S3 Ep270: Crime Weekly News: Cryptic 'HELP' Signs Spotted Via Google Maps

Mysterious messages—such as "HELP," "LAPD," "FEDERAL," and "TRAFICO"—were spotted via Google Maps in a vacant lot near downtown Los Angeles. These unsettling words, arranged using debris and visible from satellite imagery, ignited widespread speculation online, with theories ranging from cries for help to potential links to human trafficking. We're coming to CrimeCon Denver! Use our code CRIMEWEEKLY for 10% off your tickets!https://www.crimecon.com/CC25Try our coffee!! - www. CriminalCoffeeCo.comBecome a Patreon member -- > ｿ https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeeklyShop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> ｿ https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shopYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcastWebsite: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.comInstagram: @CrimeWeeklyPodTwitter: @CrimeWeeklyPodFacebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:14Derrick Levasseur?

  Hey everyone, welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Derrick Levasseur.

• 0:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  And I'm Stephanie Harlow.

• 0:19Derrick Levasseur?

  And as you can see from the title, we're going to be talking about something that went viral over this past weekend. Everyone was kind of working together on social media, using open source intelligence to try to get to the bottom of this mystery. And we're going to dive into it because if you aren't familiar with it, you missed it because we were all working for once. The country was working together to try to solve this mystery, but-

• 0:41Stephanie Harlowe?

  Dude, how did I miss this? How did I?

• 0:43Derrick Levasseur?

  Now, the fact that you didn't know about it and I brought it up to you is very disappointing.

• 0:47Stephanie Harlowe?

  This is so Stephanie-coded and I'm over here, I feel like once again, I'm late to the game because I would have, I would have been right up in there in the trenches with everybody.

• 0:55Derrick Levasseur?

  I know, I know. This reminded me a lot of, I can't remember the name of the submarine, but when the Titanic tourist submarine, what was that?

• 1:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  Oh my gosh, what was the name of that?

• 1:05Derrick Levasseur?

  Everyone's saying it in the comments right now.

• 1:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  I know. Oh, it was, did it start with a T? I did a video about this.

• 1:11Derrick Levasseur?

  I have no clue, I can't remember.

• 1:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  I should be able to remember better.

• 1:16Derrick Levasseur?

  But I remember everyone kind of got together and it was all these experts, like actual experts, updating it, using different backgrounds to kind of-

• 1:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  James Cameron?

• 1:23Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, yeah, everyone was getting involved trying to figure out what, where this submarine might be at this point. And it was like, I know I was refreshing my Twitter like every 10 seconds to-

• 1:31Stephanie Harlowe?

  Oh, I was so stressed out.

• 1:33Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, because there was boats going out there.

• 1:34Stephanie Harlowe?

  And it ended up being, you know, a very bad case scenario, by the way. It's not like this had a happy ending. Yeah, it was horrible. I feel terrible. The Titan.

• 1:44Derrick Levasseur?

  The Titan, there you go. The Titan. That was a whole crazy situation and it's kind of reminded me of that. And we're going to talk about it and where it stands right now, but before we do, positive note, it's that time of year again when we start promoting CrimeCon. Why are we promoting CrimeCon? Frankly, we love it. CrimeCon is an awesome experience. And this year it is in Denver, Colorado, which is absolutely beautiful. We've both been out there. Actually for the same thing. You went out there for Kendall, right? And so did I. Shout out to Kendall. Uh, a- and also Josh, by the way, we're not forgetting you, Josh. Love you too. But yeah, we went out there before and now it's in this beautiful city where it's supposedly gonna be bigger than ever. From what I'm hearing, there's

• 2:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  It is every year.

• 2:26Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, six to seven thousand people already coming. And we wanna see you guys there. Um, Crime Weekly always has a cool booth. We bring out a lot of Crime Weekly merch. We usually have an exclusive Crime Con, Crime Weekly merch where it's like, you can only get it when you're there. A lot of you guys really like the Nashville one.

