A human trafficking and child exploitation crackdown during the FIFA World Cup in North Texas resulted in numerous arrests and potential victims being identified or rescued.
The Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office said Monday the multi-agency crackdown dubbed Operation Red Card saw 56 arrests, with ten of those suspects being accused of trying to meet minors for sex, Fox 4 reported.
“The enforcement actions took place June 15, 16, and 18 with Arlington police; June 29 and July 1 and 2 with Fort Worth police; and July 8-10 with the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office and Arlington police,” the article said, noting the suspects believed they were communicating with victims whose ages ranged from four years old to 15 years old.
Officers working undercover posed as prostitutes, responded to online sex advertisements, and also posed as minors during online interactions.
Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn called human trafficking “modern-day slavery” and said officials were also rescuing people in addition to making arrests, NBC 5 reported.
He also issued a warning to criminals.
“We were rescuing people as well as putting people in jail, and for the traffickers that are still out there that are still operating, you chuckleheads, we are coming for you because we will not tolerate that in the greater Tarrant County area,” he said.
Most of the suspects were from the Dallas Fort Worth area, and the NBC article noted large events such as the World Cup create opportunities for that sort of crime due to the large number of people attending the events.
Officers in Arlington also received help from the U.S. Secret Service.
Christopher Barnes, an assistant special agent in charge of the agency’s Dallas Field Office, explained the agency was “deeply committed to supporting our partners, protecting children, and aggressively pursuing those who commit crimes against minors. We will continue to dedicate our resources and expertise to identifying, investigating, and stopping individuals who look to harm children online.”
Authorities identified or recovered more than 40 potential trafficking victims during the operation, according to the Fox report.
In April, Waybourn urged churches and nonprofits to join forces with law enforcement to end human trafficking, according to KERA. The outlet said he spoke to reporters during an event hosted by the nonprofit called Unbound Now that supports victims of trafficking:
“There’s no walk of life that is not touched by this, and what we need is a good, stand-up — quite frankly — ministry to help those people get out of that,” Waybourn told reporters after the event.
…
Waybourn named pornography as a leading cause for the “appetite” for human trafficking. He urged churches to lead ministries against pornography, targeting such interests within their own congregations.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has taken significant steps to fight human trafficking, per Breitbart News.
In February 2025, his administration investigated the dangerous lack of vetting of migrant children during former President Joe Biden’s (D) administration that resulted in those victims being vulnerable to illegal labor, sex trafficking, and exploitation.
“Trump’s deputies have gone on to reform the Democrats’ 2008 ‘Unaccompanied Alien Children’ (UAC) program to shrink migrant smuggling by labor traffickers and by illegal migrant parents and to massively reduce the number of children and young adults that could end up a victim of sex trafficking,” the outlet said.
However, a few months later Breitbart News reported that two leftist non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who had financial ties to the George Soros network, were suing to stop Trump’s reforms of the UAC program.