BUFFALO, N.Y. — If you are involved in any form of human trafficking the last person you want to see is Erie County Sheriff's Detective Theresa Nietzel.
She is fierce about her job, and that is one reason she received the executive award for her work on a human trafficking case.
"It was a trans-national Asia sex trafficking ring. Basically women were being fraudulently recruited in Asia and brought to, believe it or not, Erie County, New York for the purposes of sex trafficking for commercial sex exploitation," the detective said.
The award was presented last weekend at the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Chicago.
The National Human Trafficking Hotline describes human trafficking as a form of modern-day slavery. Traffickers use coercion or force to control someone to engage in commercial sex acts, solicit labor against their will.
"We are getting better at recognizing it, we're getting better at educating our community, our community is getting better at recognizing it," Nietzel said.
"We are all vulnerable to trafficking, we all have families. Think about if someone was threatening your family, or if your family was starving and needed to eat. What would you do? And the traffickers are master manipulators who seek out those people who have those vulnerabilities."
The work continues.
"We are going to continue to fight the battle, we're gong to continue to grow our resources with all of our partnerships," Nietzel said.