• 2:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  I was talking to Ashley about it when I was in Rhode Island. I was, we were already planning the design for Denver's. We're super excited.

• 2:50Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, that's gonna be an exclusive thing that you can only get there. And then we also bring out a ton of criminal coffee merch. We usually have criminal coffee there as well, although that's a little sketchy. Some places don't wanna serve in coffee, so we just kinda do it anyways.

• 3:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  Do it anyways.

• 3:03Derrick Levasseur?

  It's a great time.

• 3:04Stephanie Harlowe?

  Derek and I will be there.

• 3:06Derrick Levasseur?

  Yes, we will be there.

• 3:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  Don't forget.

• 3:08Derrick Levasseur?

  And, and besides us, there's just any of the big true crime podcasters that you can think of. A lot of them come. Also, if there's certain true crime TV shows that you like, you get a lot of them there as well.

• 3:19Stephanie Harlowe?

  Oh, Crime Con's amazing. You get to talk to, uh, family members of victims. Uh, I, that's my favorite part, meeting these people.

• 3:26Derrick Levasseur?

  Gabby Petito's families, they're like every year.

• 3:28Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, um, and you get to talk to not just some of your favorite true crime podcasters, but uh, the people you see on TV like Keith Morrison and Nancy Grace and stuff, you know, they're, and they're walking around and they're all so friendly.

• 3:40Derrick Levasseur?

  Nate Eden, um, Brian Enton, they're usually there.

• 3:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  Othrum's there, like all the different labs. You can talk to them about forensics and stuff. It's very, it's

• 3:49Derrick Levasseur?

  Demonstrations. Sometimes John Walsh was there with Callahan.

• 3:52Stephanie Harlowe?

  John Walsh was there last year.

• 3:53Derrick Levasseur?

  That's right. He got an award last year. It's a, it's a really great time. We love it. It's kind of the one thing that we do every year. We already always lock it in and if you want tickets, you have to go now. I know it seems soon because this, the Crime Con this year is September 5th through September 7th. And you might say, oh, man, I got a ton of time to do it. I'm looking at the website right now. The Platinum VIP, it's already sold out.

• 4:16Stephanie Harlowe?

  They sell it faster.

• 4:17Derrick Levasseur?

  They do. The Gold VIP is still available. They also have Standard Pass is still available as well. And if you use our code CRIMEWEEKLY, it's all one word, CRIMEWEEKLY, you'll get a discount. I believe it's 10% off.

• 4:29Stephanie Harlowe?

  I was just looking at videos. From the last two Crime Con videos of those exact moments and those exact nights because of whenever when the convention shuts down and everybody's unwinding it gets kinda crazy, man.

• 4:43Derrick Levasseur?

  It does.

• 4:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  It gets crazy. I always have a sing-along in the bathroom with my girls and my girls is whoever happens to be in the bathroom with me at the same time.

• 4:51Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, I mean, anybody who's been, definitely don't take our word for it. Way in down in the comments below if you're on YouTube. Let us know about your experience. It's a really great time. Again, you can go to crimecon.com. They have the Crime Con dropdown menu there. Again, use our code. If you've already used our code, let us know in the comments. We want to hear from you, but we always have a very good turnout. We're looking forward to seeing you guys. So hopefully you're able to make it and it's a great city. So if you're gonna go, now would be a good year to do so.

• 5:20Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes.

• 5:21Derrick Levasseur?

  Okay, let's transition here to why we're all here, the important stuff. So over this past weekend, I was kinda dabbling on Twitter and something came across my feed and it just, it just blew up where essentially someone was just kind of like, you know, web sleuthing on Google Maps. I don't even know why they came across this. Maybe they were looking for something else.

• 5:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  They definitely were looking for something else.

• 5:45Derrick Levasseur?

