Timothy Ballard

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Timothy "Tim" Ballard is the founder and CEO of Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.), CEO of The Nazarene Fund^[1] and the author of several books. He organizes activities on the national and international level to stop child trafficking.^[2][3] Ballard has credited his organization with rescuing thousands of trafficking victims. However, these figures have been disputed, and O.U.R has been criticized for a lack of transparency and exaggerating stories.^[4] Ballard has faced criticism for broadcasting raids without regards for victim privacy,^[5][6] and over his written works in his 'Hypothesis' series which have been described as ahistorical and revisionist.^{[citation needed]} Ballard's work includes the development of software and internet investigations specifically to infiltrate file-share networks where traffickers exchange child pornography.^{[citation needed]} Ballard has assisted in the training of many law enforcement officers in these procedures.^[7] Additionally, he has also testified before the United States Congress and has recommended procedures and practices for rescuing children from trafficking rings.^[8]

Biography[]

Schooling[]

After growing up in California, Ballard attended Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah.^[9] As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he went on a church mission to Chile and then graduated cum laude from BYU with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Spanish and Political Science. Then, he graduated summa cum laude from the Monterey Institute of International Studies with a Master of Arts degree in International Politics.^[10]

Government[]

Ballard worked as a Special Agent for the Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations, for over ten years.^[11] During his time working for the American government, he worked on the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and worked as an undercover agent for the U.S. Child Sex Tourism Jump Team.^[11] Most of his career was spent working out of the US-Mexico port of entry in Calexico, California with the focus on child exploitation and trafficking cases. These cases regularly took Ballard, who speaks fluent Spanish,^[12] into Latin America.^[13]

Founding O.U.R.[]

Ballard left the government in 2013 and founded the non-profit organization Operation Underground Railroad, or O.U.R.^[11][14] He has briefed politicians on the issue of child sex trafficking, including President Donald Trump in January 2019.^{[15][16][17][18][19]}

Testifying before Congress[]

On May 14, 2015, Ballard was asked to testify before the United States Congress. The House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Global Human Rights held a hearing on the partnerships between U.S. government and non-governmental organizations that rescue trafficking victims.^[20] On March 6, 2019, Ballard was called to testify before the US Senate Judiciary Committee concerning US-Mexico border security and its relation to child sex trafficking.^[21][22]

Presidential appointment[]

In 2019 Ballard was appointed to the White House Public-Private Partnership Advisory Council to End Human Trafficking.^[23]

Media[]

In 2016, The Abolitionists, a documentary from Schindler's List producer Gerald Molen, featured the first operations undertaken by Ballard and Operation Underground Railroad.^[24] Another documentary from director Nick Nanton, Operation Toussaint, was produced in 2018 which featured an operation in Haiti that had the support of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse and former congresswoman Mia Love.^[16] A feature film about Ballard's life, Sound of Freedom, starring Jim Caviezel, Mira Sorvino, and Eduardo Verástegui was announced in 2018.^[25][26]

ESPN featured Ballard and Pittsburgh Steelers' head coach Mike Tomlin in a piece which highlighted the restavek issue near the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.^[27] Tomlin would also write the foreword to Ballard's book Slave Stealers: True Accounts of Slave Rescues – Then and Now.^[28][29][30]

Authorship[]

Ballard has written a number of books including The Covenant: One Nation Under God,^[31] and its sequel, The Covenant, Lincoln, and the War.^[31] In 2018 he published the biographical book Slave Stealers: True Accounts of Slave Rescues – Then and Now, which details his experience forming a non-profit to rescue children. The book also draws a few parallels to 19th-century American history and the transatlantic slave trade. The principal subject is a 19th-century abolitionist named Harriet Jacobs and her struggles to escape slavery and save her children.

Criticism[]

A 2020, Vice News investigation found that the organization employed "a pattern of image-burnishing and mythology-building, a series of exaggerations that are, in the aggregate, quite misleading". For instance, O.U.R. claimed that it rescued a woman named "Liliana", who according to court testimony escaped by herself. The organization's spending also lacks transparency.^[32] A 2021 follow-up article further criticized O.U.R.'s practices, which included using inexperienced donors and celebrities as part of its "jump team", a lack of meaningful surveillance or identification of targets, failing to validate whether the people they intended to rescue were in fact actual trafficking victims, and conflating consensual sex work with sex trafficking.

Ballard and supporters of O.U.R. have been criticized for promoting the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory.^{[33][34] [35]}

Criminal Investigation[]

On August 27, 2020, Lynn Packer with American Crime Journal reported in a video breaking news that criminal complaints had been forwarded to the Davis County District Attorney at their office in Farmington, Utah.^[36] Packer, an award winning investigative journalist and veteran Utah reporter was later interviewed by American psychologist John Dehlin on his Mormon Stories Podcast. Dehlin, who like Packer is an excommunicated member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) asked why would such a major "development for the state of Utah and the LDS Church" was not released or "being pursued" by mainstream Utah press? Packer asserted that Utah media and LDS Church was complicit in legitimizing Operation Underground Railroad with little to no oversight and fact-checking. Packer revealed that he had spent the last five years investigating Tim Ballard and Operation Underground Railroad and anyone who spends more than five minutes looking into the organization could find fraud and corruption.^[37]

In October 2020, the Attorney's Office of Davis County, Utah stated that O.U.R. and Tim Ballard were under criminal investigation regarding complaints that O.U.R. had conducted illegal fundraising efforts by fabricating rescues that never took place and laundering donor money into his for profit businesses. ^[38][39][40] Investigative journalists Anna Merlan and Tim Marhcmann for Vice News confirmed reports by investigative journalist Lynn Packer and Damion Moore of American Crime Journal of a clandestine meeting held in August, 2019, where Tim Ballard summoned officers and managers of his non-profit and for profit businesses, including several from Operation Underground Railroad.^[41] At the meeting he presented, in detail a criminal conspiracy to launder donor money from non-profits which called "sizzle" into his for profit businesses, illustrating his plan in detail on a dry erase board. According to multiple sources and by their own admission, after the meeting Operation Underground Railroad's Operations Team Leader Dave Lopez and their top donor Paul Hutchinson were so disturbed and disgusted by Tim Ballard's criminal plans, they severed all ties with Tim Ballard and Operation Underground Railroad. Several photos of the meeting and of the whiteboard were turned over to the Davis County District Attorney and the Federal Bureau of Investigation due to concerns of wire fraud.^[42][43]

References[]

External links[]

• Official website
• Operation Underground Railroad