Operation Underground Railroad

Tim Ballard claims that prior to founding O.U.R., he served 12 years as a U.S. Special Agent for the Department of Homeland Security, on the Internet Crimes against Children Task Force and the U.S. Child Sex Tourism Jump Team. The Atlantic writer Kaitlyn Tiffany wrote in her article about O.U.R., "Spokespeople for the CIA and DHS said they could not confirm Ballard's employment record without his written permission, which he did not provide." According to Ballard, he was frustrated with the lack of strategies employed to rescue kidnapped and trafficked children in underdeveloped nations, and the inability to prosecute offenders in non-U.S. related cases.[12][13] Subsequently, he left the government in October 2013 to found Operation Underground Railroad.[12][13][14] The organization was founded in Salt Lake City, Utah, but they also have offices in Southern California.

To help raise awareness and support, film producer Gerald R. Molen approached Ballard to document preparation and activity relating to a few covert operations for a feature film. The documentary, titled The Abolitionists, was released in early 2016.[15]

According to the organization, O.U.R. works with supporting governments and organizations in one or more of the following activities: prevention, discovery, preparation, rescue, victim recovery programs, and fundraising efforts.[12][13][16] Their team members are of former military and law enforcement officials including Matt Osborne, Carlos Maza, Francisco Vega, Dean Morgan, and Dodd Dupree as well as other support volunteers. Operations are segments of any coordinated effort, training and/or direct involvement to rescue trafficking victims. O.U.R. states it does not work independently, or without government participation and support.[17][18][15][13][19][12][14] A documentary called “Operation Toussaint” was created in 2018 featuring the operations of O.U.R. in Haiti.[20]

A 2020 Vice News investigation found a divide between the organization's actual practices and some of its claimed successes. For instance, O.U.R. claimed that it rescued a woman named "Liliana", who according to a court testimony of Timothy Ballard escaped by herself.[2][27] A 2021 follow-up article further criticized O.U.R.'s practices, including 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.[28]

The supporters of O.U.R. have also been criticized for promoting the far-right QAnon.[29][30][31]

In August 2020, Lynn Packer of American Crime Journal reported that criminal complaints had been forwarded to the Davis County District Attorney at their office in Farmington, Utah. He alleged that he had spent the last five years investigating Tim Ballard and Operation Underground Railroad. Packer 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 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 the LDS Church were complicit in legitimizing Operation Underground Railroad with little to no oversight and fact-checking.[32][33] In October 2020, the Attorney's Office of Davis County, Utah stated that O.U.R. and Tim Ballard were under investigation regarding complaints that O.U.R. had conducted illegal fundraising efforts by fabricating rescues that never took place.[9][10][11][34][35]