  They were looking for something else. But there are people who just like look for random stuff. They do it all the time. They find coordinates and sometimes there's like scavenger hunts and stuff, but I digress.

• 5:55Stephanie Harlowe?

  Really?

• 5:56Derrick Levasseur?

  However, yeah, yeah, like little things they do like Reddit pages and stuff, but they'll even hide things on certain things so that when the, when they update it, you can see if you can find it. Good luck with that. I don't have that type of time.

• 6:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  Oh, that's awesome.

• 6:07Derrick Levasseur?

  Basically, someone who was on Google Maps found this location and the location where this was found was near the Los Angeles River and it's described as North Mission Road in East Cesar, East Chavez Avenue. And what was disturbing about this is as you're looking on the map, we're gonna have the photo up here, you can see that someone wrote "help" both on the dirt and with like items and materials from this like-

• 6:32Stephanie Harlowe?

  Like construction items.

• 6:33Derrick Levasseur?

  This construction site, right? You see words like "help, help, help." Then there's "traffico," there's "FBI," there's, uh, there was a couple other ones, LAPD. What were some of the other ones? I'm looking at it right now. There's a bunch. Traffical, federal, uh, just a lot of words that-

• 6:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  Terrorismo?

• 6:51Derrick Levasseur?

  Terrorismo, exactly. So, people are looking at this and thinking, "The worst," which understandably-

• 6:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  Of course.

• 6:57Derrick Levasseur?

  I get it. So, they start to share it. It starts to go viral and people are wondering, "Oh, my God, this is kind of located in like, an area that not a lot of people go."

• 7:05Stephanie Harlowe?

  It's shut down. I think it's like, closed to the public.

• 7:08Derrick Levasseur?

  It's closed to the public and there's a, there's a shipping container yard right next to it. Some people were describing that there were holes and tunnels located nearby. So, when you see this, what's your first thought?

• 7:19Stephanie Harlowe?

  Oh, I would think that, that, that human trafficking's happening, right?

• 7:23Derrick Levasseur?

  Human trafficking, it's, doesn't, it's not a leap, right? It says it right there, "Traffico," so-

• 7:27Stephanie Harlowe?

  Somebody's in trouble, regardless.

• 7:28Derrick Levasseur?

  Somebody's in trouble, so-

• 7:30Stephanie Harlowe?

  And they're being held captive, so this is the only way they can get-

• 7:34Derrick Levasseur?

  A message out.

• 7:35Stephanie Harlowe?

  A message out. Imagine being the person who stumbles on this, man. I would've been like, I would've stopped breathing, man. Oh, my God.

• 7:42Derrick Levasseur?

  Right. So, so basically, it's all hands on deck. Twitter's going crazy. They're all looking it up on Google Maps, but obviously, you have people who are close to that area. So, they start to share the coordinates and this, uh, Twitter handle, I'm gonna give him a shout-out right here. It's @LAGuy310. He goes over to the site. He's gonna be the one, his video's the one that kind of goes viral. It had like, forty-two thousand likes at the time, when I was looking at it. And we're gonna play it for you right here.

• 8:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm illegally parked on this bridge, but that's just fine, let the cops come.

• 8:17Speaker 02

  There is, there's a dog. If there's a dog, there's a person.

• 8:30Speaker 02

  Okay, there's the help sign right there.

• 8:33Speaker 02

  The big help.

• 8:36Speaker 02

  I mean, I honestly don't know if this is just kids fooling around, or something real, but, uh, you can get into the yard through there, because there's a hole in the fence, right there.

• 8:51Speaker 02

  And here, uh, something written right there.

• 8:58Speaker 02

  I'll take some photos. But I just like to believe it's just a prank. It's just a bunch of kids messing around. Because this is like, this is the street.

• 9:15Speaker 02

  And over there is where I took my first video, where you can kinda see there's a hole. But all this is exposed. I mean, if you're writing that, everybody sees you.

