that we don't talk about, that we don't want people to know. He was kind of in this place of just I don't think he would really hear me, to be honest. Yeah. Like, just kinda this, like, this nervous giddy energy or something. It just, like, it just felt like he was really excited about this, and I was over there feeling, what did I just get myself into? And he's like, okay. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna go into these massage parlors. We're gonna ask for certain things. We're gonna get back to one of the rooms, and they're gonna give us a massage. What he told me is he said, so we'll get on the tables. They'll start to massage us, but they're gonna probably get kinda close. So if they get too close to my crotch or yours or they go to touch you, we just say the code word, and the code word was f**k me. So I'm laying face down, and then they start massaging, and all of a sudden her hand is getting closer to my crotch. And this is when I start to, like, kind of I don't know if it was like a dissociative thing, but I had this mix between I need to get myself out of here, and then I'm in a mission. If I blow our cover by being scared, then I'm gonna we're gonna get shot. So I took a deep breath, and then she she touched me, and she was massaging me. And I said the code word, and, he didn't do anything. Yeah. So, I knew in that moment I had to I had to get myself out of here somehow. Tim had told me that the point of the massage parlor is to find the kids, set up an an appointment for this party, and then I could get them out by saying that I was so turned on I needed to f**k my boyfriend. So I immediately started, like, touching Tim's belly and kissing his shoulder and his neck, and I was like, you guys just need to go out. I need to f**k my boyfriend. And, they just stopped massaging and watched. There's a lot to unpack here. First off, there's Ballard's manic excitement on the way to the mission. Then there's the fact that Ballard took Sasha into a situation under the guise of the couple's ruse, knowing that she might be sexually touched in a nonconsensual way. He knew she was a survivor of sexual assault. And worst of all, when she was nonconsensually touched, Sasha used the code word for help, and Ballard left her hanging. And this wasn't an isolated incident. Keira Lynch had a similar experience with Ballard using the couple's ruse during her training exercise. I mean, I get to the strip club, the third one, and I go in the bathroom, and I'm literally in there just crying. I remember, like, leaning my head over so my tears would, like, drop to the floor, so I wasn't messing up my makeup. I didn't want anyone to know I was crying because I'm still trying to pass the test, the challenge. I don't want them to know I'm, like, utterly falling apart, And I'm still in there telling myself, like, this is for the children. Like, this is a good thing. Like, what you're doing is good. This isn't like, you can do this. You can do this. Keira later felt this moment was a turning point in how she viewed Ballard, OUR, and their mission. I would say probably really the night of the strip clubs. That's really when I started seeing it. I I definitely saw a whole different side of Tim. I saw Brian Black. That's his, you know, his his op name and his other side is, I think, is what it is. It's a completely different human. He's sitting down at, like, this bar where there's strippers in the middle of it, and he's handing the strippers doll dollar bills while I'm gone. And I'm like and I kind of thought to myself, like, he really, really seems like he's enjoying this. And then I had to be like, oh, wait. He's just playing the part. He's still in character. But it was like something in me is still just being like, no. He's enjoying it. Like, it looks like he's really enjoying this. So Kira was starting to feel that Ballard wasn't just putting on a brave face and enduring the strip clubs and massage parlors for the greater good. There was a distinct possibility that he was just really enjoying putting on a disguise, for lack of a better term, and spending donors money at strip clubs. Maybe his priority wasn't really to save children from sex trafficking, or at least maybe that wasn't his only priority. Some of Ballard's other behaviors also came off as more like ulterior motives. He put a lot of emphasis on keeping up the couple's ruse 247, making it seem very real that he and his female operators were actually in a sexual relationship. Even when there weren't any suspected human traffickers around. Even when they were alone together, in an office, a car, or a hotel room. For the record, if that doesn't sound normal, it's because it's not. Here's former CIA undercover officer Lindsey Moran again. I've never ever been involved in an operation where anyone was scrutinized 247 such that you have to, you know, actually engage in, like, relations with the person you're with. You might go with a colleague and be like, okay, we're going to go to this convention and we're going to pretend that we're a married couple. Not as sexy as what happens in the Americans, but you might do that. But if your colleague, male or female, were to ever say to you, you know, there could be cameras on us, so you better perform fellatio on me. Absolutely not. GTFO. Like, that is just it's crazy. It's gross. Speaking of crazy and gross, Ballard also had a practice of sending operators sexually explicit messages. He even had a name for it, dirtying it up. He would say we would have to text each other dirty stuff as if we were a dirty kinky couple so that if the traffickers took our phone, then they could see. This was all purportedly to help strengthen their cover and prove he was in a relationship with these women. And apparently, this is all a ruse to make sure that the, you know, if the traffickers in question begin