Recent reports from Florida highlight the massive success of an eight-day sting operation that resulted in the arrest of 228 individuals, including 21 who are suspected of being illegal immigrants. According to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, the undercover operation began on February 22, which exposed a plethora of criminal activity surrounding prostitution.
Several local police departments, alongside one fire rescue agency, assisted with the sting operation. The 21 suspected illegal immigrants who were arrested allegedly came to the United States from countries such as Chile, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd recently sat down for an interview with News Nation, where he provided details about the investigation dubbed “Operation March Sadness 2024.” Judd praised the law enforcement officers who assisted in successfully taking down hundreds of criminals. However, he noted the surprising nature of some of the suspects, who were local community members.
“My detectives, who are the very best, with the local police detectives, and we all do these operations over and over and over again. So it’s no secret to anyone in this county of the 228 arrested only 42 were from this county and they obviously live under a rock because we arrest many people. We were shocked. We had school teachers. We had coaches, we had a former detention deputy. And you see that we had victims that came to this country illegally. They were indentured to human traffickers, in order to pay their way they had to for $3,000 a piece every Friday to their pimp or their trafficker,” Judd said.
Judd continued describing the background of those arrested in the operation, explaining how they may have appeared to be upstanding, respected members of society on the surface. “They were all soliciting prostitutes. In fact, we had two from the Air Force, and one who was going to join the Air Force. We had two or three coaches and a teacher. We had a former detention deputy. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. Those people should know better. Yeah, they are public servants but they got caught up and they got arrested,” he said.
Judd explained how the rampant illegal immigration the U.S. has endured during the Biden administration is tied to human trafficking. Many of the victims are women who enter the country illegally before getting swept up in criminal activity.
The sheriff detailed how the Department of Homeland Security was providing these unlawful migrants with documentation that would allow them to fly all over the country, where they would engage in sex work. Judd noted how absurd it is for the federal government to be paying for these flights.
“They are given a document so they can get on an aircraft without identification without a driver’s license, you know, with without the proper documentation that the rest of us have to have, and they’re allowed to fly to IE New York, and that’s what happened. And then these folks independently during interviews told us they were allowed to fly any place they want to do. Now we haven’t verified that. We haven’t verified how they work that out. But they claim they didn’t pay the pay to fly. It’s like how the Southwest you pay for the bags. You don’t have to pay to fly I guess if you’re illegal,” he told News Nation.
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.
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