Mom Notices Guys Acting Strange At The Store And Soon Realizes They’re Human Traffickers

Ah, IKEA. Where would we be without it? It might be fashionable to bemoan the Swedish home store’s many uniquely Scandinavian quirks, but suffice to say that most of us moving into new accommodation would be hopelessly lost without it. Sure the flat-pack furniture is difficult to assemble, the instructions are often obtuse and unintelligible, and the designs themselves are fairly ersatz, but you can’t deny that they sell affordable and convenient furniture most of the time.

Most of the time a trip to IKEA involves nothing more horrifying than emerging, bleary-eyed from the store more than three hours later, laden with miscellaneous articles that were on special offer. But this week for one brave mum, it involves a terrifying encounter with something illicit and criminal, something which almost put her in jeopardy and threatened the lives of her own two children.

Mother-of-three Diandra Toyos, was walking one IKEA store in Southern California, when she started to get a “gut feeling” that pair of well-dressed strangers were following her and her children around. Typically, you’d expect this to be a case of the jitters; butterflies in the stomach brought on by irrational paranoia. But in this instance Diandra’s gut feeling was totally justified. These men weren’t undercover shoppers, or even harmless pranksters. As it turned out, they were actually human traffickers.

Luckily Diandra’s quick thinking managed to deter the two felons, and she managed to escape unharmed. Yet her account of the disturbing encounter has been shared multiple times by other concerned parents on social media. Is your family safe?

Diandra’s post stated:

“A few days ago, my mom and I took the kids to IKEA. We enjoy going and it’s always nice to get the kids out of the house! We went specifically to look at couches. I noticed a well dressed, middle aged man circling the area, getting closer to me and the kids. At one point he came right up to me and the boys, and instinctively I put myself between he and my mobile son. I had a bad feeling.

“He continued to circle the area, staring at the kids. He occasionally picked something up, pretending to look at it but looking right over at us instead. My mom noticed as well and mentioned that we needed to keep an eye on him.We moved on … and so did he.”

“My son wandered into one of the little display rooms across from the couches and I followed him closely with my baby strapped to me. My mom said she watched as the older man dropped what he was doing and quickly and closely followed us into the area. At the same time, she noticed another man dressed more casually and in his 20’s. He wasn’t looking at us, but was walking the same circling pattern around us as the first man.

“My mom and I decided to sit down and wait for them to move on. We had a gut feeling something was going on, but we hoped we were wrong and they would move on. So we sat in one of the little display rooms. For close to 30 minutes. And they sat too. They sat down on one of the couches on the display floor that faced us. That was when we knew our gut feeling was right and something was off. They sat the whole time we sat, and stood up right as we got up.”

She continued:

“We managed to lose them at that point. (We talked with an employee, circled back and used the bathroom and went out into a different section). But still kept the kids right with us the whole time. I kept the baby in the sling which kept my hands free and my eyes too. I didn’t have to keep an eye on the stroller AND two kids… I just had to watch my older ones. When we got through the maze of IKEA, we reported what happened to security.

“After talking through the experience, there are some things I want to point out: These men weren’t shopping. While they walked around the store, they weren’t looking at things… not really. The older man would occasionally pick something up and act like he was looking at it, but he’d look right over the top of it at my kids. Then he’d drop it and move on as soon as we did.”

“They weren’t waiting for anyone. Often you see men in a place like IKEA waiting for their wives, but these guys appeared to be alone. They didn’t even talk to each other. They didn’t talk to anyone. They didn’t smile casually at people (in fact, early on, I looked at the older guy when he got close to us and smiled… which is something I do regularly when I’m out.. I’m always making eye contact with people. He instantly looked away. That was odd to me).

“They were dressed nicely but very differently. I would never have put these two together. And they didn’t appear to be together The area they were hanging around had an exit right by it. IKEA is a massive confusing maze of a store. But they could have run out that exit with my child and handed them off to someone waiting outside and been gone before I could find them.”

This frightening account proves just how vigilant parents have to be. If you’re concerned about trafficking and want to learn more, please visit this link for further advice and information. freedomunited.org