"Make no mistake. You do not want your child to cross even the peripheral vision of someone like I was. Once a girl caught my eye, her eyes told me all I needed to know about her vulnerabilities. The challenge was on. Only it wasn't much of a challenge."
Derek's not alone in that warning. His longtime victim, Denise Williams, knows firsthand just how potent a trafficker's words can be.
"Traffickers cunningly manipulate you into falling in love with everything about them," Denise said. "They make you feel as if you are the most remarkable thing on earth. You get in over your head, and you can't dig your way out. Your heart is persuaded they're in love with you, but in reality, they're in love with what they can get out of you."
READ MORE: Learn the signs of human trafficking
Derek and Denise, who became his bottom and recruiter, detailed in Mind Games vulnerabilities that catch a trafficker's eye, including:
- Thinks parents are too strict
They don't stop there. Derek systematically dismantles traffickers' strategies and tactics, with Denise adding invaluable personal insights. Dr. Graves, who wrote the biography, applies evidence-based research, brain science, and direct victim experience to their revelations, arming readers with never-before-available knowledge and tools.
Derek first trafficked his 14-year-old girlfriend at 16 in their native Boston to support a three-bag-a-day heroin addiction. That launched a 32-year career selling more than 150 women and girls in all 50 states, Canada, and Europe from his home base in Boston.
Derek got out of the game after a life-changing experience and now works tirelessly not only to protect kids from people like he was but to keep them from becoming who he was. In Mind Games, he unpacks his path from abused-and-neglected child to ruthless trafficker.
Now, he's giving back to the hometown where he wreaked so much havoc in the lives of hopeless youth. Derek, Dr. Graves, and Denise will present M3 Transformations' evidence-based, national award-winning, interactive Traps of a Trafficker© to high-risk Boston teens.
From the foreword to the final appendix, those looking for solutions with hope for abused-and-neglected children will find them within the pages of Mind Games. In addition to other tools and information, this trailblazing book makes crucial connections in each of the 34 chapters between events in Derek's life and what could have led to different outcomes. Topics addressed include:
- The trafficked becoming traffickers
- The go-to therapeutic modality for abused-and-neglected children
Protect kids. Help them genuinely heal. Read Mind Games.
M3 Transformations partners extensive victim experience with cutting-edge research, the latest brain science, and strategic foresight to create trainings, tools, and consulting with hope for those who work with abused-and-neglected children. Our Traps of a Trafficker© interactive youth program has resulted in more than 2,000 viable disclosures, with multiple felony arrests and convictions.
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