(RightWing.org) – Florida law enforcement agencies have just mounted a human trafficking sting that ended with over 200 people being arrested. Among them were a teacher and three workers from the notoriously woke Disney corporation. All four have been charged with soliciting prostitutes.
On September 28, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office announced that it had just run a week-long sting operation aimed at human trafficking networks and had arrested 219 people. The majority of them were prostitutes or people who tried to solicit them; others were charged for profiting from or assisting prostitution.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd told reporters that 83 people had been arrested after traveling to a sting location and offering money in exchange for sex. Among them were Russell Rogers, a teacher at Auburndale High School in Winter Haven, Florida, and three Disney employees. A hundred and nineteen suspected prostitutes were arrested; Judd says 21 of them seem to be victims of human trafficking.
The net caught some of the actual traffickers, too. Freddy Escalona, 30, allegedly lent a woman money to get her car fixed — and when she couldn’t pay him back he forced her into prostitution. Maria Guzman, 36, reportedly lured two immigrant women to Florida with a promise of work in construction, then pushed them into sex work; she kept them at a motel in the Orlando area and coerced them with threats of deportation.
The operation ran from September 19 to 26, and as well as Judd’s department it involved officers from multiple other police departments as well as social services, who will now be working to help the trafficking victims. According to Judd, Operation Traffic Stop 2 led to the largest number of arrests Polk County has ever made in an anti-trafficking crackdown. He added that his office has now identified 45 trafficking victims this year — but with illegal immigration across our border running unchecked, there are a lot more victims out there.
Copyright 2023, RightWing.org
