{"id":289389,"date":"2026-05-29T21:32:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T21:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/289389\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T21:32:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T21:32:07","slug":"21-missing-kids-rescued-across-lee-collier-and-hendry-counties-lee-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/289389\/","title":{"rendered":"21 missing kids rescued across Lee, Collier and Hendry counties | Lee County"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ESTERO, Fla. (WINK)\u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/ncptf.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">The National Child Protection Task Force<\/a> (NCPTF) rescued 21 missing and endangered children across Lee, Collier and Hendry counties this week.<\/p>\n<p>NCPTF completed a multi-agency Missing Child Rescue Operation this week, working out of a centralized command center in Estero to locate endangered missing youth across Lee, Collier and Hendry counties.<\/p>\n<p>This marks NCPTF&#8217;s first coordinated effort in Southwest Florida and its second in Florida overall, following a previous operation in Northeast Florida that located 29 endangered missing children.<\/p>\n<p>Law enforcement agencies, child protection professionals, nonprofit organizations and technology partners all worked together to review cases, pursue new leads and help locate children at risk of exploitation and harm.<\/p>\n<p>                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAQAAAAe\/WZNAAAAEElEQVR42mM8U88ABowYDABAxQPltt5zqAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\" alt=\"03_NCPTF_FMB_FL_018A0010.jpg\" class=\"img-responsive lazyload full default\" width=\"2048\" height=\"783\" data- data-\/><\/p>\n<p>Recovered youth were also connected directly with local advocacy organizations and support services to help with safety and stability after recovery.<\/p>\n<p>The operation was supported by the Tim Tebow Foundation and The Jensen Project and was made possible in partnership with Operation Light Shine and its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.winknews.com\/search\/?f=html&amp;t=article&amp;s=start_time&amp;sd=desc&amp;l=25&amp;nsa=eedition&amp;q=INTERCEPT+Task+Force\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">INTERCEPT Task Force<\/a>, which has a regional presence through the Collier County Sheriff&#8217;s Office.<\/p>\n<p>Private sector partners including Meta, Snap Inc., TikTok, Google, Block Inc. and Verizon expedited critical support requests to help law enforcement locate the children.<\/p>\n<p>With this operation complete, NCPTF has now helped locate more than 218 endangered missing children through coordinated Missing Child Rescue Operations nationwide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ESTERO, Fla. (WINK)\u2014 The National Child Protection Task Force (NCPTF) rescued 21 missing and endangered children across Lee,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,1845,28,11000,14831,29452,122393,122392,1521],"class_list":["post-289389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-collier-county-sheriff","tag-florida","tag-glades-county","tag-hendry","tag-hendry-county","tag-intercept-task-force","tag-national-child-protection-task-force","tag-southwest-florida"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}