• 9:28Speaker 02

  Uh, I mean, it says help there too, but I don't know, it seems to me like it's just a bunch of kids playing a prank. Going in through that hole right there.

• 9:38Speaker 02

  I mean, I don't know, maybe it's not. I hope it is, I guess.

• 9:42Speaker 02

  But this is what it looks like.

• 9:49Speaker 02

  And I'll take some more photos and stuff.

• 9:51Derrick Levasseur?

  Okay, so that's the end of the video. And before, I want a question for you, Stephanie, but also I didn't mention that this is near the Union Pacific Railroad as well. So you have these shipping containers, you have the railroad. Then you have these words, "help" everywhere. You're thinking, "Oh my God, this would be a perfect location." If you were trafficking humans, this would be a great spot to do it. But after seeing that video, what are some of your thoughts?

• 10:12Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, first, let me comment.

• 10:14Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 10:15Stephanie Harlowe?

  LA guy, he's awesome, you know?

• 10:18Derrick Levasseur?

  He's awesome!

• 10:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  Brave for going there, number one, but you could tell he was genuinely kinda terrified when he was there.

• 10:22Derrick Levasseur?

  He parked illegally and he didn't care.

• 10:24Stephanie Harlowe?

  It wasn't that he parked illegally, it was that he was like, "I'd like to think this is just a prank." But it's also kinda like, super sketchy there, so he's kinda like, "I'd like to think..."

• 10:32Derrick Levasseur?

  It's not the best area, you can tell.

• 10:33Stephanie Harlowe?

  It's not the best area, but it is like, basically, it looks like it's on a main highway. There's people going by all the time.

• 10:39Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, but that could be a good thing for human trafficking. Like, that'd be convenient.

• 10:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, but either way, I'm looking at it, and I like how he too, he's like, "Well, there's a dog there." If there's a dog, there's a person. It's like LA guy, you have not been to some cities. Okay. Dog does not always equal people, but it it looks like a very sketchy, sketchy area. I personally would not have gone there myself. So I give him props because what if something like nefarious is going on?

• 11:04Derrick Levasseur?

  He's doing it for the greater good.

• 11:05Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, he's doing it for the gram and and he's got the the phone up, you know, and they're gonna be like, what's that guy doing? They're gonna snatch him like.

• 11:12Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, he's gone, he's gone.

• 11:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, I wouldn't have done it.

• 11:14Derrick Levasseur?

  Well, the good news is we're going to be hearing more from LA guy because he's not done with this. He's committed and we're going to be hearing from him in a second, but my observations are kind of what he's saying. If this was in fact, a human trafficking operation and one of the victims was able to get away long enough to make this, first and foremost, they would probably, once they encounter or see what the the victim did, they would get rid of it. They wouldn't want to leave that there out in the open in these big like tubes that if you're not watching on audio, uh, video right now, they basically use like, not just like sticks. It's like these huge construction tubes that they probably bury under underground for like

• 11:53Derrick Levasseur?

  electrical lines and pipes and all that. They're monstrous. So if there's offenders there, if there's criminals there that are actually in charge of this, they've seen these help signs and more than likely, they would have destroyed them after discovering them and yet they're still there. So my initial thought is a lot of what LA guy thought, which is, is this some kid, you know, just pulling off a prank, trying to scare people like it's like it's currently doing? Or is there somebody over there? It's a big homeless area, uh, li- large homeless population. You have the dog near there. He had mentioned that there was a hole in the fence leading into that shipyard or that little construction site. So it's, there's access to it. It doesn't really seem like it's being monitored. And I'll also say this, if it is the location for human trafficking,

• 12:38Derrick Levasseur?

  there's going to be some activity going on, whether it's just people monitoring the perimeter to make sure the victims don't get away or making sure law enforcement isn't nearby. There would be some activity to preemptively stop anyone from discovering them and yet, at least in this video, we have nothing. So it continues on social media. It's big on Twitter. It's on Reddit. You got people weighing in. They're calling the LAPD. They're calling the FBI. I didn't find any official statements from the FBI or LAPD that they put out. It was more so just people kind of giving updates as you go. And also I wanted to put the photo up right here, Shannon, if we didn't do it. Here's another, if we already did it, then we already did it, but there's the overview shot right here.

