More than 2,000 victims of human trafficking were identified and over 1,000 suspects arrested in a coordinated police operation spanning 59 countries across four continents, Interpol announced on Monday. Codenamed Global Chain, the operation ran from 8 to 12 June and involved 40,000 officers targeting networks engaged in sexual exploitation, forced labour, forced criminality and coerced begging. Of the 1,024 people detained, 334 were held on human trafficking charges and 690 for associated crimes, according to the international police agency.

The victims, the majority of them women, came from 45 countries, with the largest numbers originating in Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela, Moldova and Nepal, Interpol said. Brazilian Federal Police dismantled a transnational network that trafficked victims to Cambodia and forced them into online scamming, identifying 406 victims, including 83 Brazilians. In Argentina, officers rescued two Bolivian children who were being exploited in a grocery store, and Belgian authorities arrested 17 suspects after breaking up a ring that recruited underage girls via social media and forced them into prostitution across Belgium and France. A total of 465 new investigations have been opened and victims have been referred to national protection services.

Separately, the US Department of Homeland Security announced the arrest of 10 members of the Hoover Criminals Gang in Los Angeles on federal racketeering charges including sex trafficking, money laundering and firearms offences. The operation, part of an initiative targeting the Figueroa Corridor, identified 51 victims, some as young as 14. In Brazil, federal police executed search warrants at São Paulo’s Guarulhos International Airport against at least three outsourced employees suspected of shipping cocaine to Europe; two of them were already in custody for other offences, authorities said.

In Indonesia, immigration officials and police in Medan arrested seven foreign nationals—six Chinese and one Vietnamese—and 31 Indonesian citizens suspected of running a love-scamming syndicate that targeted Japanese men through social media platforms. The suspects face deportation and a 10-year entry ban, according to the immigration office. Investigations into all of these operations remain ongoing, and authorities have not released the identities of most of those detained.