IE Business Daily Business news for the Inland Empire.
Thirty-seven missing children were found recently in Riverside County in a sweep conducted by the state Department of Justice and the U.S. Marshals.
Operation Safe Return, which included the arrest of seven suspects, focuses on finding the most at-risk missing children by investigating cases listed in the National Crime Information Center, according to a statement on the governor’s website.
The Riverside Police Department, Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, Riverside County District Attorney’s Office, Riverside County Probation Office, California Highway Patrol, and the Riverside County Department of Public Social Services helped in the effort.
“We will never stop fighting to protect California children,” state Attorney General Rob Bonta said in the statement. “Through collaboration between state and federal authorities, we were able to identify, locate, and safely recover 37 vulnerable children, while holding those responsible for their exploitation accountable.”
The state justice department operates three human teams dedicated to preventing human trafficking: the Sacramento Regional Human Trafficking Task Force, the Fresno Human Trafficking Sexual Predator Apprehension Team, and the San Diego County Human Trafficking Task Force.