• 13:21Derrick Levasseur?

  This is the photo from Google Maps where you can actually see what whoever discovered this first was seeing. And so then we get a follow-up. An LAPD guy, or, and LA guys basically says there's help signs everywhere. They're all over the place. Little signs, big signs.

• 13:38Stephanie Harlowe?

  Sidewalks.

• 13:39Derrick Levasseur?

  Everywhere.

• 13:40Stephanie Harlowe?

  Everywhere.

• 13:41Derrick Levasseur?

  So something's not adding up and it, it seems like, again, to what I was saying. If this was a victim trying to get help, the offenders, the criminals would have noticed it as well. And you would think they would have dispersed it, but yeah, it's all still there, available. So that leads us to LA guy coming back on Twitter again with another video and we're gonna let him explain and then we'll, we'll dive into it.

• 14:02Speaker 03

  Okay, who, what's the name of the dog?

• 14:03Speaker 04

  Seuss.

• 14:04Speaker 03

  Seuss?

• 14:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:04Speaker 03

  And Seuss belongs to someone here? Oh, oh, sorry.

• 14:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, Seuss belongs to, she, she, she, she has an owner.

• 14:12Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 14:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:13Speaker 03

  So that dog is named Seuss?

• 14:15Speaker 04

  Seuss.

• 14:15Speaker 03

  And Seuss has an owner, because you know what? She was tied up in the rain.

• 14:18Speaker 04

  He.

• 14:19Speaker 03

  He was tied, oh, I thought it was a he, but yeah, he was tied up in the rain.

• 14:22Speaker 04

  Oh, wow.

• 14:23Speaker 03

  And so I was filming because everybody wants to know why there's the help sign. You see all those helps?

• 14:29Speaker 04

  Oh, this, this, this one guy, he always, he puts that.

• 14:32Speaker 03

  Is that guy's name Jose?

• 14:33Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 14:34Speaker 03

  Okay, that's what they told me too.

• 14:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, he's Jose, yeah.

• 14:36Speaker 03

  So there's a guy named Jose who just keeps putting help?

• 14:38Speaker 04

  Always, yes, he does that.

• 14:39Speaker 03

  And do you, is Jose here?

• 14:41Speaker 04

  He's not here, but he's always like on that side of, like under the bridge, like.

• 14:44Speaker 03

  And he just messes around?

• 14:45Speaker 04

  Always, always writes that down, yes, all the time.

• 14:48Speaker 03

  The reason people are probably coming today is because they put it online.

• 14:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, no, he's the one that puts it all the time. I'm not, you know, but he puts it all the time. Yeah, he writes it everywhere. I don't know if you see it everywhere.

• 14:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, there's like help and then a bunch of stuff in Spanish.

• 15:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, he puts it, that supposedly human trafficking.

• 15:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, human trafficking. That's what everybody's saying online is that they're worried about it. Is it that or is it like a prank?

• 15:10Speaker 04

  We don't know. I mean, he just always, for some reason, it's been years that he's been doing that.

• 15:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's been on, Google Maps shows it.

• 15:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, but, but we, you know, really, I don't know. He just always writes that down for what reason? I do not know.

• 15:24Speaker 03

  No, I don't, yeah.

• 15:25Speaker 04

  Come on.

• 15:25Speaker 03

  All right, thank you.

• 15:26Speaker 04

  You're welcome.

• 15:26Speaker 03

  Have a good one.

• 15:27Derrick Levasseur?

  All right, so there you have it. Mystery potentially solved, potentially. What do you think about that?

• 15:33Stephanie Harlowe?

