During Operation Autumn Sweep, 25 illegal immigrants were arrested in Central Florida.
Operation Autumn Sweep was a five-day-long undercover human trafficking operation in October, and the Polk County Sheriff’s Office Vice Unit arrested 157 suspects involved in illegal acts related to soliciting prostitutes, offering to commit prostitution, or aiding and abetting prostitutes. Three other suspects were arrested for traveling to sexually batter juveniles.
According to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, 25 of the arrested were suspected of being in the country illegally.
Local law enforcement said those who are here illegally are from Cuba, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Venezuela.
“The federal government allowed them to walk across the border unobstructed,” Sheriff Grady Judd’s office posted at the time. “They ended up in Polk County, and decided to commit crime.”
Polk County Sheriff’s Office detectives were joined by detectives from the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, Lake County Sheriff’s Office, Auburndale Police, Clermont Police, Davenport Police, Haines City Police, Lakeland Police, Lake Wales Police, St. Cloud Police, Tampa Police, Winter Haven Police Department, and Winter Haven Fire departments for Operation Autumn Sweep.
As part of the same operation, a Disney World lifeguard was busted chatting online with what he thought was a 14-year old girl, but it was really an undercover detective.
