On Facebook, DHS Investigates Plot To Enslave Female Prisoners

A Delaware pair have been accused of a decade-long trafficking and modern enslavement conspiracy, which heavily relied on Facebook for recruitment and control of vulnerable women with a history of drug addiction, according to court documents. The DHS claims to have evidence the targets included formerly incarcerated women looking for work after leaving prison.

Clifton Gibbs, 66, supported by his “right-hand woman” Brooke Walters, would find victims both in the non-digital world, often in neighborhoods with high levels of drug abuse, and through Facebook, the Justice Department alleged. In March last year, the DHS alleged Gibbs was communicating on Facebook with a man masquerading as a woman running a nonprofit to help incarcerated women. Gibbs first paid the man for images of two women incarcerated for drug dealing and later said he wanted to get one to Delaware so he could “help her get straightened out,” according to a search warrant for the defendant’s Facebook account. The DOJ said it was likely part of Gibbs’ “recruitment scheme in relation to vulnerable incarcerated persons.”

Once Gibbs had coerced the women and controlled them by supplying them with drugs, he had them do various jobs, from stealing items from local hardware and electronics stores so they could be resold (often on Facebook Marketplace) to cleaning his house, looking after his dogs and babysitting his minor children, as well as sex work, according to the government’s allegations. The theft brought in the most money, according to one of thirteen victims, who claimed she stole around $100,000 worth of items, investigators said.

While the defendants have pleaded not guilty, the case shines a light on the kind of crime that Meta critics claim had been a years-long problem on Facebook. In March this year, a number of pension and investment funds that own Meta stock filed a lawsuit accusing Mark Zuckerberg and Meta’s leadership of turning a blind eye to “systemic evidence” of trafficking. In 2021, former Meta data scientist Francis Haugen leaked documents to the Wall Street Journal pointing to Facebook’s use in modern slavery in the Middle East and Africa.

“Social media, predominantly Facebook, offered them that platform to do what they do.”

Closer to home, if the allegations are proven true, the Gibbs case provides a rare snapshot of the horrific reality for victims in America who have been coerced, controlled and forced into a dangerous criminal enterprise over the social network. Data from Polaris, which runs the national hotline for victims of labor and sex trafficking, indicated Facebook was the biggest single website for recruitment into modern day slavery across 2020 and 2021 (data from 2022 has not yet been finalized.). Based on calls and tips via its hotline in 2021, 10% of the recruitment of exploitative commercial sex or labor was from Facebook (when the location of recruitment was disclosed). With Instagram at 7%, Meta’s combined 17% meant its servers were far more popular with traffickers for finding victims than any other location, whether physical or online. For comparison, strip clubs and detention facilities were at 4% each.

As for why Facebook has continued to prove popular with traffickers despite a decline amongst general users, Polaris communications director Rafael Flores Ávalos said that it was likely because users of Meta’s platform have historically shared more of their life circumstances than on other sites. “Once you share a certain amount of information about your personal life it can make the grooming process easier,” Ávalos added. He noted that there was a huge uptick in Facebook and Instagram use amongst traffickers once Covid hit, with a dip after restrictions were lifted in 2021, but not to pre-pandemic levels. “Social media, predominantly Facebook, offered them that platform to do what they do. They probably saw this thing was working and they kept doing it.”

Facebook spokesperson Erin McPike said, “We are cooperating with law enforcement on this case, and we will continue to do so.” McPike added that Meta has heavily invested in counter trafficking people and technologies across the world, whilst working alongside organizations like Polaris and law enforcement bodies to improve its response.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware, which is prosecuting the case, declined to comment. Counsel for Gibbs did not respond to a request for comment. Walters’ lawyer John Malik said there was no update on the case and no trial date set.

As the defendants await their fate, the government has gathered vast troves of data from Facebook as it builds evidence for its prosecution.

When the DOJ initially searched Gibbs’ Facebook account last year, it returned 89,000 pages, pointing to his extensive use of the site. Such a huge data disclosure, the Justice Department said, was “particularly notable because it covered roughly only four years of conduct,” from 2018 to July 2022. Concerned that Gibbs continued to use Facebook beyond that time, the Justice Department has now asked for more data from Meta covering the last half year.

After investing significant DOJ resources into going through the first batch of Facebook documents, investigators said they found evidence of Gibbs’ various nefarious uses of the Meta site. One victim claimed that Gibbs often took her phone and used it to talk with women she knew over Facebook, targeting and recruiting two from a methadone clinic she visited, according to prosecutors. He would also use his victims’ Facebook accounts to set up sex work, with one woman’s account used to organize more than 80 dates between May and October 2020, the government said.