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In late August 2017, Facebook user Jennifer Sondey claimed that a friend of a friend was drugged and nearly abducted at a Meijer in Shelby Township, Michigan. Although the original post was quickly deleted, various versions of it remained in circulation on Facebook: So according to the rumor, Jennifer Sondey's client's daughter's pastor said that a 25-year-old congregant from her church was drugged and nearly abducted from a Shelby Township Meijer bathroom. Medical personnel purportedly surmised afterward that she had been subdued and incapacitated with chloroform so that she could be transported to a waiting van. The purpose of the ruse was, predictably, so that the woman could be abducted in broad daylight for sex trafficking purposes. Social media users might recognize this as yet another iteration of human trafficking abduction urban legends, but one citizen who reported the story to the Shelby Township Police Department via Facebook added that Sondey was adamant the story was legitimate, because according to her, police were investigating: In a comment on that post, a police department representative denied the claim: Trafficking warnings began to take on a new life on Facebook in mid-2015, perhaps reaching critical mass with a claim about kidnappers in IKEA in March 2017. Warnings abounded of unsubstantiated tactics such as the use of jewelry, windshield-blocking shirts, and stolen license plates. These tales are designed to quell fears relating to the randomness of crime and offer a sense of control in a world that often seems horribly random. We have looked at dozens of identical warnings over the years about sex trafficking and human trafficking and how its perpetrators purportedly operate, and noted the toll they take on communities and targeted businesses: As a survivor of legitimate human trafficking once wrote in a Los Angeles Times editorial, experts agree that stories such as these never align with legitimate tactics, which almost invariably target at-risk populations.
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