Copperas Cove is a city located in central Texas with a majority of the city falling within Coryell County and two smaller portions falling in Lampasas and Bell Counties. It has a population of approximately 38,000 residents. The City of Copperas Cove has documented instances of prostitution and sex trafficking of children. For example, in a joint operation by the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Coryell County Sheriff’s Office in 2020, eight men were indicted by a Coryell County grand jury on second-degree felony charges of prostitution or solicitation of a person under 18 years old. Exploiters believed the decoy officers they were chatting with to be underage girls, where officers would arrest the men at a predetermined location after the sex buyers had offered to pay money in exchange for acts of sexual abuse and exploitation. Seven arrests were made by the DPS, and one was made by the Coryell County Sheriff’s Office. A similar sex trafficking investigation called, Operation Fallen Angel was conducted in 2021. The operation focused on a major central Texas prostitution scheme and resulted in the arrest of eight sex traffickers. According to officials, the investigation revealed that numerous women had been sex trafficked throughout Texas and that the traffickers had drugged and transported the women throughout the state while the women were under the influence of narcotics. The search warrant executed in Gatesville, TX was a result of a year-long operation between several city and county agencies including the Copperas Cove Police Department, the Coryell County Sheriff’s Office, and the Gatesville Police Department. Seven men and one women were arrested on charges of continuous trafficking of a person and/or possession of a controlled substance participated in the operation.