{"id":76996,"date":"2025-12-21T10:05:05","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T10:05:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/76996\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T10:05:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T10:05:05","slug":"feds-save-dozens-of-kids-from-sex-traffickers-in-massive-multi-state-sting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/76996\/","title":{"rendered":"Feds save dozens of kids from sex traffickers in massive, multi-state sting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dozens of missing children \u2013 some as young as 1 \u2013 were rescued from sex <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/12\/19\/us-news\/texas-border-patrol-arrest-indivdual-after-exposing-human-smuggling-with-17-illegal-aliens-in-home\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">traffickers<\/a> in a massive federal sting that led to nearly a dozen arrests, authorities said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In all, 43 \u201ccritically missing children\u201d were found across 14 counties over two weeks, the US Marshals Service said.<\/p>\n<p>Law enforcement officers from multiple agencies rescued more than 40 children in sting, authorities said. Leon County Sheriff&#8217;s Office \/ Facebook<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause of the tireless dedication of the US Marshals and our law enforcement partners, 43 endangered children will now be home safe for the holidays,\u201d said Greg Leljedal, acting U.S. Marshal for the Northern District of Florida.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The victims ranged in age from 1- to 17-years-old, and given physical and psychological care \u201cto help them begin the path to healing,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>Nine people were arrested in the operation that could result in additional charges of human trafficking, child endangerment, and custodial interference, authorities said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Victims were also rescued from Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. Marshals Service announced Thursday that Operation \u201cNorthern Lights\u201d is the most successful missing child operation ever conducted in Northern Florida. Leon County Sheriff&#8217;s Office \/ Facebook<\/p>\n<p>Law enforcement officials announced the recovered children at a press conference Thursday. Leon County Sheriff&#8217;s Office \/ Facebook<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe recovery of over 40 missing children reflects the unwavering commitment and teamwork from law enforcement,\u201d said Homeland Security Investigations Assistant Special Agent in Charge Nicholas Ingegno.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvery child deserves to be safe, and we will continue to use every resource at our disposal to bring missing children home and support their families.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dozens of missing children \u2013 some as young as 1 \u2013 were rescued from sex traffickers in a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3640,4750,9,11,10,7485,22194,58],"class_list":["post-76996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-florida","tag-missing","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-sex-trafficking","tag-us-marshals-service","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}