James Uthmeier, Blaise Ingoglia, Grady Judd spotlight human trafficking bust
In Polk County, Attorney General James Uthmeier and CFO Blaise Ingoglia joined Sheriff Grady Judd to announce a big win in Florida’s war against human trafficking.
Judd said the “remarkable undercover operation … called Fool Around and Find Out Again” had a focus “to rescue the victims of human trafficking and to also intercept child sex predators, pedophiles, deviants before they could get to children.”
Of the 246 arrests in the seven-day operation, 230 were for human trafficking, including 99 “Johns,” 111 prostitutes and 20 other arrests, Judd said.
“We arrested 16 travelers. That’s right. They were sexual deviants that thought they were coming to a home to have sex with a child. And many times, wonky, crazy, nasty, vile, ugly sex — not that all of it’s not with a child, but at a higher level,” the Sheriff added.
People from 11 states were arrested, along with 37 from Polk County. The ages ranged from 18-67, and Judd said some of them were on “government assistance.”
“They were being paid to violate the law,” Judd said.
Those not living off the state often came from work or in work vehicles, with one of them even going to the sting in a tow truck. And 46 weren’t even in the country legally and now they have Immigration and Customs Enforcement holds on them, Judd said.
Nine veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces were also arrested, and four theme park employees as well. And multiple people arrested had been picked up previously, Judd added.
Uthmeier noted that those arrested had 650 previous charges combined, illustrating that “soft-on-crime policies do not work” and the state will “get them off the street and protect our kids.”
He also said there’s a “disproportionately high number” of people in the country illegally, aided and abetted by the border policies of former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden and “sanctuary cities.”
Ingoglia said that “in a perfect world, we wouldn’t have this situation,” noting that his Office committed “hundreds of manpower hours” to this operation and vowing to help law enforcement statewide conduct similar “stings.”
“Protect your kids. Because you have no idea of the depravity waiting to take advantage of your children and turn their lives upside down,” Ingoglia said.
While precise figures of how many victims of the practice there are statewide are necessarily unknown, a report last year from the University of South Florida estimates 200,000 people in the state fall prey to this form of sexual depredation out of 700,000 human trafficking victims.
Post Views: 0
