Police free 1,194 in global trafficking raids: Europol
Police rescued 1,194 potential human trafficking victims and
arrested 158 suspects in coordinated raids across 43 countries last month, the
European Union's law enforcement agency said on Friday.
Operation "Global Chain", which deployed 15,000 officers, targeted human traffickers and smugglers in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas, Europol said in a statement.
Victims came from 64 countries, mostly Romania, Ukraine, Colombia, China, and Hungary.
"Many of the victims had been trafficked across borders, and even continents, demonstrating the global nature of human trafficking schemes," the statement said.
"Investigations show that the vast majority of victims of sexual exploitation are female and adult, while the exploitation of underage victims is mostly connected to forced begging and forced criminal activity such as pickpocketing."
In one of the cases, Austrian police arrested seven suspected human traffickers and rescued eight women during a coordinated cross-border operation targeting a Romanian crime group.
The suspects -- six Romanians and one Hungarian -- were part of a family-run network operating across several EU countries, investigators said.
Victims were allegedly recruited using the so-called "lover-boy method", in which traffickers pose as romantic partners before coercing women into prostitution.
In Brazil, federal police dismantled a group that lured victims with false job offers before sending them to Myanmar for sexual exploitation, officials said.
Thai police broke up a prostitution network involving minors that operated via a popular social media platform, arresting 12 suspects.
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, human trafficking has surged since 2020, driven by armed conflicts, climate-related disasters and wider global instability.
The agency's latest Global Report on Trafficking in Persons -- released in December 2024 -- found that the number of known victims rose from 48,188 in 2020 to 69,627 in 2022.
