US Marshals Operation Locates 60 ‘Critically Missing’ Children in Florida

The U.S. Marshals carried out an operation in June that resulted in the discovery of dozens of “critically missing” children across three Tampa Bay-area counties in Florida, officials announced Monday.

The U.S. Marshals Service Middle District of Florida launched Operation Dragon Eye in a bid to “recover or safely locate the most critically missing youth” in the state, according to a statement from the office.

The operation, which included other law enforcement agencies, resulted in the safe location or recovery of 60 children across Florida’s Hillsborough, Pasco, and Pinellas counties, the agency said.

“This operation had three primary objectives: recover critically missing youth, provide them with essential services including appropriate placement, and to deter bad actors exploiting missing child vulnerabilities,” the U.S. Marshals Service added.

Eight people were arrested on a number of charges, including child endangerment, narcotics possession, custodial interference, and human trafficking, the agency said.

Authorities said that Operation Dragon Eye was the result of a task force that involved federal, state, and local government agencies, along with health care officials, nongovernmental organizations, and social service groups.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said on Monday that the operation was the “largest child rescue operation in Florida history” and that the office helped rescue “60 kids, many victims of horrible violence and human trafficking.”

“Many of these kids have been through painful disastrous situations but, at least today, we’ve rescued them, and we now can work toward recovery,” he said during a news conference.

Last year, the U.S. Marshals Service carried out a six-week operation across the United States that resulted in the location of 200 critically missing children, including endangered runaways and people abducted by noncustodial individuals such as parents, it said. The operation was conducted in several states, including the Southern District of Florida, which includes Miami-Dade County.

The Monday announcement came more than a month after a joint operation between Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s office and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) resulted in more than 1,100 illegal immigrants being arrested. That figure was the highest number of ICE arrests by any state over a seven-day period, officials noted.

In March, officials in Polk County, Florida, announced more than 228 arrests and the rescue of 13 potential victims in a human trafficking sting.

A news release issued on March 5 stated that an “eight-day-long undercover human trafficking operation” began on Feb. 22 and went after suspects who were “involved in illegal acts related to soliciting prostitutes, offering to commit prostitution, or aiding and abetting prostitutes.”

And last month, a nine-day operation targeting prostitution in Polk County resulted in the arrest of 244 suspects, said Polk Sheriff Grady Judd. Of that figure, 36 people who were arrested were in the United States illegally and had come from eight different countries—Venezuela, Cuba, Honduras, Mexico, Haiti, Colombia, Guatemala, and Brazil—according to his office.

The U.S. Marshals define “critically missing” children as those who are at risk of being victims of crimes of violence, along with other high-risk factors such as domestic violence, sexual exploitation, exposure to crime, or drug abuse.