(WWJ) Michigan State Police have located 25 missing metro Detroit children as part of a special operation.
The effort by MSP, with the help of the Special Investigation Division Fraud Unit, led to the recovery of a 9-year-old foster care runaway, as well as two teenage girls that troopers suspect may have been victims of sex-trafficking, police said.
Those victims' cases have been turned over to the Southeast Michigan Trafficking and Exploitation Crimes Task Force which MSP is a part of, along with the FBI.
MSP said the operation, dubbed MISafeKid II, was focused on missing kids from Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties, as part of the MSP Second District strategic vision to prioritize at risk youth and missing children. Troopers were given backgrounds names, photos and last known locations of these missing kids.
At the end of the sweep, troopers were able to close 25 missing children complaints by locating the kids and making sure they were safe or returned to their homes. Some only needed to be removed from the system to complete their case, police said.
Michigan currently has 4,016 missing person entries in the data base with 974 of those under the age of 18.