Interpol crackdown frees 2,070 trafficking victims, arrests 1,024 suspects

Law enforcement agencies in 59 countries uncovered 2,070 victims or potential victims and arrested 1,024 suspects during a five-day crackdown on human trafficking networks that stretched across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe. The operation, called Global Chain, ran from 8 to 12 June and was led by authorities in Austria and Romania with coordination from Interpol, Europol, Frontex and Ameripol.

Interpol said the vast majority of the people identified were women trafficked for sexual exploitation, a reminder that the trade still depends heavily on coercion aimed at the most vulnerable. The crackdown also targeted forced labour, forced criminality and coerced begging, reflecting how modern trafficking networks often move victims into several forms of exploitation at once rather than into a single illicit market.

Officers launched 465 investigations during the operation. Of the arrests, 334 were tied directly to human trafficking offences and 690 to associated crimes, showing how the business of trafficking is often intertwined with fraud, document abuse, exploitation and other offences that help keep victims under control.

The operation also exposed how traffickers adapt across borders and platforms. Authorities dismantled one network that had been trafficking victims into online scamming in Cambodia, and another that forced underage girls recruited through social media into sex work in Europe. The cases showed how recruiters now use digital channels to find minors and move them into exploitation with speed that can outrun traditional border checks.

Europol said the effort was carried out under the EMPACT framework and mobilized more than 40,000 law enforcement officers. Authorities checked more than half a million individuals during the sweep, a scale that illustrates both the reach of the operation and the limits of any single crackdown against a market built on concealment, coercion and cross-border movement.

The June operation followed another major multinational action in November 2025, when Interpol’s Liberterra III identified 4,414 potential trafficking victims and led to 3,744 arrests across 119 countries. Together, the two operations point to a sustained international enforcement push, even as the number of victims found in each sweep suggests how much of the underlying trade remains hidden.