Decatur, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – Illinois State Police is starting a new effort to crack down on human trafficking in the state, similar to how law enforcement goes after drug traffickers.

They’re forming what they call the Illinois Trafficking Enforcement Group — a group effort between state troopers and participating county and state officers, based in Decatur for now.

“Human trafficking is not a distant problem.  It is real, it is here, and it is happening in communities just like ours,” said Brad Allen, Decatur Police Chief, during a news conference Wednesday.  “Often hidden in plain sight, traffickers operate silently among us, exploiting the vulnerable with devastating consequences.  That ends now.”

Allen and other officials say human trafficking is more pervasive a problem than anyone things, and is often used in the commission of other larger crimes.  Even former Macon County Sheriff Howard Buffett, who also happens to be a billionaire investor and philanthropist helping to fund the project statewide, says when he was sheriff, there were investigations where he admits officers didn’t spot it.

Buffet says the next step in the effort will be to train state’s attorneys in how to prosecute such cases, because often times they don’t know what to do.

“One of the things that’s been incredibly helpful, and it’s going to help Illinois, and it’s going to help other states because Illinois is engaged, when you take task forces from New York, and Georgia, and South Carolina, and you put these guys together, these men and women together in the same room, and they show case studies, and they talk about what went wrong, and they talk about what the challenges were, and they talk about how they found a solution, that shared knowledge is really critical,” said Buffett.

Buffett says he’s funding some similar efforts in a few other states.

The formation was announced on the same day Governor Pritzker signed into law a bill that can help survivors through a host of state agencies.