A file photo of a crowd moving on the convention floor during preview night for Comic-Con International in San Diego. | Photo credit: AP
Undercover officers posing as sex buyers at a Comic-Con event in California last week rescued human trafficking victims, including a 16-year-old girl, and made several arrests, prosecutors said Wednesday.
A task force involving local San Diego police, federal authorities and Naval Intelligence arrested 14 people who were trying to buy sex at the massive pop culture gathering. California Attorney General Rob Bonta said ten victims were rescued, nine of whom were adults.
“Unfortunately, sex traffickers take advantage of large-scale events like Comic-Con to exploit their victims,” Bonta said in a statement. San Diego Comic-Con is one of the largest pop culture events in the world.
Some 135,000 people were expected to attend the convention, which ran from Thursday to Sunday. “Obviously we find this extremely disturbing and, while we were not aware of the operation, our understanding is that these arrests were made outside of the event,” a Comic-Con spokesperson said in a statement to AFP.
“We work closely with various law enforcement entities throughout the year and stand ready to assist in any way possible.” Originally a grassroots event for comic book fans, Comic-Con has grown exponentially and today it is used by major Hollywood studios and A-list stars to launch their latest blockbuster movies and TV shows.
Christopher Davis, acting special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in San Diego, said “highly attended events” like Comic-Con are often viewed by criminals as “an opportunity to prey on minors.”
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San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said, “Working together, the teams identified and arrested more than a dozen individuals participating in these illegal acts in our city over the weekend.” Law enforcement personnel placed undercover ads soliciting sex in order to arrest sex buyers.