Kelly Johana Suarez: Inspiration for ‘Giselle’ in Sound of Freedom

Giselle is a villainous beauty queen turned sex trafficker character in the new movie “Sound of Freedom,” who is loosely based on a real model named Kelly Johana Suarez, according to Operation Underground Railroad.

The movie tells the story of former Homeland Security agent Tim Ballard and his efforts to save children from human trafficking.

The website for Ballard’s organization, Operation Underground Railroad, reveals that Giselle’s character was “loosely” based on a real person, a beauty queen named Kelly Johana Suarez. There are still photos of her on a beauty pageant website.

Be forewarned that there are some spoilers in this article.

In the movie, Ballard is played by actor Jim Caviezel, and the movie shows him traveling to Colombia to find a trafficked girl; along the way he helps set up a sting to rescue dozens of children that ends up in the arrest of Giselle. Giselle’s character is shown as a well-dressed beauty queen character who goes into Honduran slums to lure children with false promises before kidnapping them and forcing the into sex trafficking.

In the movie, Giselle is tricked into bringing trafficked children to a fake island club for pedophiles.

Here’s what you need to know:

Giselle Was Based on Kelly Johana Suarez, a Former Beauty Queen & Model Accused of Trafficking Children in Colombia

ICEThe scene of the operation that resulted in the arrest of Kelly Johana Suarez.

The website says that Suarez was a former beauty queen and model who “really did recruit and traffic children using her credentials in Colombia.”

When Suarez was arrested in 2014, there were some news stories about her arrest, although they do not mention Ballard.

In 2014, Daily Beast reported, “A popular Colombian beauty queen was arrested this past weekend for her alleged role in a child prostitution ring aimed at foreign sex tourists.” The site reported that authorities arrested “22-year old Kelly Johana Suárez Martínez Moyam and four others during a party attended by 25 minors, among others, on Colombia’s Caribbean Islas de Rosario islands.”

The arrests were announced in a press release from the U.S. Customs and Immigration Office, which wrote, “An international undercover law enforcement operation culminated Saturday with the arrests of 12 individuals involved in sex trafficking and the rescue of 55 sex trafficking victims, all minors.” Suarez was listed in that news release as one of those in custody.

“The Colombian Attorney General’s Office is prosecuting the Colombian nationals. If convicted, the defendants face between five and 20 years imprisonment,” the press release states.

“The rescued victims are all Colombian minors, some as young as 11 years old. They are in the care of Bienestar Familiar (Colombia’s Child Protective Services). Eighty-five percent of those rescued were females. Some of the victims were allegedly drugged with ecstasy and cocaine.”

According to that news release, “During the takedown, one 11-year-old girl broke down in tears thanking the officials who rescued her. She was allegedly sold for $1,000 in U.S. currency since she was a virgin.”

The release states that Ballard’s organization assisted in the case.

“It’s unconscionable that people engage in the sexual trafficking of innocent children,” said HSI Colombia Attaché Luis Sierra in the news release. “Through this successful bilateral operation, the U.S. and Colombia are sending a clear message that we will go to any length to identify and catch the monsters that exploit our vulnerable children.”

Kelly Johana Suarez, Like Giselle in ‘Sound of Freedom,’ Was a Contestant in the Miss Cartagena Beauty Pageant; She Described Herself as Wanting to Be the ‘Naomi Campbell of Cartagena’

ICEA photo showing the scene where Suarez was arrested.

According to CW39, Suarez was a contestant in the Miss Cartagena pageant. “The 22-year-old was arrested by American I.C.E. Agents on a beach near Cartagena in an undercover operation in which Kelly’s accused of trying to sell an 11-year-old girl’s virginity to a foreign sex-tourist,” the site reports.

According to Colombia Reports, the sting involved Colombian authorities “supported by United States Immigration and Customs.”

Al Heraldo, a Spanish-language newspaper, described her in glowing terms: “Her confidence on the catwalk and her spectacular figure, undoubtedly one of the best of that year of her reign, made her quickly rank among the favorites of experts and followers.”

Then 20, she described herself in an interview with the Al Dia newspaper as “a persevering, enterprising and very devoted woman to God,” Al Heraldo reported.

“I want to be the Naomi Campbell of Cartagena,” she said.

“We were looking for her repeatedly to participate in the Reign of Folklore, since she was undoubtedly one of the most talented, but later we did not hear from her,” said beauty queen adviser Camilo Gamarra to Al Heraldo. Suarez went on to create a music video. The news site says she is in a blue crop top and jean shorts in the video.

Citing Colombia’s El Tiempo newspaper, Colombia Reports notes: “Agents from the US Immigration and Customs Office went undercover in Cartagena to pose as pedophile tourist and assist a Colombian team of five prosecutor general officials, forensic investigators, army, and the NGO Operation Underground to bust a pimp ring that offered sex parties with underage children.”

The investigation started in the United States when U.S. agents “started following the movements of an American that would travel frequently back and forth between Cartagena and Miami. The American would meet a taxi driver that would give him explicit recordings of young boys and girls,” Colombia Reports noted. “The group would pimp youth at parties in the Islas del Rosario and would use taxi drivers in Cartagena to spread the message and acquire clients. Many of the minors would be drugged with 2cd, a drug similar to ecstasy.”

Colombia Reports noted of Suarez, “Suarez is accused of recruiting youth in the slums of Cartagena to go to parties with foreigners. Authorities suspect that Suarez used a modeling agency as a front to recruit youth for sex tourism.”

Tim Ballard Was Really a Federal Agent

In real life, according to Tim Ballard’s organizational biography, he “spent more than a decade working as a Special Agent for the Department of Homeland Security, where he was assigned to the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force and deployed as an undercover operative for the U.S. Child Sex Tourism Jump Team.”

The website says some aspects of the movie are true but others are not; for example, according to the website for Operation Underground Railroad, the real Ballard never killed a man and never traveled into the jungle posing as a doctor, but he did help set up an island sting that helped capture sex traffickers.

The movie shows a single raid on an island. In real life, “this was one of three coordinated takedowns that happened that day in Colombia, conducted by O.U.R. in conjunction with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). In total, 123 survivors were rescued, 55 of which were minors,” the website says, adding that it was called “Operation Triple Take,” the organization says.

The character “Fuego” in the film “is a real person who was arrested during Operation Triple Take. As an undercover operator for O.U.R., Tim negotiated directly with him. Fuego wore a hat of Che Guevara, a Marxist revolutionary, and when Tim asked him about it, he boasted, ‘Because I’m the revolutionary in selling girls,'” the website says.

In real life, Ballard’s organization has been accused of exaggerating its role in some rescues.

The website notes that the film’s depiction of the sex trafficking issue is not entirely accurate. It says, “At the first of the film, it shows security camera footage of several different kidnappings. This is real footage, and while this type of human trafficking exists, it isn’t the majority . . .sex trafficking is not just a foreign issue, but an acute domestic concern within the United States that is ever increasing.”

READ NEXT: The Real Story of Tim Ballard.