to investigate them, that, you know, there's evidence that there's some kind of like in love married couple. There's already a lot of leaps in logic to get to a place where Ballard sexting women and demanding they respond in kind to prove to sex traffickers that they're in a relationship, and that that's the reason he can't engage with sex workers so that they can successfully infiltrate potential child sex trafficking rings. Except that before Sasha had a burner phone, Balor was making her text dirty with her own phone and then delete those messages. I didn't have the burner phone yet. But in the meantime, he would be messaging me on my phone through an app called Signal. He said that we used this because it was untraceable, and he made sure that every day I would delete it. He would just tell me things like, it's so important to the case that none of this leaks out, so you've gotta delete it. Did you delete it? And I'd be like, well, yeah. Okay. I I deleted it. So who was that for? Not to mention, there was another massive hole in the basic premise of the couple's ruse. The problem with that is they're supposed to be looking for children. And what Tim Ballard, this is another false thing he claims. He says the reason why they do this is because the majority of children being trafficked now are couples trying to spice up their sex life using a child. First of all, there's no couple's roots. There's no such thing as that. They don't operate that way. Pedophiles don't operate that way. You know, they don't bring husbands and wives to spice up the bedroom. So, I mean, again, this is all things that goes against all, you know, trafficking victims' claims. This goes against the statistics, data that we know. But he makes this claim, and this is why he claims they have to be a couple. Okay. So let's unpack that. Ballard's saying we need this ruse to infiltrate these rings and pretending to be a couple will help us find kids. But there's no evidence to suggest there's a real trend of couples looking for traffic kids to spice up their sex life. The whole reason that Ballard, or excuse me, God came up with this ruse was to help achieve OUR's mission of saving children from sex trafficking. But it turns out that the entire premise of the couple's ruse was based on nothing, on lies. Lies that made it easier to pressure these women into doing what he wanted them to do. Lies that gave Ballard and others an excuse to go to strip clubs and backroom massages with women who were not their wives. Lies that coerced those women to pretend to be in a relationship with him 247. To sit in his lap and whisper in his ear and send dirty text messages to him. But here's the thing, even if any of this was legit, Ballard himself didn't take his own rules seriously, and he broke them whenever it was convenient. Let's talk about what really fuels successful businesses. Sure. You think about an in demand product, brilliant branding, and killer marketing, but it's often the business behind the business that really makes it work. Think about brands with criminally good sales, like Death Wish Coffee or Selena Gomez's Rare Beauty. They've got top notch branding and products that customers love. But behind all that, making buying and selling a breeze is Shopify. Nobody does selling better than Shopify, the home of the world's number one checkout. The not so secret ingredient, Shop Pay, boosting conversions by up to 50%. That's fewer abandoned carts and more customers hitting buy now. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout Death Wish Coffee uses with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com/0ppalllowercase. That's shopify.com/0pp to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com/0pp. Now back to the story. The idea behind Ballard's couple's ruse was to fool suspected traffickers into believing Ballard and his operators were romantically involved as they work to infiltrate and break up suspected trafficking rings. But as more and more information came out, the ruse was beginning to look like it was really designed to trick women into going to extremes while pretending to be in a relationship with him. Initially, multiple women said Ballard emphasized the clear rules behind the ruse. No kissing, no touching genitals. However, once the operations were underway, Ballard started to bend his self imposed rules until they broke. Here's Keira Lynch describing how her experience with Ballard changed from their first interaction and made her feel increasingly uncomfortable. Did I feel like he respected me? Maybe literally on the 1st day? Yeah. But it was, it was because it was literally the first time we were together and he wasn't He didn't cross, like, the couple's rue's boundaries, which is, like, you don't kiss. You don't touch private parts. Like and he didn't go anywhere near those private parts for me then. But that changed very quickly after that. But that day consisted of him, like, putting my leg over his leg, him sitting by me, like, him putting his head in my neck. And, like, I was so uncomfortable. I kept, like, giggling, and I kept blushing. And instead of him seeing it as, like, him looking at me like I was uncomfortable, he was looking at it like, oh my gosh, you're so cute. Balor continued to chip away at the rules he had originally made such a big deal about establishing. The rules that had helped his female operators to feel safe and comfortable stepping into the couple's ruse in the first place. He would say, oh, it's okay. Sometimes of the other operators kiss kiss me on the lips. It happens. Or he would just say little things about, like, oh, well, that's okay. Sometimes you just have to go and cuddle each other in the middle of the night because it's just so hard out here. Or he would start to say things like, you know, it gets so intense and it gets so steamy that sometimes