A five-week citywide operation led by U.S. Marshals led to the recovery of dozens of missing children and the arrest of three people, including a sex offender.
In a “second search operation” that lasted more than a month and ended Monday, authorities tracked down 41 “seriously missing children,” including those who had been forced by adults to commit crimes or engage in sex trafficking or who frequently ran away from home, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.
Deputies said two others wanted on charges including robbery and kidnapping were arrested, along with a sex offender with an outstanding local arrest warrant.
Four cases, including allegations of assault, rape, sex trafficking and failure to register as a sex offender, have been referred to law enforcement for further investigation, sheriff’s officials said.
“We are committed to doing everything in our power to bring missing children home safely,” U.S. Marshal Ralph Sozio, for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement. “Working with our law enforcement partners and through community engagement, we aim to make a meaningful impact in protecting children and bringing to justice those who harm children.”
Authorities said the children, some of whom had mental illnesses, were found in randomly selected apartments, some sleeping on stairwells and some living on city streets.
Some had previously lived in the city’s homeless shelters or in foster care, while others had come to New York from out of state.
One of the suspects was handcuffed after disembarking from an international flight.
“There is an epidemic of missing children in America,” U.S. Marshal Vincent DeMarco, Eastern District of New York, said in a statement. “Missing children must be reported and found quickly because they are vulnerable to sex trafficking and exploitation and can suffer unimaginable harm. I am incredibly proud of the results of this operation and the impact it has made on children’s lives.”
The operation involved sheriffs from the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, as well as members of the New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force, Special Agents from the HSI New York Human Trafficking Task Force, and NYPD detectives from the Human Trafficking and Missing Persons Unit.
Experts from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children also assisted.
The U.S. Marshals Service says it has located more than 2,000 missing children since 2005.
