1,374 victims identified in global anti-trafficking operation

Carried out in early June 2024, police in Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia coordinated their efforts on hundreds of high-risk cases.

In what authorities called a particularly horrific case, Hungarian police arrested a couple who forced “six of their own children to have sex and beg on the streets of their village.”

The police found that the parents were prostituting their children to their neighbors in exchange for remuneration. The minor children were also found to have suffered various other forms of abuse, such as beatings, malnutrition and being forcibly tied up at home.

The victims have since been rescued and placed with a foster family.

Another investigation in Romania identified a human trafficker who recruited underage victims from disadvantaged backgrounds and forced them into begging and sexual exploitation. The suspect withheld all of his income and used physical violence to dominate his victims, authorities said.

Police said drugs were discovered during the search which led to the suspect's arrest.

And in Vietnam, police dismantled a human trafficking scheme that targeted individuals seeking employment abroad, then forced them to commit online financial scams. Using a structure similar to a pyramid scheme, victims were punished if they failed to recruit others into the scheme.

Vietnamese authorities said the victims were forced to work more than 12 hours a day and their personal documents were confiscated. Ransoms exceeding $10,000 were sent to their families to ensure their safe return to Vietnam, investigators said.

Interpol said hundreds of new human trafficking investigations had been opened using intelligence gathered during the operation.