  I mean, I didn't hear her say it wasn't about trafficking. He's like, is it so is it about trafficking or not? She's like, we don't know. He's just been doing it for years.

• 15:42Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 15:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  So here's my thing, because apparently other residents came out and said, yeah, it's him writing it on the sidewalks too. Uh, yeah, he's, he's not all there. That's what they, that's what they're.

• 15:52Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, may have some mental health issues.

• 15:54Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, that's their description. He's not all there. That's what they said. That's not what I said.

• 15:57Derrick Levasseur?

  Yep.

• 15:57Stephanie Harlowe?

  Either way, it's a cry for help, you know, people are like, I don't know why he's doing it. Well, cuz he probably needs help, dude. Yeah. It's so it's very sad, but you know, even though this sort of explanation seems to have quelled some people's suspicions, there are still some people who are like, hey, we don't know, like, we should get ahold of Jose and kind of see what he's writing that for because like, it may, it may still be something that he knows about.

• 16:25Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 16:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  You know, that he's trying to like communicate.

• 16:27Derrick Levasseur?

  Maybe he's witnessed by living there, being a homeless person living on the property.

• 16:30Stephanie Harlowe?

  He's trying to communicate this to, you know, a lot of people in the only way he knows how. And so like you said, at him living there, maybe he's not a part of it, maybe he's not a victim of it, but he knows what's happening. And he may not be quote unquote, all there, but he's there enough to know, hey, this isn't right. And in his way, he's trying to send a message. So I still would, would want to, yes, LA guy, find Jose.

• 16:57Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah. And, and to your point, uh, we do need to find Jose, but there are people that are not completely buying it. And as you mentioned, they want more done. There's been a couple of verified accounts that have come out and said, yeah, listen, I'm not buying the Jose theory. One of them was at Cyrus Shares. He wrote, there's a deep subterranean system under the surface that the access points are covered by containers. They use cranes to remove. There's a lot more going on than what's visible on the surface. And they have a couple of photos here. Shannon will throw those up.

• 17:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  I, what, listen, I am with this person as far as they want to take it, as long as they want to ride it, I'm with them. But saying there's like a subterranean system. All of LA. There's tunnels under all of LA.

• 17:39Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, no, I'm with you. I, I think because I'm not investigating this, my opinion is it's probably nothing. It's probably exactly what we're hearing. Somebody who's in the area, whether it's kids or a homeless person who's nearby, maybe has something going on and they're, you know, continuously making these help signs and other signs. Like you said, we don't know the motive behind it, but it could just be because that's what they do. It appears that multiple people are saying it. But regardless, it needs to be looked into. I know LA is very busy right now with the fires, but at minimum, we want to send people over there. We want law enforcement to go check it out, investigate it, see if there's anything valid to what some of the concerns might be. And if not, make a public statement because at the time of this recording,

• 18:24Derrick Levasseur?

  the Daily Mail has reported that the Los Angeles Police Department has not publicly responded to these claims or these concerns, which is not good. Have someone go over there, even if it's a couple of patrolmen. Have them take a, and maybe they did, maybe they didn't, that's why they're not saying.

• 18:39Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, they got, they got a lot going on.

• 18:40Derrick Levasseur?

  They got a lot going on, but send a car by, have them do a quick patrol of the area, get in contact with the property owners, see what you got going on. And at least at minimum, it shows that you're looking into it. So that would be my suggestion is to go over there, have law enforcement look into it. It can be at the patrol level at this point. See what they observe. If anything stands out to them, then we act on it. But it wouldn't be the first time that some private citizens stumbled on a crime. We've had multiple crimes solved because of just civilian initiative to go out there and do it. And I do want to talk about something bigger because the reason why I was fascinated by this story wasn't necessarily because of this particular incident, but it's more so what social media could be,

• 19:25Derrick Levasseur?

