Operation Underground Railroad

Ballard served 12 years as a U.S. Special Agent for the Department of Homeland Security, on the Internet Crimes against Children Task Force and the U.S. Child Sex Tourism Jump Team. He helped infiltrate and dismantle dozens of trafficking organizations that kidnapped children and forced them into the sex slave industry. However, as a U.S. agent, he was not authorized to rescue children if their cases lacked a connection to the U.S. or if the case could not be tried in a U.S. court.[2][6]

Ballard was frustrated with the lack of strategies employed to rescue enslaved children in underdeveloped nations (though reporting positive experience working with U.S. government professionals) and left the government in October 2013 to found Operation Underground Railroad.[2][1]

On October 7, 2020, the Davis County, Utah District Attorney confirmed that Operation Underground Railroad and Tim Ballard were under a criminal investigation.[7]

Operation Underground Railroad works with supporting governments and organizations in one or more of the following activities: prevention, discovery, preparation, rescue, and victim recovery programs. Operations are segments of any coordinated effort, training and/or direct involvement to rescue enslaved children. Operation Underground Railroad does not work independently, or without government participation and support.[8][9][10][2][11][1][6]

To help raise awareness, support, and funding, Gerald R. Molen, approached Ballard to document preparation and activity relating to a few covert operations. The documentary film was released in early 2016, titled The Abolitionists.[10]

A 2020 Vice News investigation found that the organization employed "a pattern of image-burnishing and mythology-building, a series of exaggerations that are, in the aggregate, quite misleading". For instance, OUR claimed that it rescued a woman named "Liliana", who according to court testimony escaped by herself. The organization's spending also lacks transparency.[5]