In a major crackdown on human trafficking, Operation Autumn Sweep, law enforcement authorities in Polk County, Florida apprehended 157 individuals, among whom were three Disney employees and 25 illegal immigrants.
The operation also led to the rescue of four potential victims of human trafficking, as reported by Fox13.
According to The Post Millennial, the individuals detained were allegedly involved in soliciting prostitution or offering to commit prostitution. Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, in a press conference, revealed that the arrested individuals comprised 47 prostitutes, 96 clients, one human trafficker, and 14 others with pending charges. The age range of the clients was startling, with the oldest being 61 and the youngest a mere 15. The group collectively had a history of 327 felony and 400 misdemeanor charges. Sheriff Judd expressed his concern over the immigration status of some of the arrested individuals, stating, "16 percent of these total arrests were people who should not even have been in this country, but they were here, and they were here because we have a federal government that enabled these criminals to come into the country, and then treated them very well after the criminals came here illegally."
The Sheriff further revealed that two of the potential victims of human trafficking were illegal immigrants who were forced into sexual slavery to repay their debt to cartel smugglers. These victims were subjected to sexual exploitation up to 20 times a day, and any resistance was met with physical abuse.
Among the accused were 26 married individuals and several engaged ones. The Polk County Sheriff's Office also disclosed that three of those charged were employees at Disney World. In addition to the 157, three more suspects were charged with soliciting sex online from individuals they believed to be minors. These charges included traveling to meet a minor, attempted lewd and lascivious battery on a minor, and using a computer to seduce a child. One of these suspects was a Disney World employee, another was an out-of-state worker in Florida, and the third was an illegal immigrant. Judd remarked, "What would any of our undercover operations be - where we're dealing with human trafficking, prostitution, child predators - without Disney? We always arrest Disney employees."
This operation comes amid a surge in reports of sex trafficking of immigrant children, which have more than tripled during the Biden-Harris administration's open border policies. Customs and Border Protection agents have raised alarms about the vulnerability of children being smuggled across the border to exploitation, often as prostitutes or sex slaves. The Biden-Harris administration has conceded that it has lost track of approximately 300,000 immigrant children, a fact that raises serious concerns about their safety and well-being.
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