The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Monday said it had rescued hundreds of people – including several children – from human trafficking situations, the result of a multi-week, cross-country sting operation conducted this month. 

What You Need To Know

  • The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Monday said it had rescued hundreds of people from human trafficking situations, the result of a multi-week, cross-country sting operation 

  • Dubbed Operation Cross Country XII, the FBI and its partner agencies located 84 minor victims and 141 adult victims of human trafficking, and located 37 actively missing children

  • The FBI, which identified or arrested 85 individuals who await potential prosecution, did not reveal what type of trafficking the victims endured

  • To deal with what attorney general Merrick Garland called the “insidious crime” of human trafficking, the DOJ this year released a “National Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking”

Dubbed Operation Cross Country XII, the FBI and its partner agencies located 84 minor victims and 141 adult victims of human trafficking, and located 37 actively missing children. The average age of the rescued victims was just over 15 years old, while the youngest was only 11. 

"Human trafficking is among the most heinous crimes the FBI encounters,” FBI director Christopher Wray wrote in a statement. “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.”

The victims were rescued from states spanning the country. In Atlanta, for example, 19 missing children were located and four alleged traffickers arrested; San Diego, California saw at least 17 potential victims, including one adolescent and Jacksonville, Florida identified at least six “potential” adult trafficking victims, arrested three individuals for suspicion of trafficking, contacted another 46 potential victims and rescued “one at-risk minor who was reported missing from another state in early 2022.”

The FBI, which identified or arrested 85 individuals who await potential prosecution, did not reveal what type of trafficking the victims endured. According to the State Department, trafficking in persons can take a number of forms, including forced labor – in which an individual is threatened, coerced or otherwise compelled to perform work – and sex trafficking, in which a person is forced to engaged in a “commercial sex act.” 

While the State Department says it is “hard to find reliable statistics related to human trafficking,” a 2017 report from the International Labour Organization and the International Organization for Migration estimated around 25 million people were subject to forced labor. 

In the United States, the National Human Trafficking Hotline provides yearly reports on the number of “incoming signals” it receives about human trafficking victims, a collection of phone calls, text messages, emails, webchats and other tips related to potential trafficking victims. In 2020, the most recent year for which data is available, the NHTH received 51,667 of what it deemed “substantive signals” related to trafficking. 

The 2020 report represents a modest increase from the 48,258 signals the NHTH received in 2019, but a rather sharp rise since the 32,149 recorded in 2016. 

To deal with what attorney general Merrick Garland called the “insidious crime” of human trafficking, the Department of Justice released a new “National Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking” in January of this year, as required under the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act enacted in 2015. 

The plan focuses on five pillars: enhancing agency capacity to identify human traffickers and their victims, expanding victim-centered assistance services, increasing the amount of investigations and prosecutions in trafficking, preventing future trafficking and increasing government-wide anti-trafficking efforts.

Operation Cross Country, of which there have been several iterations in recent years, is one part of the cross-government effort to locate human trafficking victims – with a particular focus on children. 

“[Operation] Cross Country is our dedicated and coordinated effort with our field offices around the country to really work with local law enforcement and victim services partners to bring awareness to child sex trafficking, to identify victims of child sex trafficking, try to offer them some help and assistance while at the same time hold accountable the traffickers and the facilitators of sex trafficking,” said Jose Perez of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which has partnered with the FBI on the effort.