A team of federal, state and county investigators rescued 10 people and arrested 14 during an undercover human-trafficking sting at San Diego’s Comic-Con International, which was held over the weekend.
More often associated with adults in Chewbacca costumes or sci-fi-movie actors showing up to sign autographs, the event this year was ground zero for the San Diego Human Trafficking Task Force.
The team was on the lookout for “sex buyers using the San Diego Comic-Con Convention to seek out potential victims,” according to a statement from California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office. Bonta said such large-scale venues — the event typically draws more than 100,000 people to the San Diego Convention Center — are the kind of environment that sex traffickers “capitalize on … to exploit their victims for profit.”
According to the statement, the task force team targeted sex buyers at the convention by going undercover and posting advertisements that solicited sex. Officers also worked undercover as sex buyers to identify and contact potential victims.
As a result of the three-day investigation, 14 sex buyers were arrested and nine potential adult victims of sex trafficking were identified. One 16-year-old was also identified as a victim. According to the task force’s statement, support services, child welfare services and juvenile support service advocates were on the scene to help as needed.
“There is no more insidious crime than human trafficking,” San Diego County Sheriff Kelly Martinez said in a statement. “The coercion and violence which enslaves people for profit and places them into forced labor or sex is criminal.”
The event organizers said they were unaware of the operation until after it happened.
“Obviously we find this very disturbing,” Comic-Con International wrote in a statement. “While we were not made aware of this operation, it is our understanding that the arrests were made outside of the event.”
The event organizers said they work closely “with a variety of law enforcement entities throughout the year and stand ready to assist in any way we can.”
Frequent Comic-Con attendees, such as Jana Monji — a film critic and writer who goes by the nom de plume the Dragon Lady of Pasadena — said she wasn’t surprised that such an element might exist at one of these events.
Monji has been going to San Diego Comic-Con for 12 years, and said she has “seen things that give me pause.”
But Nikhil Shah, a Los Angeles immigration lawyer and frequent Comic-Con (he’s been to four) and Wonder-Con (six) attendee who was on a panel at this year’s event, said he was surprised by news of the sting.
“This would be the last place I expected to see this kind of stuff, but I am glad the perpetrators have been caught,” he said.