Several unrelated teenage girls, reported missing in the United States, were found alive after a US Marshals operation spanned several months.
Several missing teenage girls considered to be in danger were rescued by the US Marshals after an operation lasting several months. The American agency announced at the end of December that it had rescued young girls aged 14 to 17, without any link between them, and had arrested 30 individuals, sex offenders, reports “USA Today”. The operation was nicknamed “Operation Boo Dat” by the Marshals and took place between mid-October and mid-December in and around New Orleans.
Among the teenagers found, one is 16 years old and had run away from home after apparently stealing a vehicle and a gun. She was found in a New Orleans home, living with several adults including members of a strip club, the Marshals said. The youngest of the girls, aged 14, was reportedly rescued while trapped in sex trafficking. She was found in New Orleans, along with two other teenage girls aged 17 and 15. The trio were said to have been retained by adult men. Another 15-year-old runaway “already caught up in human trafficking in the past” was found in Baton Rogue, Louisiana. “USA Today” indicates that the person holding her was recently killed. Finally, two sisters aged 15 and 16 were also discovered in Baton Rouge, in an apartment where they were “victims of adults accused of sex crimes”.
Among the 30 people arrested during the weeks of the operation, 17 are registered as sex offenders. One of them, Lorenzo Oliver, was also wanted for the rape of a 12-year-old girl in an abandoned house in New Orleans. He had previously been convicted of attempted rape in 2013 and 2015. During the operation, police carried out more than 100 compliance checks of sex offenders, which “require law enforcement officers go to the sex offender’s declared residential address to verify that the person still lives at the address provided ”.
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