Florida officials say a five-day statewide push has done what they call unprecedented work in the state: locate 163 missing children, some only two months old and others as old as 17, and move them out of danger and into care. The campaign, Operation Statewide Shield, was announced in Tampa on August 25, 2026, by Attorney General James Uthmeier and FDLE Commissioner Mark Glᴀss as Florida’s first state-led statewide recovery drive and the largest of its kind in Florida history. FDLE also placed it among the largest child-recovery operations in the country.

The mission was not framed as a single raid on one trafficking ring. Officials said the children were found through real-time intelligence and field teams working from hubs in Pensacola, Tallahᴀssee, Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa, Fort Myers, and Miami. Many of those recovered had already lived through abuse, neglect, exploitation, or other crime, including human trafficking, but the cases were not presented as one connected conspiracy. After each recovery, local officers took the children to designated hubs where social workers, child-welfare staff, medical providers, and victim advocates were waiting. Custody transfers were handled by the Department of Children and Families and the Department of Juvenile Justice, and the files were logged in the Missing and Endangered Persons Information Clearinghouse so cases could be closed.

Florida credited regional teams this way: Tampa Bay 46, Miami 41, Jacksonville 32, Orlando 21, Fort Myers 12, Pensacola 8, and Tallahᴀssee 3. The search itself reached farther. Officials said children were also located in Alabama, California, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, and Puerto Rico, and in countries including Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Dominica, Finland, Ghana, Guatemala, Italy, Jamaica, Mexico, Spain, and Taiwan. Those outside-Florida finds were still counted through the Florida command structure that ran the operation.

FDLE Tampa planned and led the work, with legal guidance from the Office of Statewide Prosecution and Special Counsel Rita Peters, who advises the attorney general on human trafficking. FDLE later said the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office also advised and that prosecutors were taking three felony cases born from the sweep. Named partners included BayCare, More to Life, and the Florida Human Trafficking Victims Fund, along with faith groups, nonprofits, and private helpers. Thirteen sheriff’s offices were listed as essential: Manatee, Sarasota, Jacksonville, Clay, Nᴀssau, Putnam, St. Johns, Flagler, Orange, Escambia, Hillsborough, Pasco, and Pinellas, plus city police and federal agencies. Planners said they used lessons from U.S. Marshals operations known as Dragon Eye and Home for the Holidays.

Arrests were described only as “multiple,” with more expected. The official examples included a person already wanted on three counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a minor and interference with child custody; another charged with lewd and lascivious battery involving a victim between 12 and 16; and a third charged with interference in a child custody case and resisting officers without violence. Related investigations were still open as of the announcement, and later coverage through August 31, 2026, has not published a new statewide recovery total beyond 163.

Uthmeier said many of the children had been harmed by people who target those least able to fight back, and he credited FDLE, statewide prosecutors, and local partners for getting them into care. Glᴀss called the result proof that agencies can share one job: find the kids and bring them home. DCF ᴀssistant Secretary Jonathan Stephens said government, faith organizations, nonprofits, and the private sector had pooled their strengths. State Rep. Danny Alvarez said the operation was meant to send a warning that Florida would not look away.