Testimony of Alison, a Colombian victim of trafficking in Cancun: this is how a network captured her

Alison Vivas, a Colombian victim of an international human trafficking network in Cancun, tells how she was captured through deception. Here are the details.

Cancún, Quintana Roo.- Eight years after living through hell , after being recruited through deception , the victim of this crime that affects more than 6 million people in the world, according to estimates by the United Nations Organization and the Walk Free Foundation, talks about what she experienced.

In the Vos Podés Podcast, she recounted the ordeal she experienced in 2017 , when a supposed friend of hers, Milena , who was in Quintana Roo, Mexico, told her that she worked in a restaurant and that she could get her a well-paid job with her in the same place.

Alison, then 22 years old and a Marketing graduate, came from a home with an alcoholic father who had been abusive for as long as she could remember, which made her easy prey for an offer that promised to provide her with the means to escape that life and, in the process, one day get her mother out of that maelstrom of violence.

Milena, after a video call , sent him money for the travel expenses from Bogotá, Colombia , expenses that the restaurant company paid, she said in the Vos Podés Podcast that already has more than 6.6 million views on YouTube.

So, he adds, he took his plane to Cancún, Quintana Roo, without knowing that he was about to live the most traumatic months of his life.

Upon arriving at the airport, she was picked up by a man whose alias is “La Foca,” a driver and guard for victims of human trafficking in Cancun, and part of an international criminal network that captures women for sexual exploitation.

And although his treatment was kind, after taking her to where she would be staying, he gave her a contract with an account of all expenses, including lodging, food and clothes for work, which came to a total of $170,000 Mexican pesos (8,300 dollars).

They also took his passport.

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She was housed with many other girls in a similar situation, all together in a large house and under strict surveillance.

“So, they took me to where my friend Milena was working, which was the same restaurant I had seen on video call. It was in the bullring.

“I would never have imagined that in a place so crowded with families and tourists something strange was happening, and even less so considering that it was thanks to my friend that I was there,” Alison said.

She was instructed to serve the clients, go to their table, encourage them to consume the most expensive bottles of alcohol and then offer them prostitution services.

The young Colombian woman was in shock, but she had no choice; she had to start getting clients in order to pay off her debt and free herself.

Weeks later, they were taken to a brothel called Bandidas, in Cancun , where they performed on a dance floor almost naked, pole dancing, for several hours at night.

But the debt was impossible to pay, as they were fined every month for the arrival of their period, for the clothes they wore at the nightclub performances, and also for getting drunk.

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“And our profit was only 2% of the total.” Fines were subtracted from that tiny profit. So, far from decreasing, the debt to their captors increased, but it was part of the strategy to keep them as sexual slaves.

“Many construction workers and people with money of dubious origin came to Bandidas, some of them were armed and put their weapons on the table. We had to pretend that we hadn't noticed, even though it was our lives that were at risk.”

Alison says that some girls were taken from the place and disappeared for several days, then returned beaten .

And it all seemed like a nightmare from which I would never wake up.

However, one night like any other, when she was dancing on the stage, all the lights suddenly went out .

“ I saw a group of armed men wearing hoods enter . One of them stood in front of me and said: “Get dressed.” I panicked. I ran to the dressing room and when I entered, all my colleagues were already lined up by order of the armed men.

“ There were about 35 of us women . They locked us all in a meeting room, where the heat was over 40°C. They didn’t turn on the fan or let us drink water. There wasn’t a single one of us who was dressed comfortably.”

“What is your name and where are you from?” they asked each one, and some made us hand over all our belongings, says Alison, the Colombian in her testimony where she describes her ordeal as a victim of trafficking in Cancun.

From the police station she was taken to an immigration station, where she spent 12 days sleeping in a cell while waiting to be deported.

Finally, she and the other Colombian women left on a plane: “That day began the long and painful process of assimilating what had happened to me.”

Alison says her mother didn't ask her anything and the subject remained silent until a couple of months ago when Alison decided to tell her story publicly to the Podcast and later to the BBC.

She says she broke her silence in order to prevent other young women from falling into human trafficking networks that use supposed friendships to generate trust in the traps and deceptions they set to obtain profits through forced prostitution. The full video interview is available by clicking on this link.

She learned about the fate of the criminals who enslaved them when they caught “El Foca,” but she never learned anything else.