A multiagency investigation recently found 33 missing children in Southern California, including eight who had been sexually exploited, the FBI said in a news release Friday.
Operation Lost Angels began Jan. 11 amid Human Trafficking Awareness Month and involved more than two dozen agencies in an effort to identify and find missing children, the FBI said.
Officials said two of the children were found multiple times at known locations for commercial sex trafficking and explained endangered children often return to such situations for various reasons as a part of a harmful cycle of abuse.
Several other children had been sexually exploited in the past and were considered vulnerable missing children before officials located them, the FBI said.
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By Katie Olse
The COVID-19 pandemic has produced too many tragedies to tally, but here is one that does not get talked about enough: It has worsened conditions that leave children and youth especially vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation, a human trafficking crime.
Human trafficking happens when a trafficker uses force, fraud or coercion to compel a person to provide labor, services, or commercial sexual acts against his or her will. When a minor is trafficked for commercial sex, it is considered a human trafficking crime, regardless of the presence of force, fraud or coercion. When a trafficker receives anything of monetary value in exchange for sexual contact with a minor, that minor has been trafficked. The majority of minors are trafficked by people they know.
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January 22, 2021
Multi-Day Joint Agency Operation Lost Angels Leads to the Recovery of 33 Missing Children During Trafficking Awareness Month
On behalf of more than two dozen partner agencies, Assistant Director in Charge Kristi K. Johnson, of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, announced the results of ”Operation Lost Angels,” an initiative which began on January 11th and recently culminated in the recovery of 33 children.
During January Human Trafficking Awareness Month the FBI worked with the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, and more than two dozen law enforcement and non-governmental partners to identify, locate, and recover missing children, particularly those who have been or were suspected of being sexually exploited and/or trafficked.