Human trafficking is a scourge. Through most of human history, slavery has been both an accepted practice and a crime against basic decency and humanity. And yet it persists, even here, in the United States; many of the people being transported by human traffickers, as today's slave-traders are euphemistically known, are bound for servitude.
And Denver, Colorado, is now a hub for these traffickers; in 2025, a new report indicates that the Mile High City hit a new peak for human trafficking cases, and all the data isn't even in yet.
Colorado saw “peak levels” for human trafficking in 2025 even without complete data for the year, a new analysis warns.
The analysis by Common Sense Institute Colorado uses data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. But the institute said the state’s data is undercounted due to data-entry lag, noting 2025 human trafficking numbers could end up exceeding record levels from 2023.
Colorado saw a record-high 107 human trafficking counts in 2023 and 88 in 2024, according to FBI data. CSI said the state ranked 13th in the nation in 2024 for highest number of trafficking cases.
CBI’s preliminary data shows 110 human trafficking crimes took place last year, but that number could change.
“CBI’s data for 2025, however, is incomplete, as there is a 30-day data entry lag for previous months,” CSI said in its analysis. “As figures are finalized, the 2025 count may remain at 110 or climb higher.”
Didn't we fight a bloody fratricidal war to end this kind of thing?
Read More: Trump HUD Hunts Down Fraud in Colorado: 221 Dead People Were Getting Housing
Operation 'Reclaim and Rebuild' Nets Over 600 Sex Trafficking Arrests Across the State of California
At least the Colorado authorities are reportedly getting better at tracking down the traffickers.
According to CSI criminal justice fellow Mitch Morrissey, a former Denver district attorney, one reason for the increase is law enforcement is “better at recognizing situations that are human trafficking and not domestic violence or some other crime.”
“Another explanation for the increase in numbers is that law enforcement is more proactive when it comes to uncovering sex traffickers and the consumers of this type of youth exploitation,” he told The Center Square in an email. “An investigator can go online in a chat room posing as a young female and be propositioned by an adult male within minutes.”
We should note that about half of the victims of these modern-day slave traders are children. These are kids, bound for whatever the traffickers see fit.
Denver has long been a hub for the smuggling of various illegal things, being as it is at the junction of two major highways, the north-south Interstate 25 and the east-west Interstate 70. Both I-70 and I-76, which go northeast to meet Interstate 80. These were long known to be drug-smuggling routes, as I-70 goes through the St. Louis area and to the East Coast, while I-76/I-80 takes one to Chicago and then onward. Interstate 25, of course, comes north from the border with Mexico. It's a smuggler's high-speed avenue of approach to their target markets, and now it seems people are being smuggled, too.
Local and federal enforcement efforts seem to be getting better at finding these goblins and bringing them to justice. Let's hope that trend continues.
Editor’s Note: We voted for mass deportations, not mass amnesty. Help us continue to fight back against those trying to go against the will of the American people.
Join RedState VIP today and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your VIP membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member