A team of federal, state and county investigators rescued 10 people and arrested 14 during an undercover anti-human trafficking operation at San Diego Comic-Con International over the weekend.
The event, which this year is most often associated with adults dressed as Chewbacca or sci-fi movie actors showing up to sign autographs, was ground zero for the San Diego Human Trafficking Task Force.
The team was looking for “sex buyers who were using the San Diego Comic-Con Convention to seek out potential victims,” according to a statement from California Attorney General 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 “take advantage of … to exploit their victims for profit.”
According to the statement, the task force team targeted sex buyers attending the convention by acting undercover and posting advertisements soliciting sex. Agents 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. A 16-year-old boy was also identified as a victim. According to the task force statement, support services, child welfare services and youth support services advocates were on the scene to assist with whatever was needed.
“There is no crime more insidious than human trafficking,” San Diego County Sheriff Kelly Martinez said in a statement. “Coercion and violence that enslaves people for profit and forces them into forced labor or sex are crimes.”
Event organizers said they were unaware of the operation until after it happened.
“We obviously find this very disturbing,” Comic-Con International wrote in a statement. “While we were not informed of this operation, it is our understanding that the arrests were made outside of the event.”
Event organizers said they work closely “with a variety of law enforcement entities throughout the year and are ready to assist in any way we can.”
Frequent Comic-Con attendees like Jana Monji (a film critic and writer known under the pseudonym The Dragon Lady of Pasadena) said she wasn't surprised that such an element could exist at one of these events.
Monji has been attending San Diego Comic-Con for 12 years and said he has seen “things that make me think.”
But Nikhil Shah, a Los Angeles immigration attorney and frequent attendee of Comic-Con (he has attended four) and Wonder-Con (six), who was part of a panel at this year's event, said he was surprised by news of the sting operation.
“This would be the last place I would expect to see this kind of thing, but I’m glad the perpetrators have been caught,” he said.
