mission not impossible

The worst US citizens with even worse intentions are no match for unsung heros--

Chance meeting brings Homeland Security section chief to UNK
By SARA GIBONEY, Hub Staff Writer
04/04/2009

KEARNEY — Diane Kholos Wysocki, sociology professor at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, was on a flight to Thailand in May 2007 with eight students to study prostitution, family planning and sex trafficking when she met Gary Phillips.

Phillips was returning to Thailand, where he was working to catch U.S. citizens who committed sex crimes against children.

The chance meeting was the beginning of a friendship. Now Phillips, section chief for the Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is coming to UNK to discuss his work catching Americans who prey on children in Third World countries. He will speak at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the Nebraskan Student Union Ponderosa Room.

“I don’t think people realize — we know kids are abused here, we hear about it, but the fact that grown men leave our country to go there for the purpose of taking advantage of children is amazing,” Wysocki said. “Why do they think it’s OK to do it over there?”...

Phillips, who is employed at the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center in Washington, D.C., has worked as a federal agent for more than 20 years and has served as an undercover investigator in narcotics trafficking, white-collar crimes and crimes against children.

He helped to arrest John Mark Karr, the man who falsely confessed to murdering 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey, and Michael Pepe, a retired U.S. Marine Corps captain and teacher who was charged with having sex with teen girls in Cambodia..'