Authorities announce arrests in human trafficking investigation – NBC Los Angeles
Los Angeles County authorities announced hundreds of arrests Tuesday in connection with a weeklong statewide crackdown on human trafficking.
Details about Operation Reclaim and Rebuild were delivered at a Tuesday morning news conference in downtown Los Angeles with representatives from law enforcement agencies.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said 12 adults and five children were rescued in local operations. Eighteen suspected sex traffickers and 79 sex buyers were arrested, he said.
Statewide, 155 adults and 74 children were rescued. Seventy-four suspected sex traffickers and 328 sex buyers were arrested, Luna said.
“People who are buying sex, these are young victims,” Luna said. “Thirteen-, 14- and 15-year-old little girls, little boys. It is absolutely sickening.”
The discovery of a brothel in the Los Angeles County community of Walnut led to the investigation. The property was the subject of a resident’s complaint, Luna said. The ensuing investigation included a surveillance operation and the discovery of more brothels in the area, he added.
One of the rescued children was just 13 years old, authorities said.
District Attorney Nathan Hochman said Los Angeles County is one of the epicenters of human sex trafficking in the United States.
“We have traffickers that are putting barely teenage girls on the streets of Los Angeles to be victimized, repeatedly, over and over again,” Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton said. “These children did not come from one place. They came from Chicago, from Oklahoma, from Missouri, tribal lands … and from communities right here in the state of California.”
Watch the news conference below.
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