In a release on Tuesday<\/a>, Uthmeier\u2019s office announced that the investigation \u2014 dubbed \u201cOperation Statewide Shield\u201d \u2014 is the first statewide child recovery initiative and the largest of its kind in Florida history.<\/p>\nThe initiative was comprised of a five-day, statewide operation that focused on finding and recovering missing children, with sub-operations taking placing in several major metros, the release shows.<\/p>\n
Per state officials, recoveries happened in the following regions:<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay \u2014 46 recoveries<\/p>\n
Miami \u2014 41 recoveries<\/p>\n
Jacksonville \u2014 32 recoveries<\/p>\n
Orlando \u2014 21 recoveries<\/p>\n
Ft. Myers \u2014 12 recoveries<\/p>\n
Pensacola \u2014 8 recoveries<\/p>\n
Tallahassee \u2014 3 recoveries<\/p>\n
According to the release, the children ranged in age from 2 months to 17 years old. Many had reportedly experienced various levels of abuse, neglect, exploitation or exposure to other criminal activity, such as human trafficking.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany of these kids have been victimized by those who prey on the most vulnerable,\u201d said Attorney General James Uthmeier. \u201cThanks to the outstanding work of FDLE, the Office of Statewide Prosecution, and our state and local partners, these children are now safe and receiving the care they deserve. Florida will continue leading the recovery of missing children, hunting down every predator, and prosecuting abusers to the fullest extent of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n
State officials added that recovered children were safely taken to designated recovery hubs, where they\u2019re expected to receive support from social services, child welfare professionals and other child-centered resources. <\/p>\n
In addition, state officials said that several arrested were made in the operation, including a defendant who was wanted on three counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a minor, who also had a warrant for interference with child custody. More arrests are expected over the coming days.<\/p>\n
News 6 has reached out to the attorney general\u2019s office for more information, including questions about where the children may have been found and where the missing children were reported to.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2013 A wide-ranging operation in Florida has ended with the recovery of over 160 children, according…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7071,265,28,30,29,117886,116,123,139,8987,232,135],"class_list":["post-381170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-children","tag-crime","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-ft-myers","tag-jacksonville","tag-miami","tag-orlando","tag-pensacola","tag-tallahassee","tag-tampa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381170","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=381170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}