WINTER HAVEN, Florida — A seven-day undercover operation targeting human trafficking and people who prey on children has ended with 281 arrests in Polk County, in central Florida, the Polk County Sheriff's Office announced on Friday, October 30. The operation was called “Polk Around and Find Out II” — the second sweep of that name this year — and it was run by sheriff's detectives together with partner agencies, including federal immigration and homeland-security officers.
Source: FOX 13 Tampa Bay
Sheriff Grady Judd presented the results at a news conference at 9:30 a.m. on Friday at the PCSO Sheriff's Operations Center, 1891 Jim Keene Boulevard in Winter Haven. Standing with him were Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia, Chris Nelson, executive director for the State Attorney of the 10th Judicial Circuit, and David Gritte, acting deputy field office director for ICE/Homeland Security, along with other agency leaders.
Source: NBC 6 South Florida / NBC Miami
The arrests, by the numbers
According to the sheriff's office breakdown reported by FOX 13 Tampa Bay, 239 of the arrests involved soliciting prostitutes, offering to commit prostitution, or aiding, abetting and transporting prostitutes. Detectives also arrested 31 suspected child sexual predators and took 11 other people into custody. Two of the suspected predators were also charged with human trafficking. NBC 6, reporting the attorney general's release, put the total charges at 488, including 198 felonies, and described the work as two linked stings: a “traveler” sting aimed at adults who set out to meet children for sex, and a human-trafficking sting.
Source: FOX 13 Tampa Bay
Investigators said 117 people travelled to the undercover location to negotiate sex for money. A separate group of 122 people who travelled to commit prostitution were screened on the spot by detectives and social-service organisations — and those screenings are how authorities identified 11 human trafficking victims, who were offered support services at the scene rather than simply processed as offenders.
Source: FOX 13 Tampa Bay
Theme-park workers, a deputy and a youth coach among those arrested
The people arrested were not strangers on the margins, officials stressed. Investigators arrested 17 theme-park employees — 13 from Disney and four from Universal Studios — along with an Orange County deputy sheriff, a youth football coach and an active-duty U.S. Navy sailor. Only 40 of the 281 suspects lived in Polk County itself, NBC 6 reported, meaning most travelled in from elsewhere in central Florida and beyond.
Source: NBC 6 South Florida / NBC Miami
The operation also had an immigration dimension that matters to many readers. Authorities said 32 of those arrested were in the United States illegally, from nine countries, and NBC 6 reported that 16 of them had already been turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Officials also said 22 of the people arrested were receiving public assistance totalling $8,373 a month — $100,476 a year. Nine of those arrested were on probation for offences ranging from bank robbery to cruelty toward a child, and nine had been caught in earlier sheriff's-office stings — two of them in the first “Polk Around and Find Out” operation earlier this year.
Source: FOX 13 Tampa Bay
Everyone named in this report has been arrested and charged, not convicted. The sheriff's office has not released individual suspect names or court dates, and each case will be decided in court. Travelling to meet a minor for unlawful sexual activity is a second-degree felony in Florida, punishable by up to 15 years in prison, NBC 6 noted.
Background: why Polk County runs these sweeps
Polk County, between Tampa and Orlando, has made these large undercover sweeps a recurring tactic under Sheriff Judd. The first “Polk Around and Find Out” operation, announced in May 2026, produced 266 arrests on 439 charges, and detectives say the repeat offenders caught this time — including two people arrested in that first sweep — are exactly why they run the operation again. The model pairs undercover detectives with social-service workers so that people being trafficked are identified during the same operation that arrests buyers and predators.
Source: NBC 6 South Florida / NBC Miami
For the Punjabi and wider South Asian diaspora in Florida — including truckers who run the I-4 corridor between Tampa and Orlando that cuts through Polk County — the practical takeaway is twofold: a major law-enforcement presence will remain visible around the county's travel stops and motels after an operation of this size, and anyone approached by someone being trafficked can contact the sheriff's office or the national human-trafficking hotline rather than treating it as ordinary prostitution.
Source: FOX 13 Tampa Bay
What happens next
All 281 cases now move into the 10th Judicial Circuit court system, where the State Attorney's office will decide final charges case by case. Officials have not confirmed whether additional warrants from the joint operation are still outstanding, and the sheriff's office has not yet published individual court dates. Further briefings are expected as the first defendants make their initial court appearances.
Source: NBC 6 South Florida / NBC Miami