HUMAN TRAFFICKING WATCH · DISPATCH
World Cup Stings Across South Florida
Miami-Dade and Broward task forces arrest suspects and route victims to care.
As World Cup crowds arrived, Miami-Dade and Broward ran parallel undercover stings aimed at people seeking sex with minors, yielding arrests in both counties and connecting rescued victims to services. Multi-agency teams say more leads are in motion.
The World Cup’s arrival brought crowds and cash to South Florida; it also brought two parallel, internet-based undercover operations, one in Miami-Dade and another in Broward, aimed squarely at people who sought to purchase sex from children, with Miami-Dade reporting six arrests and Broward’s “Operation Red Card” accounting for seven more and the rescue of ten victims tied to those encounters, all within days of matches being played across the region (NBC 6 South Florida, n.d.; WPEC, n.d.).
In Miami-Dade, detectives posted decoy ads, fielded messages from men who believed they were arranging paid sex with 14- and 15-year-old girls, negotiated prices between $50 and $200, and then waited at undisclosed locations where tactical teams moved once a payment was made and a door opened; the men arrested included John Alcin, Henry Eduardo Castillo Martinez, Jaasar Rocha Rivas, Melvin Phillip Putney, Deyvi Richard Silva, and Ibrahim Vazquez Cobas, and the casework drew in the State Attorney’s Human Trafficking Task Force alongside HSI, FDLE, the City of Miami Police ICAC unit, and the U.S. Secret Service (CBS News, n.d.; NBC 6 South Florida, n.d.).
At first appearances in Miami, County Judge Mindy Glazer ordered each of the six held without bond on human trafficking-related charges, reminding one man who protested that the presumption of innocence remains intact even as probable cause is found; prosecutors said Alcin allegedly arrived with $200 for what he thought was a 14-year-old, and investigators, who have made more than 30 similar arrests since April, noted the arrestees span common professions in the region, a reminder that opportunity rather than vocation often defines this crime (CBS News, n.d.; WPLG Local 10, n.d.).
North of the county line, Broward’s “Operation Red Card,” led by the Sheriff’s Division of Homeland Security and Cyber Crime with the South Florida ICAC Task Force, focused on would-be buyers of minors during match days; seven men were booked on offenses that included human trafficking of a minor, traveling to meet a minor, solicitation, and related counts, among them Zubaer Ashar of Greenacres, Luis Paredes Guerra and Marco Ramirez Linares of Hollywood, Grant Werner of Dania Beach, Luis Chifundo Ortiz of Pembroke Pines, Ryan Walker of Fort Lauderdale, and Kyle Rosenthal of Coral Springs (WPEC, n.d.; WPLG Local 10, n.d.).
Broward’s team said ten victims encountered during the operation were immediately connected to shelter, medical care, and counseling—one a teenage runaway from outside the area who was safely reunited with family—while, in Miami-Dade, State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle recently walked reporters through a confidential emergency center that stocks clothing, counseling, and on-call services designed to stabilize survivors in the first hours after rescue, an infrastructure built for days like these (WPEC, n.d.; NBC 6 South Florida, n.d.).
Investigators in both counties described playbooks calibrated to the online marketplace—decoy posts, controlled meetups, phone-number confirmations—and then warned that the cases opened last week are not the end, with Broward reporting active leads that may bring further arrests and Miami-Dade publishing a hotline for tips; anyone with information can call the Miami-Dade Human Trafficking Hotline at 305-349-7867 or the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888, or text BeFree to 233733, and if you or someone you know is in immediate danger, call 911 (NBC 6 South Florida, n.d.; WPEC, n.d.).
Locations: Miami area, Miami-Dade County, Broward County, Florida, Palm Beach County, Hollywood, Fort Worth, Coral Springs
Tags: investigation, local, online, federal