After a three week operation involving multiple agencies, law enforcement officers managed to locate and recover 70 missing children, most of them in West Texas, according to a May 25 news release by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The missing children and teens, many of whom were runaways, ranged in age from 10 to 17 years old and were victims of sex trafficking and physical and sexual abuse. Headed by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) El Paso, and assisted by numerous other federal, state, and local agencies, “Operation Lost Souls” ran from the end of April through mid-May El Paso, Texas, and the Texas counties of Midland, Ector, and Tom Green.