Air 'traffick' control hero
Worker saw girls were scared and called cops
A quick-thinking American Airlines employee saved two California teens from a human-trafficking scheme in which they were being lured to New York City with a promise of appearing in a “music video,” authorities said.
Ticket taker Denice Miracle noticed the girls, ages 15 and 17, looked nervous at Sacramento International Airport on Aug. 31, Miracle said in a statement released by American Airlines this week.
“Between the two of them, they had a bunch of small bags,” Miracle said.
“It seemed to me as if they were running away from home. They kept looking at each other in a way that seemed fearful and anxious. I had a gut feeling that something just wasn’t right.”
Adding to that, the teens had one-way, first-class tickets that were bought under a different name, but lacked guardians or proper IDs — so Miracle called the police.
“I told a supervisor, ‘I’m going to call the sheriff. It just doesn’t feel right to me,’ ” she told CBS Sacramento.
Officers learned a man named Drey — who had met the teens on Instagram — bought the plane tickets to the Big Apple. He had promised to pay the girls $2,000 to model and act in a music video, law-enforcement sources told the station.
But when Sacramento County sheriffs sent him a message on Instagram, he quickly deleted his account, according to CBS.
“Just a few minutes after our contact with him, he erased all of his profiles on social media,” Deputy Todd Sanderson told the station.
The teens had no clue their plane tickets were only oneway, Sanderson said.
“They were somewhat flip- pant about, ‘No, that can’t be true,’ and I said, ‘No, the airline says you have a one-way ticket, and in my belief, you’re going back there not to do the things that you think you were going to be doing.’ ” Sanderson recalled.
“And they said, ‘I wouldn’t let anything happen that I didn’t want.’ And I said, ‘Well, you probably wouldn’t have a choice in the matter.’ ”
Miracle’s attention to detail may have saved the girls’ lives, American Airlines said.
“I’m proud of Denice and how she put her training into action to save these children,” said American Airlines General Manager Aleka Turner.
“She is a testament to the critical role our frontline team members play each and every day in the operation and the lives of each person they come in contact with.”