This Walking Dead Star Helped Take Down A Child Sex Trafficking Ring, Learn How Here
This article is more than 2 years old
It’s no secret that we hated the character Andrea on AMC’s The Walking Dead, which is too bad, because in the comics that serve as the source material, she’s consistently been one of the best characters for years. They fucked her up royally on the hit zombie drama, and many of us were glad when they killed her off at the end of season 3. Fortunately for the world, however, it appears actress Laurie Holden took the spirit of her character from the comics to heart (rather than her TV counterpart), and became a total badass. How badass you ask? She helped take down a Colombian child sex trafficking ring, and credits The Walking Dead with an assist.
Apparently Columbia has a huge problem with children being sold into sex slavery, with child prostitutes as young as 11-years-old being bought and traded. One report says the South American nation “often seen by pedophiles as a vacation destination for underage sex.” That’s not a particularly good thing to be known for if you ask us.
A group called Operation Underground Railroad runs stings to bring these disgusting scumbags to justice and shut down these rings, and when a sting went down recently in Cartagena, Holden took part. A group of volunteers—including Holden, a CrossFit instructor, and a Romney, among others—posing as tourists went around trying to hire underage girls for a fake bachelor party at a rented mansion, which they creepily decorated with balloons and banners like a teenager’s birthday party. They didn’t want a group of young girls arriving at the house to arouse suspicion, apparently. The space was also heavily decorated with cameras to catch everything on tape.
Holden, wearing a disguise so as not to be recognized, was one of the people responsible for distracting the girls while the pimps were being caught doing their business on camera so they could be arrested by the authorities. She called it, “the biggest acting challenge in the history of all time.” You do have to imagine that it would be rather difficult to keep your cool in such a situation, but she also credits some of her work on The Walking Dead for helping out, saying, “I was trained by a Navy Seal when I did The Walking Dead so I feel kind of like I can protect myself.”
Check out this video about the sting:
More ABC news videos | ABC Health NewsAll in all, this mission resulted in the arrest of 12 piece of shit criminals and the rescue of 55 underage victims of sex trafficking. Regardless of what you think of Andrea onscreen fighting zombies, you have to admit that battling sex predators in real life is pretty badass and brave.