I have to go ejaculate. Cuddling in the middle of the night? Getting intense and steamy? Ejaculating? Naturally, steamy? Ejaculating? Naturally, Sasha Hightower and the other operators were concerned that Ballard was blurring professional lines. I would ask questions like, okay, so does your wife know about this? Like, does your wife know what happens here? That's a very valid question. I'm a woman and if that were my husband, I would want to know all these things. Like, this would be very hard for me. And she and he would say things like, she's a saint, she doesn't ask questions, she just trusts me. Keira Lynch also wanted confirmation that Ballard's wife was okay with what was happening. Which goes to show how much it felt like things were getting off the rails. Tim told me he was sharing it with his wife. I asked him multiple times. We had many conversations about it because I was very uncomfortable with it, obviously, and I wanted to make sure, like, there were no boundaries being crossed there. She he said she knew enough but didn't want to know all the details and that she trusted him, and she understands the mission and what it needs. Again, Valerie would take the focus away from the uncomfortable behavior and put it back on the mission. Because then he follows it up with anytime you say you're uncomfortable. Like, when we save these kids, it's all worth it. When you're in there and you get in there and you save those kids, like, it is all worth it. And, yes, of course, saving children from a lifetime of sex trafficking would be a worthy cause. But did any of this undercover work, trawling strip clubs and massage parlors, the c**k blocking and the dirtying things up on their phones, did any of it actually help rescue children? I've interviewed several female operators, and not one of them say they had any direct evidence of a single kid being rescued by their OUR missions. Nothing particularly effective was happening within the organization. I wanted to know what was happening if we rescued any kids. So I kept texting him, hey. What's the status of our mission? Are there any kids that have been rescued? No. No. No. Predictably, Ballard sings a different tune. 100, maybe thousands of children have been rescued using this amazing tactic. But investigative journalist Damian Moore hasn't found any evidence to support that claim. To date, we have not been able to substantiate a single child that they claimed to have rescued, and I believe they've said they've rescued 75100. Really, OUR, the way they claim their numbers is either they've donated to an organization that might have, you know, busted prostitution ring or sex traffickers. But there again, there's no evidence that they ever really rescued a child and put them through aftercare programs, things like that. So those big numbers that Ballard threw around sound like some creative bookkeeping. But if Ballard and OUR weren't rescuing kids, and it seems very much like they weren't, Then what were they doing? They were flying to far flung locals, staying in penthouses, hosting parties. Flashing cash asking around for a wilder scene and partying with escorts. So were they really pretending to be wealthy sex tourists? Or was that just what they were doing? Damien Moore put it this way. Well, this just looks like an organization for middle aged white men who go to these black and brown countries and, basically play their James Bond fantasies. If you thought things were sketchy before, then buckle up because things are about to get even worse. So remember the divine c**k block thing? How one of the main purposes of this whole tactic was to prevent operators from actually engaging with sex workers? So then would you be surprised to hear that members of OUR actually engage with sex workers? I was. Here's Sasha Hightower describing what she saw 1 OUR operator do while on a mission in Mexico. And as I was walking out, I watched as was taking one of the women to the back room, and my understanding is these back rooms are for paid sex. He wasn't with a blocker. I don't know who else decides that they need to go back out to another strip club. They leave, they're gone for a few hours, they have no comms, I can't reach them, they're not messaging me, they don't have a blocker. Matt Osborne is pacing the floor, like, this is wrong, this is wrong, there's something wrong, like, this should not be happening, but something happened with And I was like, oh, I I figured. I I watched what happened where he went to the back room with that woman, and he goes, oh. And I was like, yeah. I I saw that happen. And he said, well, something happened with him. It wasn't good. And I was like, well, what are you gonna do about it? And he's like, well, I'm gonna talk to him. I told him, I said, Tim, this is the stuff that will take OUR down are these type of behaviors. If you don't tell somebody, I will. It was around this time that things reached a breaking point for Sasha. Remember, all of this was supposed to be sanctioned by the church. But all of the church sanctioning and justifications weren't enough to quiet the inner voice that was telling Sasha something was very wrong. At this point, after the second woman who was shaking, dancing in front of us, who we said, hey, sit down and just, like, relax with us, talk to us. We don't wanna have sex with you, like, just be here. After that, I knew that I was no longer able to continue. My my mind had gone over. My my trauma was coming to the surface. Sasha withdrew from being an operator, though she remained in contact with OUR. Members of the organization assured her that there would be changes made to the training program, that they would enforce the rules of the couple's ruse, that they would make operations safer for everyone involved. Also around this time, Sasha was asked if she knew any other actors who might