Teens With First-Class Tickets, No IDs Likely Saved From Predator

SACRAMENTO, CA — An alert American Airlines employee likely saved two teenage girls from becoming victims of human trafficking when they showed up to board a flight with no IDs and one-way first class tickets to New York.

The incident happened late last summer when the girls, aged 15 and 17, approached the ticket counter at Sacramento Airport to check in for a flight. American Airlines highlighted the efforts of the employee, Denice Miracle, is a news release earlier this week.

According to the airline, there were immediate red flags that Miracle noticed. The girls were flying with no identification, there was no adult with them, they were booked in first-class, their tickets were one-way and the credit card used to buy the tickets had been flagged as fraudulent.

Miracle told the girls they would not be able to fly.

“Between the two of them, they had a bunch of small bags. It seemed to me as if they were running away from home,” Miracle said. “They kept looking at each other in a way that seemed fearful and anxious. I had a gut feeling that something just wasn’t right.”

The employee called the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department Airport Bureau. Four deputies responded to the scene and their investigation found that the girls met a man named "Drey" on Instagram who invited them to New York for the weekend, according to the airline. The man apparently offered the girls $2,000 to model and perform in music videos.

The girls believed their tickets were roundtrip and when deputies told them that wasn't the case, they were said to be shocked.

“When I told them that they didn’t have a flight home, that’s when it kind of sunk in that maybe I was actually telling the truth,” Deputy Todd Sanderson, of the sheriff's airport bureau, told The Sacramento Bee. “In my opinion, what was going to happen was they were going to go back to New York and become victims of sex trafficking. They said they wouldn’t have let that happen, and I said they probably wouldn’t have had a choice.”

One of the girls had apparently called "Drey" when they learned they would not be able to fly and after that calls to him failed. His Instagram profile also disappeared.

Deputies told the girls' parents they believed the teens to be victims of attempted human trafficking.

Sanderson told the Bee he was grateful for Miracle who used her intuition and concern to actually say something.

Image via American Airlines of Denice Miracle and Todd Sanderson