Sacramento law enforcement officers make arrests during "Operation Cross County" sex-trafficking operation
Law enforcement officials in Sacramento took part in a nationwide sweep dubbed "Operation Cross Country," that rescued more than 200 sex trafficking victims, including 84 children across the U.S. The youngest was 11.
The FBI announced the operation on Monday.
The Sacramento Police Department said its detectives from the department's Human Trafficking Unit worked alongside detectives from the Sacramento Sheriff's Office and agents from the Sacramento FBI Office on seven independent human trafficking operations.
They say their work resulted in two felony arrests for human trafficking offenses, five new human trafficking investigations with arrests pending, including three for juvenile trafficking, two gun-related arrests, two felony vehicle pursuit arrests, two misdemeanor sex-buyer arrests, one narcotics arrest, one felony warrant arrest, and one misdemeanor probation violation.
They were also able to provide 20 outreach opportunities provided to human trafficking victims, they said.
Nationwide, authorities located 84 victims of child sex trafficking, as well as 37 children that were actively missing during the campaign, the FBI said. Law enforcement officers also located 141 adult victims of human trafficking.
In 2021, more than half of all trafficking victims in the U.S. were minors, according to the Human Trafficking Institute. In a news release Monday, FBI Director Christopher Wray called sex trafficking "among the most heinous crimes" the agency encounters.
The Sacramento Police Department encourages anybody with information regarding human trafficking activity to contact the dispatch center at (916) 808-5471 or Sacramento Valley Crime Stoppers at (916) 443-HELP (4357).
