Human Trafficking Charges Increase By 700 Percent On Cape And Islands

Cape Cod News editorial staff

Human trafficking is far from new on Cape Cod, yet court charges increased by almost 700 per cent in the Cape and Islands' Superior and District courts between 2023 and 2024. The DA Robert Galibois attributes it to the past year's focus and cross-region collaborations on tackling the crime. Last week, a state-wide human trafficking conference gathered survivors, law enforcement and the hospitality industry to go from awareness to action.

"We brought 321 charges in 2024 ... I don't say this for shock value. It's not like the Cape and Islands has an outbreak, if you will, in human trafficking ... but we are now starting to put a focus on it, and because of that, we're seeing the docket grow."

Robert Galibois

Cape and Islands District Attorney

What is human trafficking?

On April 10th and 11th the Cape and Islands District Attorneys Office held a state wide conference on human trafficking. Through a state-funded grant, the District Attorney Rpbert Galibois invited almost 200 attendees to the Emerald resort and conference center in Hyannis. At the conference, called "From Awareness To Action," the 38 speakers included sex trafficking survivors, representatives from the FBI and the U.S. Attorney General’s office. We spoke with DA Galibois a few days after the conference.

"Our goal was to try to pull together certainly those that work in law enforcement,
but also those that work in the hospitality industry, the transportation industry. And I believe we may have had some secondary educators there as well," said DA Galibois.

Is there human trafficking on Cape Cod?

In January 2024 the DA received a grant of $97,000 earmarked to combat human trafficking on Cape Cod and the islands. A portion of the money went to train hospitality staff in recognizing signs of human trafficking.

"It's a little more challenging in our area than other parts of both Massachusetts and across the country, because a lot of our motels, hotels are independent owners as opposed to chains," said DA Galibois.

"So we are trying to get the message out there to our hospitality folks, and in particular hotel and motel owners. But because of the nature of the industry down this way it involves a little more work to get the word out.

What does human trafficking look like on Cape Cod?

It’s been a little over a year since the DA started focusing on human trafficking on Cape Cod. The subject had never been on his radar until Cape Cod PATH (People Against Trafficking Humans) invited Robert Galibois and Orleans' Police Chief Scott McDonald to PATH's annual human trafficking awareness event. It was an eye-opening experience after which the DA put together a region-wide human trafficking task force group as well as a human trafficking unit within his office. No one that LCTV spoke with a year ago could tell how wide-spread human trafficking was on Cape Cod, so what has the DA learned about the subject since then?

"What I know today is there is a ground swelling of support amongst a whole bunch
of stakeholders in our community. And we've been fortunate to grow our relationships with those stakeholders to be out there promoting social awareness," said DA Galibois.

"I've also gotten to know that law enforcement truly does care about this issue, and they are dedicating the resources within their various circles to target perpetrators so we can prosecute the offenders."

How widespread is human trafficking on Cape Cod?

Between 2022 and 2023 the number of human trafficking charges on the Cape and Islands increased by 31 per cent. In 2020 there were zero human trafficking charges, in 2021 there were seven, in 2022 there were 21 charges and in 2023 there were 41. According to the DA’s annual report, last year there were a total of 321 human trafficking charges. It’s important to note that one defendant in one trial can have several different charges in one case. For example there would be a separate charge for each person the perpetrator has trafficked. The number of charges does not indicate how many human trafficking cases or prosecutions there have been on the Cape and Islands.

"I don't say this for shock value. It's not like the Cape and Islands has an outbreak, if you will, in human trafficking. It's going on everywhere, but we are now starting to put a focus on it, and because of that, we're seeing the docket grow."

The DA is planning to apply for another grant to further increase resources to carry through more human trafficking prosecutions. Labor trafficking is prevalent on Cape Cod, especially during the tourist season, which the DA would like to focus more on.

"We're just starting to exhale, the conference was just last week. We wanna go back and review what were the pros and cons of doing this conference?" said DA Galibois.

"I definitely think it was a lot more pros, but we are gonna gather in the next few weeks to say, okay, time to regroup and what are we looking to do for next year?"

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