{"id":199553,"date":"2026-05-22T04:31:33","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T04:31:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/199553\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T04:31:33","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T04:31:33","slug":"122-people-arrested-in-ohio-human-trafficking-crackdown-operation-spring-cleaning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/199553\/","title":{"rendered":"122 people arrested in Ohio human trafficking crackdown: &#8220;Operation Spring Cleaning&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>More than 100 people were arrested during a statewide human trafficking crackdown in Ohio, the attorney general announced on Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Attorney General Dave Yost said &#8220;Operation Spring Cleaning&#8221; resulted in the arrest of 122 people who tried to buy sex in Ohio, including from minors.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Yost said 38 people were arrested on felony charges like promoting prostitution, attempted unlawful sexual conduct with a minor and trafficking in persons. Eighty-four &#8220;johns&#8221; were charged with engaging in prostitution and solicitation, the attorney general said. And 42 human trafficking survivors were referred by law enforcement to healthcare and social services organizations.<\/p>\n<p>The weeklong sting also included executing 15 search warrants in connection with suspected human trafficking at massage parlors in communities like Akron, Columbus and Toledo. More than $120,000 was seized during those searches, Yost said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This operation brings us to 1,065 arrests since our statewide stings began in 2019,&#8221; Yost said in a press release. &#8220;It shows the problem isn&#8217;t going away, but perpetrators are getting increasingly skittish as our message reverberates \u2013 Don&#8217;t buy sex in Ohio.&#8221;  <\/p>\n<p>Those charged are from Ohio as well as other states like Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky. One of the people arrested is a Cleveland firefighter, and another is a retired Cleveland firefighter, Yost said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Ohio Attorney General&#8217;s Office said dozens of law enforcement agencies and non-government organizations joined Operation Spring Cleaning. The statewide blitzes began as small-scale stings in 2019 and have grown to leverage more than 100 law enforcement agencies, Yost&#8217;s office said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n          More from CBS News\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 100 people were arrested during a statewide human trafficking crackdown in Ohio, the attorney general announced&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[810,293,73,75,74],"class_list":["post-199553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-human-trafficking","tag-ohio","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}