64 people arrested, 2 women rescued during Riverside County anti-human trafficking operation
(The AEGIS Alliance) – CALIFORNIA – Riverside County law enforcement arrested 64 people over the course of 4 days as part of an anti-human trafficking operation, authorities said in a press release on Tuesday.
The arrests were a part of Operation Reclaim and Rebuild, an annual effort by federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to fight against sexual slavery and human trafficking in California. The statewide operation looks to rescue victims and apprehends their captors, a Riverside County Sheriff’s Department press release reads.
In 2020, 518 individuals had been arrested while 87 victims, together with 11 youngsters, were recovered in the course of the effort.
This year’s operation in Riverside County went on for four days in a row and concluded on January 28, a Sheriff’s Department press release revealed. It involved the county’s Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force together with the Palm Desert, La Quinta, Lake Elsinore, and Temecula special enforcement groups, and the Riverside and Murrieta police departments.
The county’s operation primarily focused on online prostitution.
Anti-human trafficking task force members had positioned decoy ads within the classified sections of internet sites generally used to solicit prostitution. The task force responded to those that replied to the adverts after which made the arrests when the subjects arrived at the predetermined meeting location.
At the same time, task force members separately negotiated agreed upon acts of prostitution primarily based on different online regional escort ads. In these situations, women had been directed to meet the undercover task force members posing as clients. They were then interviewed, and people who weren’t discovered to be human trafficking victims were also arrested, authorities said.
In total, 64 individuals were arrested, nearly all of them on suspicion of soliciting prostitution. Two ladies believed to be victims of sex trafficking were rescued, officers mentioned.
The arrestees were booked and released upon a written promise to show up to their courtroom appearances, the Sheriff’s Department report says.
Authorities arrested Issac Mciver, 26, of Lakewood (Not Pictured) on suspicion of soliciting a minor for lewd purposes and Corey Wiggins, 20, of Moreno Valley on suspicion of supervising and aiding an individual to commit prostitution.
The following people were arrested throughout the operation on suspicion of soliciting prostitution:
- Audon Aguilera-Cortez, 26, of Riverside (Not Pictured)
- Ian Alexander, 51, of Long Beach
- Gabriel Alvarez, 28, of Coachella
- Ethan Andrews, 29, of Menifee
- Daniel Arriaga-Diaz, 27, of Ontario (Not Pictured)
- Douglas Ayala, 43, of Twentynine Palms
- Matthew Babb, 26, of Bishop (Not Pictured)
- Monte Bertoldo, 53, of Palm Springs
- Kivanc Bilgin, 36, of Murrieta
- Scott Borel, 42, of Murrieta
- Anousack Bounyadeth, 47, of Menifee
- Rutilio Brito, 33, of La Quinta
- Eduardo Calderon, 32, of Los Angeles
- Sergio Castaneda, 37, of San Bernardino
- Wilson Chen, 33, of Lake Elsinore
- Dak Chim, 37, of Rosemead
- Rodolfo Cortez, 37, of Riverside
- Anthony Dagnenica, 52, of Menifee
- Andrew Diaz, 23, of Lake Elsinore
- Michael Eder, 45, of Murrieta
- Margarito Escobar-Orozco, 34, of Lake Elsinore
- Bryan Gaboury, 45, of Chino
- Armando Gatewood, 32, of Murrieta
- Anthony Gonzales, 43, of Chino
- John Hald, 50, of Hesperia
- Donovan Heard, 42, of Huntington Park (Not Pictured)
- Stefan Hyatt, 34, of Apple Valley
- Robert Johnson, 72, of Winchester
- Nathan Keys, 23, of Bellflower (Not Pictured)
- Gari Leal-Vallejo, 35, of Menifee
- Alberto Leon-Lopez, 26, of Vista
- Florencio Lopez, 50, of Thermal
- Randall Lopez, 65, of Azusa
- Roberto Lopez, 47, of Bermuda Dunes
- Rodrigo Macias-Leal, 21, of Cathedral City
- Quincey Morton, 41, of Los Angeles
- Hai Nguyen, 50, of Mission Viejo
- Wesley Orta-Marcano, 26, of Menifee
- Daniel Martin, 42, of Murrieta
- Ricardo Pachuca, 23, of Indio
- Justin Parish, 46, of Murrieta
- Juan Poblano-Martinez, 48, of Thermal
- Goldsborough Purnell, 62, of Palm Springs
- Eliuth Ramirez, 22, of Thermal
- Enrique Ramirez, 23, of Thermal
- Travis Risner, 41, of Murrieta
- Lenard Rodriguez, 25, of Harbor City
- Guadalupe Rosales, 44, of Perris
- Adam Sambrano, 39, of Indio
- Francisco Scott, 38, of Coachella
- Marius Simmons, 47, of Temecula
- Anthony Smith, 26, of Palm Desert
- Kyle Smith, 26, of Palm Desert
- William Spicknall, 37, of Palm Desert
- Thomas Stanford, 42, of Indio
- Christopher Stiles, 26, of Moreno Valley
- Christopher Teague, 23, of Aguanga
- Geoffrey Torres, 53, of Lake Elsinore
- Mason Tubiolo, 27, of Temecula
- Manuel Vega, 44, of Thermal
- Gilbert Vita, 27, of La Habra (Not Pictured)
- Ivory Woodly, 21, of Lynwood (Not Pictured)
Sheriff’s officers say women and kids comprise about 95% of sex trafficking victims. And an estimated one out of six endangered runaways are seemingly victims of sex trafficking, the National Center for Missing and Exploiting Children found.
“Those victimized by commercial sexual exploitation frequently have long histories of emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuse or trauma in their backgrounds,” the news release stated. “Sex trafficking victims are often subjected not only to severe forms of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse at the hands of their trafficker but are also frequently physically and sexually assaulted by those that solicit them for prostitution.”
Full results from the statewide operation weren’t immediately available, although in previous years that announcement has usually been made available by early February.
Kyle James Lee – The AEGIS Alliance – This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
