The Untold Story Behind The Sound of Freedom - Paul Hutchinson

What is your background? Who are you?

Well, I'm a somewhat of a serial entrepreneur. Had a few... Lots of failures and a few successes. I'm the founder, uh, co-founder of Bridge Investment Group, $48 billion assets under management. So it grew pretty well. Give all the credit to the team. People call me all the time, they say, "Paul, I have a question about real estate." I say, "I don't know... I don't know anything about real estate." They're like, "What? (laughs) You're the founder of a multi-billion dollar real estate fund?" I say, "No. I know how to build teams, and I know how to have the vision from the beginning to create it." Fast forward, got recruited about 10 years ago to, uh, help on an undercover rescue mission, the one that is featured in the Sound of Freedom movie. My character is played by Eduardo Verástegui. I'm Pablo. I'm the fund manager who gets recruited to help fund the operation and play a role, and we can go deep into that. Since that time, I have led or played a key part in over 70 undercover rescue missions in 15 countries, retired from my job, focused full time on philanthropy, zero social media for 10 years, came out just four months ago to share the stories and inspire people.

Talk to me about how a fund manager ends up becoming an operative for a anti-child sex trafficking ring sting company.

Well, I- I have, I have a special set of skills from previous life that makes me somewhat safe in a dangerous place. But what had happened is our attorney general called me about 10 years ago, and he... I- I'm like, "What's up, AG?" And he's like, "What's up, Hutch?" And- and, uh, he said, "Hey, I gotta talk to you about something. It's pretty dark." He said, "I know you're really involved with child-related charities." I was on the Make-A-Wish board of directors for 10 years, a bunch of things, and he said, he said, "This is the fastest-growing criminal enterprise in the world, and good people don't know that it's happening." I'm like, "Well, what is it?" He says, "It's- it's- it's human trafficking, and this situation is child trafficking." And I'm like, "What? Like, children being sold? For- for what? I mean, how does that work?" And he says, "For sex." (laughs) And I'm like, "No, that doesn't happen." He said, "No." He says, "There's this Homeland Security agent, he's in Columbia, he's identified some children down there, I wanna introduce you to him." And- and fast forward, I end up, um, helping to raise some money and fund the, what he thought was gonna be 20 children that were in Cartagena. But then he called me and he said, "Paul," he said, "I'm here in Cartagena. There's not just 20 children, there's more than 50, there's more than 100." And what I didn't know is that- that he had already had some conversations with- with Sean Reyes, the attorney general, and- and were specifically looking for somebody who could play a role, like a Jeffrey Epstein, somebody who was- was well-off, that- that had this playboy background, so to speak, that- that also could handle himself in a dangerous place. And so he called me and he said, "Paul," he says, "There's more than 100 children that are tied to these different rings. I think we can rescue all of them on the same day at the same time, but I need your help in a big way." And I- I'm like, "Well, how much do you need?" And he said, "I need you. Can you be in Columbia in two days?" And I was sitting there, I was in- in Atlanta, Georgia. I was at a conference, I was raising money from billionaire families for the fund, and I hung up the phone on my business partner, who was like, "Did you really just commit to that?" (laughs) I'm like, "Yeah. If I- if I can... If there's something about me that they can use to help rescue these kids." An hour later, the co-founder of my fund, John, calls me up. He's like, "Paul, uh, Don called me, told me what you're doing. Have you thought through this?" He says, "This is- this is really dangerous." He said, "You're- you're set. You could- you could sell out today, buy an island, be happy the rest of your life." I'm like, "Would I really be happy, John, if I bought an island, if I bought a yacht?" You know, whatever. I says, I said, "Tell me this, if- if- if I was doing something else dangerous tomorrow, if I was climbing Everest, you and I'd have the same conversation?" He goes, "Yeah, we probably would." I said, "And when I'm 95 years old and I look back upon my life and I say, 'I climbed this mountain and I built this multi-billion dollar company and I helped rescue this many children from slavery, from being trafficked,' which of them matters at all?" He's like, "Yeah, you're right. You've gotta do this." So...