(Radio Iowa) — Two competing Iowa-based convenience store chains are working together to raise awareness about human trafficking. Casey’s General Stores and Kum-and-Go are training their 25-hundred employees through “C-SAT,” Convenience Stores Against Trafficking. Casey’s spokesman Mike Richardson says workers in the industry’s stores, which are open round-the-clock, are in a unique position to help.

“Our employees will be trained in the next three-to-four weeks probably everyone will be completed in order to watch for any signs of human trafficking,” Richardson says. “On top of that, we’ll be placing stickers in the restrooms to either write the number down or text it to somebody that they are actually in that situation.”

Des Moines-based Kum & Go has almost 400 stores in 11 states while Casey’s, headquartered in Ankeny, has 21-hundred stores in 16 states.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — An Idaho man has pleaded guilty to trying to influence a victim of his brother’s investment scheme. U.S. District Court records say David Emerson Smith, of Pocatello, Idaho, pleaded guilty Monday to conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. A sentencing hearing has not been scheduled.

Smith’s brother, Darrell Smith, of Forest City, Iowa, was sentenced in October to 14 years and seven months in prison. He’d pleaded guilty to wire fraud and identity theft in connection with the investment of clients’ money into an ethanol plant in Hopkinton.

Prosecutors say Darrell Smith had David Smith contact a woman who lost nearly $162,000 in his brother’s scheme and offered her money, tax credits and shares in an energy company if she’d stop complaining to authorities about the amount of her loss.