Multiple agencies in Riverside and San Bernardino counties participated in a statewide initiative to rescue victims of human trafficking and arrest their captors during the week of Jan. 27, resulting in the arrests of over 100 suspects, officials announced.
Operation Reclaim & Rebuild focused on commercial sex work, a statement issued by the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department said. During the operation, 112 adults were arrested in Riverside County on suspicion of solicitation of prostitution, pimping, pandering, various warrants, possession of narcotics, and other crimes related to human trafficking. Services and resources, through advocacy groups such as REACH, Rebirth Homes and the Barbara Sinatra’s Children Center, were offered to 13 potential victims.
“Those victimized by commercial sexual exploitation frequently have long histories of emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuse or trauma in their backgrounds,” the statement said. “Victims are often forced or coerced into prostitution at a young age, with many people admitting to first being victimized when they were about 14 years old and some younger.”
The Sheriff’s Riverside County Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force, formed by the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office, the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office Bureau of Investigations and Homeland Security Investigations, oversaw the local operation alongside multiple police and sheriff’s departments across the county.
In San Bernardino County, Sheriff’s Human Trafficking Investigators oversaw the county-wide participation, which yielded arrests of 42 individuals for solicitation of prostitution and one for pimping and pandering, the department announced. Five victims of human trafficking were provided services and resources, a sheriff’s statement said.
Statewide, 547 arrests were made and 117 victims were contacted as a result of the operation.
