Federal agents and local police recovered 105 juveniles involved in prostitution and arrested 150 adults allegedly acting as pimps during a three-day nationwide crackdown against child sex trafficking and sexual exploitation of children, says an FBI announcement reported by the Christian Science Monitor. Arrests were made in 76 cities by the FBI and 230 local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, as well as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
The enforcement action was the seventh version of Operation Cross Country, designed to identify and free children forced into the sex industry. Since 2003, the FBI and other partners of the task force have recovered 2,700 juveniles from the streets and won 1,350 convictions for those seeking to profit from the sexual exploitation of children. “Operation Cross Country demonstrates just how many of America's children are being sold for sex every day, many on the Internet,” said John Ryan of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The most active operations were in San Francisco and Detroit.