A good blog to check out re all things Silsby....

Hi all,

It's Valentine's Day. I took a break most of today from investigating the links between jailed Baptist ringleader Laura Silsby in Haiti and the faux lawyer-cum-trafficker Jorge Torres Puello, also named Jorge Torres Orellana.

Truly, what a story.

As many have said, it's sad that it's pulled media attention away from the much larger, far more pressing problems facing Haiti post-quake. But it's still a totally wild story ,and unfortunately, it involves a real trafficker.

I took a little while this evening to see what other people were posting. I found a lot of great additional details about Jorge Puello - especially his Orthodox Jewish identity claim and his history in the Dominican Republic - from the blog The Daily Bastardette. The Daily Bastardette is "a blog on identity and adoptee rights and the atrocities of the adoption industry...."

The information in this blog checks out closely to what I've found as I've sifted through the Silsby puzzle, tho I didn't have the Jewish angle material. Plus, it tosses up another, more Jewish name for Torres to parse through the Internet and a million search engines:

Jorge Yoram Torres. That's the name Torres apparently uses/used in connection to his Sephardic Orthodox identity. Whether Torres is really Jewish or not comes up in this blog - and a lot ot other details related to the history of Jews on the island that makes up Haiti's neighbor.

All of it makes for fascinating reading.

The Daily Bastardette sums up the sifting of the clues with a similar question that I posed in closing my blog last night on this case: Why (and when) did Puello get involved with Laura Silsby's group - given the high risk of exposure to himself as a wanted trafficker?

The old rule is 'follow the money.' That does suggest one motivation. Puello did get some money from relatives of the Silsby group - reportedly a $12,000 deposit for legal fees -- and there's a suggestion he took some of this money that was owed to another Haitian attorney who got pulled onto the case. Puello was asking for $36,000 more needed to transport the Haitians to the DR once they were released, among other services.

But was he paid other money before that? I wonder: did/had Puello help Laura Silsby navigate the DR bureaucracy in the prior months to help establish her orphanage in the DR... had money already changed hands between them?

Thanks to the Internet we have the bank information for the New Life Children's Refuge, so Interpol or other investigators with authority to do so could track recent financial transactions from that account to determine if they lead to Puello.

One thing stands out at this point: Laura Silsby was breaking into the adoption business - maybe for God, maybe for money (she had serious debts) -- and, against ample advice, was cutting legal corners and hoping to take advantage of opportunities the Haiti quake crisis had created. Puello was/is a sex trafficker, with a history of trafficking Dominican girls and women into El Salvador. Maybe he found Silsby because he has an eye out for his business and he recognized an easy mark. Maybe he knew who to pay off and she was ready to make things happen -- faster.

A lot of question marks that need answers.

Then there's the missionary angle. She's serious about her God. He's apparently serious about his - as a convert to Judaism.

Still, I'll be very surprised - at this point, knowing what I/we know - if Puello didn't know or have dealings with Silsby related to her orphan project, prior to her arrest.

Again, what a story.





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