Southern California Man Found With Missing Girl Faces Human Trafficking Charges

Investigators who were told the Orange County girl was possibly being exploited found her and the man together in Los Angeles.

Alex Matthew Polidore, 23, of Hawthorne was arrested on April 30, 2025, in Los Angeles. Anaheim Police Department

A Los Angeles-area man has been arrested and charged on suspicion of human trafficking after officials located a missing 17-year-old Orange County girl, officials announced May 5.

The girl was reported missing from her home in Irvine on April 28, the Anaheim Police Department reported Monday.

Investigators were told she was possibly being exploited for commercial sex, according to police.

Officers located the missing girl and her alleged trafficker, Alex Matthew Polidore, 23, of Hawthorne, together in Los Angeles.

Anaheim police arrested Polidore, and he was booked into the department’s detention facility in the early morning of April 30. The suspect was held on a parole violation and booked on several human trafficking-related offenses, police reported.

Polidore remained in custody Tuesday, according to inmate records.

He is being held on $1 million bail and has been formally charged with human trafficking of a minor by the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.

Investigators with the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force began looking into the case after Irvine police reported the girl missing and possibly being exploited, according to the Anaheim Police Department.

The task force targets perpetrators who sexually exploit and traffic women and underage girls for financial gain, including pimps, panderers, and human traffickers.

Task force investigators launched an immediate search and located the victim before arresting Polidore, according to Anaheim police.

“This investigation illustrates the commitment of the [task force] and its partnering agencies in locating and identifying victims of pimping or human trafficking,” the Anaheim Police stated on a press release Monday.

The task force includes officers from the California Highway Patrol (CHP) and police officers from Garden Grove, Irvine, and Santa Ana.

The Orange County District Attorney’s Office, county probation, the county’s social services agency, the Salvation Army, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security are also represented on the task force.

Human trafficking continues to be a problem in California, according to the latest data from 2023.

The United States operates a national hotline that allows people to report suspected human trafficking or seek help. The National Human Trafficking Hotline identified 1,128 cases of Human Trafficking in California in 2023. Of those, 2,045 victims were involved.

Hotline data from 2015 to 2021 indicate that the reported number of people trafficked nationwide rose from 12,000 in 2015 to more than 22,200 in 2019, then fell to 16,700 in 2021.

In California, the state’s share of trafficking cases and people trafficked has fallen. In 2015, the state accounted for 18 percent of all U.S. trafficking cases and 15 percent of trafficked victims. By 2021, 13 percent of both cases and people were in California, according to a 2023 study by the Public Policy Institute of California.