Antioch is a city of approximately 110,000 residents, located in the San Francisco Bay area near Stockton, California. It is the second largest city in Contra Costa County. The city has well-known prostitution and sex trafficking problems, particularly in hotels and motels, which generate complaints to police. Local law enforcement agencies have participated in the FBI’s Operation Innocence Lost investigations and other collaborative operations.

For example, in February 2020, the results from the statewide “Operation Reclaim and Rebuild” were announced. The week-long operation was led by the Los Angeles Regional Human Trafficking Task Force and 70 participating federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies (including the Antioch Police Department) and task forces from across California. In addition to rescuing and serving victims of sex trafficking and arresting then prosecuting their captors, Operation Reclaim and Rebuild also sought to disrupt the demand for vulnerable victims by targeting their buyers. Investigators focused enforcement operations wherever sex trafficking of human beings took place and included street-level and internet-based operations. The operation deployed specially trained cyber detectives who posed as vulnerable teenagers and interacted with suspects on social media, traffickers and customers who sought to exploit and sexually abuse children. Operation Reclaim and Rebuild resulted in the arrest of 266 male sex buyers charged with solicitation, as well as the recovery of 76 adult and 11 minor victims and the arrest of 27 suspected traffickers. In the press release announcing these results, the head of the Task Force said, “To the Johns: Purchasing commercial sex is illegal and buying sex adds to the exploitation of those involved.” Downloadable Material: Talking Points and Slides