Project Opapa

In early 2004, Frank Domotor came to Canada from Papa, Hungary. He brought his family shortly after.
He came to Canada and claimed refugee status and started a stucco business. In the next four years, he
bought 28 individuals over from Hungary to work. All individuals but one were female, between the ages
of 18–62. They all came as visitors. As soon as they arrived, Domotor and his handlers took their
passports and documents and told them that there was nowhere for them to go and that they must do
exactly what they were told; otherwise, their families in Hungary would be harmed by the mafia. Domotor
and his family lived in seven different houses in Hamilton, Ontario. The victims were locked in the
basements. They didn’t speak English, they didn’t know where they were, and the only person who spoke
their mother tongue was the trafficker.

Upon arrival, the Domotor crew members took the victims to Immigration and translated for them. They all
claimed refugee status. Then, they took them to the Social Service offices and they were put on social
assistance ($580/month plus medical). Once they had their refugee papers and social insurance
numbers, every single person was taken to several major banks to open several accounts. Domotor and
his family were the translators. The victims came from small towns and villages, so some of them couldn’t
even properly read or write Hungarian, and some victims had never even seen the inside of a bank. They
had absolutely no idea what was happening.

The traffickers opened accounts for each victim. Each victim had an account with all five of the major
banks in Canada. Then the traffickers took them to work from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. at construction sites.
During the night, they were forced to shoplift in malls. On weekends, they were coerced to participate in
mail theft, stealing checks from small businesses. The victims each made about $4,000/month as a
stucco worker, collected $580/month in social assistance, and stole checks for the traffickers. When they
were paid for their stucco work from legitimate Canadian contractors, the checks were made payable in
their names, but the traffickers had their bank cards, and because they were the “translators,” they had
the PIN codes as well. The checks would go into the victim’s account but they would never see the
money, because they never had the cards in their possession.

If you combine the victims’ earned income and income from fraud and money laundering, the traffickers
made about $6,000 at the very minimum, per victim, per month. They operated for about four years and
altogether they had 28 victims. Near the end, they had 13 victims for over two years.

All victims were rescued and the traffickers went to jail. This was Canada’s largest human trafficking
investigation to date. With the focus on helping the victims move forward with their lives, it was
determined that the victims had already applied for loans and credit cards, bought a truck, and had a
Home Depot credit card. One victim couldn’t get cable TV because she already owed all major cable TV
services in Canada and she was blacklisted.

While this true story demonstrates the connection between human smuggling and human trafficking, we
can also clearly see that human trafficking can very quickly become identity theft, fraud, and money
laundering.

[2009-2012, Hamilton, Ontario, RCMP, Niagara Detachment, Project OPAPA, lead investigator: Lepa
Jankovic, and Hussam Farrah]