  right? Like when you think about all the toxicity on social media, when there's something that we can all as a society become unified behind, even with our, despite our differences, like the Titan, you know, situation. This was something where within days, people were on this, not even days, within a day, you had experts, you know, pinpointing the location, bringing up history, actual people on the ground, going by the location, posting it online. We see it all the time where. Cold cases are solved because of geo-tracking and using open source intelligence to find things in the background that they can map out. You see these YouTubers that can sometimes get a location on street maps or whatever, and within like 30 seconds, they can find

• 20:08Derrick Levasseur?

  it anywhere in the world, just because they know the topography of that area so well. It's crazy. So, all the negative things you think about when you think about social media, it is good to see that there is a positive to it. When used the right way, it can be an extremely valuable tool. And imagine if we did that all the time.

• 20:29Stephanie Harlowe?

  I always think about how when Gabby Petito was missing and it went so viral.

• 20:33Derrick Levasseur?

  Oh, yeah. That's another great example.

• 20:34Stephanie Harlowe?

  And then remember Red, White and Bethune, the Van family, they had their eyes out, they were in the area, they saw the van. This is huge. This is what social media should be

• 20:43Derrick Levasseur?

  That's a great example, yeah.

• 20:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  used for, yeah.

• 20:45Derrick Levasseur?

  It's pretty cool to see everyone's all hands on deck, everyone's invested in the outcome. And I know there's some people that are probably disappointed that it may not be more, but that's okay, because there is crimes like this happening all over the country, which is why it's important to be vigilant and be cognizant of your surroundings, because if it was overtly obvious what was going on, we wouldn't have to do this type of stuff, but it's not. There's means of defense that are taken by criminals so that we do not find these locations. And even though this may not be one of them, they are out there. I remember even at the local level, a lot of the human trafficking that I dealt with was in massage parlors and in areas like that where it was a front, and a lot of these women were there against their will, so.

• 21:27Stephanie Harlowe?

  Dude, I just did a video on a missing woman, and there's a ton of these in Florida. Like Florida has a huge, they just did a whole bust. And it's been going on like for the past few years, and it's like every year, 50, 60, 70 of these places getting raided and shut down. And it's crazy to think about how it's happening on your streets, in your communities, right under your nose. So, you don't want it to be happening right under your nose, keep a lookout. So, stuff like this is great, because it's better that it comes to nothing, but somebody noticed.

• 21:56Derrick Levasseur?

  Absolutely. No, it's a pretty cool story. We'll keep you updated. If something changes, and this isn't just a nothing burger where it's like, hey, it's exactly what we're telling you, we'll obviously give you an update, especially if law enforcement comes out and says, hey. There's something here we're looking into. I don't know if they would do that publicly, especially if it's this big of an operation, but if it's not, I'm sure if they continue to get the public pressure, someone's gonna come out and say, yeah, we looked into it, that those things have been there for eight months. There's no activity over there. We were able to go back and look at some things. We know, we have identified the person who's been doing it and they're okay. Only final thing I want to end on, it's not even a big thing, but I was telling Stephanie before we started, I know a lot of you guys have been commenting down below about traders. I won't

• 22:41Derrick Levasseur?

  spend too much time on it because I don't, I don't know how many people are watching it. I thought we said this the last time and Stephanie said it as well. I'm, I'm not, this is live when we're recording this, you're seeing it, I'm home, I'm not in Scotland. A lot of people are like, how's he doing this if he's currently on the show? I thought, like Stephanie said, I thought we mentioned it before, but if we hadn't, Stephanie was a rock star, this opportunity came up last year.

• 23:04Stephanie Harlowe?

  Right after CrimeCon.

• 23:05Derrick Levasseur?

  Right, literally from CrimeCon, I hopped on a plane and flew to Scotland and Stephanie was willing to record a bunch of episodes while I was gone. I was only gone for like two and a half, three weeks.

• 23:15Stephanie Harlowe?

