Man travelling with his daughters accused of human trafficking by other plane passenger

A Florida man who was travelling with his two daughters said that airport staff stopped him and humiliated him in front of other passengers after one of the passengers had accused him of human trafficking.

Jonathan Marcu said he and his daughters were returning from a trip to New York where they attended a Billy Joel concert.

“They walked up to me and they said ‘can you come with us sir?’ I said ‘can you tell me why?’ And they were like ‘no sir, can you just come with me?’ Well, like I’m with my two daughters. They were like ‘they can come as well,’” Marcu said.

He quickly found that Broward Sheriff’s Office deputies were waiting for him at the gate.

Authorities then separated him from his daughters, ages 17 and 21, and questioned him at the gate. Marcu said that passengers from another plane that was about to disembark were staring at him as they walked past.

“I said ‘what’s this about?’ They said ‘there was a passenger on the plane who said you’re human trafficking.’ I said ‘really?’ I said ‘is this a joke?’ They said ‘it’s not a joke at all sir,’” Marcu said, adding that his younger daughter was “very distressed,” while the older one was “handling it a little bit better.”

Marcu said they had to wait 35 minutes before being allowed to leave.

“I get human trafficking and it’s a big problem but there was zero red flags. I mean, there’s not reason for them the question me whatsoever. I did nothing to deserve it,” Marcu said.

“One of the flight attendants actually stopped and said ‘I am really sorry you have to go through this sir but when somebody yells fire, we need to see if there is a fire,’” Marcu said. “And at that point my daughter asked ‘Was the passenger who complained about this sitting next to us?’ He’s like, ‘No, he was actually on a different side of the plane.’”

“There’s got to be more to it than just some passenger looking at me and two kids and saying ‘that guy is a human trafficker.’ There’s no way they could have thought anything could be out of the ordinary, wrong,” he added.