What began as a covert reconnaissance mission ended in one of the darkest discoveries in modern U.S. law‑enforcement history. The FBI says it has rescued 20 trafficking victims from a secretive “hunting island” owned by a network of ultra‑rich financiers — and recovered evidence that up to 600 people may have been killed there over several years.

The operation was launched after a single surviving Navy SEAL, separated from his team during an earlier, abortive insertion, managed to evade capture for 48 hours and transmit coordinates from deep inside the compound. His signal triggered a multi‑agency assault: FBI Hostage Rescue, federal marshals and special operations forces stormed the jungle‑covered island at dawn, trading fire with a heavily armed private security force.

Inside fortified villas and underground bunkers, agents say they found cages, surveillance control rooms and “game maps” marking kill zones across the island. Mass burial sites and bone fragments are now being examined by forensic teams working under floodlights in makeshift tents.

The 20 survivors — men and women from at least six countries — are receiving medical care and protection as potential witnesses. Early testimony points to a pay‑to‑kill “sport” marketed to a closed circle of billionaires and crime bosses who believed they were beyond the reach of any court.

In Washington, lawmakers are demanding an international dragnet for everyone who financed, ran or attended events on the island, warning that anything less than full exposure would confirm the public’s worst fear: that there truly is one system of justice for the powerful, and another for everyone else.