On Thursday, Florida police announced that they had arrested a total of 157 people, 25 of whom were illegal aliens, in a human trafficking sting operation conducted between October 2-7.
In a press conference, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd explained that his department’s “Operation Autumn Sweep” — an undercover anti-human trafficking sting operation — had led to the arrests of 157 people. Those arrests included 25 illegal aliens from Venezuela, Colombia, Honduras, Cuba, Guatemala, and Mexico.
Sheriff Grady Judd is briefing the media about Operation Autumn Sweep, an undercover investigation during which 157 suspects were arrested – as well as 3 suspects who were arrested for soliciting who they thought were children online for sex. One of those suspects – Michael… pic.twitter.com/Rsc12FBh6u
— Polk County Sheriff 🚔 Grady Judd (@PolkCoSheriff) October 17, 2024
“Sixteen percent of these total arrests were people who should not even have been in this country,” the sheriff said. “But they were here. And they were here because we have a federal government that enabled these criminals to come into the country and then treated them very well after the criminals came here illegally.”
Judd went on to cite one example of a woman they arrested, who told police that she had flown from Venezuela to Mexico, then crossed into Texas where she was “greeted by Border Patrol.”
“There was no sneaking. She flew in, she got here, she simply walked across the open border. There is no border security at the southern border. Zero. It doesn’t exist,” he explained.
He then pointed out that the woman had been promised taxpayer-funded benefits like SNAP, Medicaid, free housing, and free travel.
“She was given free housing, all because the United States paid for that,” the sheriff said. “This was not a stealthful act, and they gave her free travel, free housing, free food, free medical care. All while people from the hurricane are still waiting for help.”
Judd also cited the example of another arrestee, Travis Hutchinson, who was caught trafficking two women from Colombia and Venezuela — both of whom had been brought illegally into the U.S. by a human trafficker, otherwise known as a coyote, before being sent to Florida.
He went on to strongly condemn the Biden-Harris administration for actively facilitating human trafficking through its open border policies.
“Make no mistake about it, the government is complicit and is aiding and abetting human trafficking in the United States,” Judd said. “In addition to that, there is a wide-open border where fentanyl is coming across, and that is encouraged, and as a result of that, we have thousands upon thousands of people dying in the United States. And then the best that our federal politicians can say was, ‘well, it didn’t kill as many people this year as last year.’”
Judd also pointed to especially disturbing news — three of the traffickers arrested in the operation worked at Disney World. Even more disturbing is Judd’s comment that these operations “always arrest Disney employees.”
A Disney employee and over 150 others, including illegal immigrants, have been arrested in a major undercover human trafficking operation that also rescued four potential victims.
Dubbed "Operation Autumn Sweep," the five-day, multi-agency investigation led to 157 arrests,… pic.twitter.com/URXBxir27g
— Shadow of Ezra (@ShadowofEzra) October 17, 2024
Law enforcement departments from surrounding counties and cities aided the Polk County Sheriff’s Office in the sting operation, though it was cut short because of Hurricane Milton.
