Mom Posts Warning After Possible Encounter With Human Traffickers at IKEA
(Facebook/Diandra Toyos)
Imagine shopping calmly with your family at your favorite store. You browse through items, your children wander a bit, everyone is having a good time until you notice something out of the corner of your eye. A person that is watching you and your family intently. A person who is hovering close by, but not even bothering to look at any items. They’re alone, and they’re following you, and you have no idea why. Scary, right?
This is exactly what happened to Diandra Toyos, a mother of three in Southern California. Toyos was out shopping at an IKEA with her mother and children, wearing her youngest while keeping an eye on the older two, when she noticed a man watching her family. She described the man as “well-dressed,” and “middle aged.” In her public Facebook post (which has since been shared over 101k times, with more than 15k comments), Toyos recounts how the man seemed to hover around her family, following them into each area of the store they went to.
“At one point, he came right up to me and the boys, and instinctively I put myself between he and my mobile son,” says Toyos.
“I had a bad feeling.”
Toyos’ mother also took notice of the situation and mentioned they needed to keep a close eye on the man.
According to Toyos, another man also appeared soon after, “dressed more casually and in his 20s,” she said.
“He wasn’t looking at us, but was walking the same circling pattern around us as the first man.”
But then it got worse. Toyos and her family decided to sit down in one of the display rooms in order to see if the men would eventually move on. They didn’t, instead sitting on two separate, but nearby, couches that faced the display room. The men didn’t speak to anyone or smile at anyone, nor did they appear to be waiting on anyone. Instead, this creepy moment went on for close to a half hour. By then, Toyos and her family had had enough.
Toyos’ mother finally decided to stare at the older man long enough to make eye contact in order to let him know he’d been spotted. Sure enough, this time when they moved on, they were no longer followed. Toyos then sought out IKEA security to let them know of the incident. IKEA confirmed that these men were not undercover shoppers meant to deter theft, either. You can read the full post below:
Human trafficking is a serious and terrifying problem in the world today. Roughly 20 to 30 million people (including children) are currently victims of this harrowing problem, and 600- to 800,000 people here in the U.S. are trafficked across the border every year, according to DoSomething.org.
No one can say with 100% certainty that these men were human traffickers, but when one is followed for that long and that closely, you can be sure that something is up. Toyos says she posted this in order to warn other moms to be more aware of their surroundings.