  So I didn't record them while, while he was gone. We, in the, the month leading up to CrimeCon, we did our regularly scheduled episodes and then shoved in a bunch of

• 23:26Derrick Levasseur?

  Correct.

• 23:26Stephanie Harlowe?

  future episodes, batch recorded those so that he could go because nobody was able to know that he was gone. So we couldn't be like, sorry guys, Derek's on traders, we can't. And even if we said, sorry guys, Derek's off for a few weeks, the people who knew that traders was happening would have known. It was very covert and I have to say,

• 23:41Derrick Levasseur?

  It was very secretive. You did a great job.

• 23:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  I told nobody dude, I was a vault and it was hard sometimes.

• 23:47Derrick Levasseur?

  It was tough when I was down there too because people were like, I would love to see you on Traders. I haven't done a reality show in 10 years and I probably won't do again, another one again for another 10 years, but it was a great experience. Thank you for everybody who's posting online saying you're going over and watching the show because of Crime Weekly. That's really cool. And I really, I do appreciate it and it's a cool show if you want to check it out, it's on Peacock, but if not, I am back home, even though you might see stuff on social media that looks like it's from the castle, I'm here. This is, these are not pre-recorded.

• 24:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  His normal house looks like a castle.

• 24:21Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, it does. My house is just like that. No, I'm back home. I don't want anyone thinking like we, we bulk recorded these and we're not answering things. The bulk recording happened without you guys even knowing it. So we pulled it off. It was tough sometimes because we would record in like future tense or instead of like present tense or like hey, I'm like oh shit, we gotta go back because we're, this is two weeks from now.

• 24:41Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, we didn't do that much of that though, because it was hard for us and we felt like kinda slimy. So we really didn't do a lot of, yeah.

• 24:49Derrick Levasseur?

  And frankly, I can say this now because we're in episode six. I didn't know how long I was gonna be gone. I told Stephanie, I was like, I'm gonna get voted out first night. So we might only need one bulk episode, but at least we'll have a couple of weeks off. But fortunately, I'm still there and I just wanted to clarify that.

• 25:04Stephanie Harlowe?

  He's not there though.

• 25:05Derrick Levasseur?

  I, I, I'm still in the house or in the castle.

• 25:08Stephanie Harlowe?

  Still in the house on TV, but in real life, he's here.

• 25:12Derrick Levasseur?

  I am here with you.

• 25:14Stephanie Harlowe?

  Derek comes, he's like, I'm still there, but no.

• 25:16Derrick Levasseur?

  Oh, he slipped up again.

• 25:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  I know dude.

• 25:18Derrick Levasseur?

  There's actually a room in the castle, just like this.

• 25:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  They're, they're out there right now.

• 25:24Derrick Levasseur?

  Yes, exactly.

• 25:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  They were kind enough to let him continue doing Crime Weekly. Thank you, traitors.

• 25:28Derrick Levasseur?

  Thank you, traitors. Um, yeah, so that's really it. Um, Crime Con, we'll have a link in the description box below. If you want to go check it out. Again, make sure you use the code CRIMEWEEKLY so you can get that 10% discount. They always keep us up to date on the numbers. Um, I think we had like, we had hundreds of people sign up last year with the code. So let's try to beat that this year. Let's try to do that. Anything else from you? Any final words?

• 25:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  No, but I am looking forward to Crime Con. We love it every year to see you guys. It's the only time of year we get to actually meet a lot of you in person. We hug, we cry, we laugh, we drink, we talk about cases, we talk about life. It's great. So come on down, use the code CRIMEWEEKLY. We will see you soon and we will see you on Friday.

• 26:08Derrick Levasseur?

  Friday. Well, you'll hear us on Friday. See us on Sunday.

• 26:11Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 26:12Derrick Levasseur?

  Absolutely. Ray Rivera, part two coming at you guys. Everyone stay safe out there. We'll see you soon.

• 26:16Stephanie Harlowe?

  Bye.