On Chicago’s Morning Answer, host Dan Proft spoke with Tim Ballard, the former Department of Homeland Security special agent whose work inspired the hit film Sound of Freedom. Ballard joined the program to discuss his new documentary, Hidden War, a real-life look at his team’s global efforts to dismantle child trafficking networks operating across war zones and international borders.
Ballard explained that unlike Sound of Freedom, which dramatized his earlier missions, Hidden War features entirely real footage captured during operations spanning Ukraine, Holland, Mexico, and Ecuador. The film follows his team as they uncover a pedophile ring formed by Dutch fugitives attempting to build what Ballard described as a “child sex hotel” in South America. “It’s all real, verified, and we show every step,” he said, emphasizing that the documentary captures both the danger and scope of the international trafficking crisis.
The mission began in Ukraine after Russia’s invasion displaced thousands of children. Ballard and his team initially entered the country to locate six orphans connected to his wife’s adoption foundation, but the operation quickly grew. Working with Ukrainian authorities, they helped evacuate roughly 3,000 children from war zones and uncovered evidence of traffickers exploiting the chaos to recruit victims. “We were building the ship as we sailed it,” Ballard said, describing the frantic rescue efforts amid bombings and devastated orphanages.
The investigation ultimately led his team to a transnational pedophile network operating through a website called FreeSpeech.com. Ballard detailed how the group, originating in the Netherlands, had previously lobbied to legalize sex with minors and later fled to Latin America to rebuild its operations. Working alongside law enforcement in Mexico and Ecuador, Ballard’s organization coordinated a series of raids that resulted in multiple arrests and the closure of the alleged child exploitation compound.
Beyond the film’s events, Ballard warned that child trafficking remains one of the fastest-growing criminal industries worldwide, estimating that 30 million people are enslaved globally — including roughly seven million children forced into labor, sex work, or organ harvesting. He attributed much of the problem to weak border enforcement and bureaucratic delays that traffickers exploit to move victims between jurisdictions. “They use borders against us,” Ballard said. “That’s why we exist — we don’t have jurisdictional limits.”
Ballard also linked his team’s current work to the U.S. border crisis, claiming that loose immigration policies between 2020 and 2024 allowed hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied minors to fall into traffickers’ hands. He said his organization is now collaborating with law enforcement officials and advocates to locate missing children and return them to their families abroad.
Hidden War opens in theaters nationwide on November 14, with Ballard urging audiences to request local screenings if theaters are slow to add showings. “When Sound of Freedom came out, it faced resistance,” he said. “We can’t let that happen again. This one’s real — and people need to see it.”