In coordination with state and local partners this August, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced successfully identified and located 84 minors victimized by sex trafficking and sexual exploitation, as well as 37 children who had been actively missing.
Dubbed Operation Cross Country, the mission sought not only to locate victims of sex trafficking but also to investigate and arrest individuals and criminal organizations involved. To this end, the FBI and its partners identified or arrested 85 suspects of child sexual exploitation or human trafficking offenses and located another 141 adult victims of trafficking.
“The Justice Department is committed to doing everything in our power to combat the insidious crimes of human trafficking that devastate survivors and their families,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said. “I am grateful to the dedicated professionals of the FBI and our law enforcement partners across the country for their tireless work to rescue trafficking survivors, including exploited children, to investigate and prosecute the perpetrators of trafficking crimes, and to provide the services and support that survivors need and deserve.”
According to the Justice Department, the average age of victims identified in such operations is approximately 15.5 years old. In Operation Cross Country, the youngest victim found by the FBI was 11 years old. Those identified as their traffickers face additional investigations for potential charges.
“Human trafficking is among the most heinous crimes the FBI encounters,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said. “Unfortunately, such crimes—against both adults and children—are far more common than most people realize. As we did in this operation, the FBI and our partners will continue to find and arrest traffickers, identify and help victims, and raise awareness of the exploitation of our most vulnerable populations.”
In all, the FBI’s mix of special agents, victim specialists, and child adolescent forensic interviewers worked with 200 state, local, and federal partners, as well as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), to pursue 391 operations over two weeks, as part of Operation Cross Country.