be open to helping with missions. With the belief that the organization was turning a corner, Sasha recommended a friend to become an operator. But after one meeting with Ballard, Sasha's friend confided that he had assaulted her. And he she said, well, I went in for this training, and then Tim took me into his office, and he pushed me up against the wall, licked my stomach. And immediately, warning signs, fire, anger, and this is part of what's, like, my trauma speaking. I can see it better in other people than I can in myself. And in this moment, for whatever reason, something clicked and I went, oh, my gosh. This is wrong. After hearing about her friend's experience with Ballard, Sasha finally found the strength to leave his organization for good. I told them that I was no longer gonna be a part of OUR at all, that I was no longer gonna be speaking. I just called and I said, hey. I've decided that I can no longer be a part of your company or your business. This is what's best for my family. And he questioned me over and over again. Did something happen? Was it between me and you? Like, he just kind of, like, was really weird about it. Sasha heard about a woman who had come forward with allegations against Ballard and that there was an ongoing investigation into him and OUR. Though she was apprehensive at first, in the end, she decided to go all in and share her story. And so I decided to go in. I sat for 3 hours and told them the full story for the first time because I didn't even tell my husband everything yet. And as I did, I was, like, crying, and they were looking at each other because they were like, this is nothing new from what we've heard. That was the beginning of when I started to realize I have been manipulated. I have been groomed. I have been lied. And if anybody's ever been there, you don't know until you have something that shows you otherwise because that's the nature of being groomed and manipulated. I think the hardest part was when I realized when someone who knew had said to me, you have been trafficked, And that I was sexually assaulted and exploited by a company that claims that they know how to help women and children. Sadly, Sasha and her friend were not alone in their experience. Several other women like Celeste Borys in episode 1 have come forward with horrifying accounts of being coerced into sexual contact with Ballard and other operators. 6 women have filed lawsuits accusing Ballard of sexual assault, including some situations where he outright raped them. Keira Lynch is one of those women, and she bravely agreed to share her story with me. The day seemed okay. He kept kind of changing times on me. He was, like, running errands. By the time he came to my house, he walked in, and he did feel very much out of sorts. I don't know if something happened right before he came. He was very upset. He was very panicky. He was pacing my floor. I was trying to kind of get him to calm down until I tried to get him to, like, calm down, and he touched me. And then it became very apparent that he was not Tim Ballard. He was Brian Black. And he wasn't listening to you? He was not listening to me. I very much felt invisible. Like, I Kira wasn't there. I was just a body. He would not make eye contact with me. Not at all. It it was almost like I was being seen through. He would not look me in the face. He wouldn't. I tried multiple times. I was terrified. I had just had surgery done a few weeks before, so I was very weak. He knew about this. That's incredibly painful. Yeah. He was very, very aware. He knew that this had happened. So he wanted to see my breasts, and he wanted to take my shirt off. And I couldn't fight back. And not only that, I was so terrified. I was terrified. I was shocked, and I I I mean, the whole thing was scary and shocking and forceful and mortifying because at this point, I thought he was my friend. I did feel like he was somewhat of a protector for me. I talked to him a lot about personal things with my ex husband, and he acted like he cared and was going to help me and protect me with things. And so this flipped, and it was horrifying. Absolutely. Like, that's what's so hard is, like, it's not only physically mortifying, but mentally, it was so hard to grasp. Finally, I was able to remove my arm enough, both my arms, and I grabbed his face. And when I grabbed his face and I got him to look at me, he didn't say anything except for he stood up, pulled his pants up, zipped him up, and walked out my front door. And that was it until he asked for his belt hours later that he had left at my house. Kira's experience, horrifying and dehumanizing as it was, can be seen as the endpoint of the couple's ruse. The tactic was initially introduced as a serious and safe strategy deployed for the greater good. But as time went on, it was revealed to be illegitimate, unprofessional, and ineffective. And much worse than that, Allard used the ruse as a weapon. One that was wielded by his alter ego, Brian Black. This was a weapon to manipulate women, to break down their reservations and make them question their inner sense of what was right and wrong, to coerce them into doing things they didn't want to do, and ultimately, to force himself on them. But wily as Ballard may be, he wasn't able to achieve this massive manipulation on his own. He had a permission structure backed up by the high ups in the LDS church. On the next episode of The Opportunist, Tim Ballard, Unmasking A Hero, we dive into Ballard's relationship with the LDS church, and how Ballard was shaped by its culture and how his connections within the church elevated him and protected him. Thank you for tuning in to The Opportunist. This episode was written by Nani Okwelagu and produced by Abby Newhouse and executive produced by Connor Powell. Until next time.
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