California authorities made more than 600 arrests — and saved 170 victims throughout the state — during a weeklong effort to crackdown on human trafficking, Los Angeles County officials announced.
As part of “Operation Reclaim and Rebuild” led by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, 156 adults and 14 children were rescued over the course of the operation, the agency announced during a Tuesday, February 3, news conference.
Of the hundreds of arrests made in that time, the sheriff’s department said that 71 suspected human traffickers were taken into custody, along with 328 alleged sex buyers. Overall, 611 arrests were made.
This was the 12th year of California’s annual human trafficking crackdown initiative, which also involved more than 80 federal, state and local agencies, according to the sheriff’s department.
“This is a multibillion-dollar industry,” Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said of human trafficking on February 3, according to the Los Angeles Times. “It is nothing less than modern slavery.”
Multiple alleged traffickers were arrested while visiting Los Angeles from other states such as Idaho, Mississippi, Virginia and Washington, according to LAPD Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton, the newspaper reported.
Hamilton said these individuals allegedly brought children and adults to the city “for a quick, dirty buck.”
In Los Angeles’ Figueroa Corridor, where the University of Southern California is located, Hamilton said authorities saved multiple girls, including a 13-year-old, who was the youngest victim rescued, KTLA reported.
“Six of these rescues were girls under the age of 18. Let that sit for a moment…we have traffickers that are putting barely teenage girls on the streets of Los Angeles to be victimized repeatedly,” Hamilton said. “These children did not come from one place: they came from Chicago, Oklahoma, Missouri, tribal lands in the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and from communities right here in California.”
California is known to have high rates of human trafficking compared to other U.S. states, according to the California Department of Justice, which cited information from the National Human Trafficking Hotline.
The agency also said that, based on federal reports, 14,500 to 17,500 victims are allegedly trafficking into the U.S. each year.
“If there wasn’t a demand of people willing to pay good, cold, hard cash to have sex with these young girls and boys, the supply would run out,” Hochman said during the news conference, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Hochman also called on state lawmakers to strengthen existing laws on human trafficking in connection with adult victims, KABC-TV reported. Human trafficking involving minors is a felony offense, but trafficking involving adult victims is a misdemeanor.
In addition to state laws, human trafficking is illegal under federal law.
The U.S. Department of Justice defines human trafficking as “a crime involving the exploitation of a person for labor, services, or commercial sex.”
The two main forms of trafficking are sex trafficking and forced labor, according to the agency.
Two high profile federal trafficking cases in recent years involve the 2019 sex trafficking-related arrest of Jeffrey Epstein and the 2022 sex trafficking-related sentencing of Ghislaine Maxwell, who was accused of conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse underage victims, according to the Justice Department.
If you or someone you know is a human trafficking victim, contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888.
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