More than a dozen people were busted for alleged sex trafficking at Comic-Con in San Diego last weekend in a sting operation that also rescued 10 victims, including a teen.
Undercover agents posing as sex buyers spent three days at the star-studded bash making contact with victims and working to identify their traffickers, California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office said.
The operatives also posted advertisements soliciting sex to identify buyers.
A total of 14 people — all of them buyers — were arrested between July 25 and 27.
Of the 10 victims rescued, one was a 16-year-old. The rest were adults.
“Unfortunately, sex traffickers capitalize on large-scale events such as Comic-Con to exploit their victims for profit,” said Bonta in a statement.
“These arrests send a clear message to potential offenders that their criminal behavior will not be tolerated.”
Comic-Con regularly draws over 130,000 attendees.
“There is no more insidious crime than human trafficking,” San Diego Sheriff Kelly Martinez said in a statement. “The coercion and violence which enslaves people for profit and places them into forced labor or sex is criminal.”
It was not the first time Comic-Con has been at the center of sexual controversy.
In 2014, an organization of women called Geeks for CONsent gathered nearly 3,000 signatures demanding the event adopt a formal anti-harassment policy after what they described as an atmosphere of sexual harassment at the event.
The group interviewed female attendees who described being frequently groped, unwillingly photographed and even followed while at Comic-Con. They also complained of a pervasive atmosphere of sexual objectification of women.
Comic-Con organizers said at the time that the safety of its attendees was paramount and promised to heighten security.
