A Hillsborough County predator spent eight years running a sex trafficking operation – targeting vulnerable women, seizing their earnings, and threatening to release their intimate photos if they tried to escape.
Last month, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier's office put him away for 120 years.
Now, with millions of tourists about to flood Miami for the FIFA World Cup, the G20, and the World Baseball Classic, Uthmeier just made sure the same fate is waiting for anyone else who thinks South Florida is open for business.
Florida Draws a Line Before the World Descends
On Friday, Uthmeier signed a formal partnership agreement at Camillus House in Miami – locking in a new relationship between his office, the Office of Statewide Prosecution, and the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Human Trafficking Task Force.
The deal isn't symbolic.
It comes with $1.5 million in state prosecution funds, more than 70 sworn law enforcement officers, and a prosecutorial commitment that Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle called desperately needed – because the task force's prior funding had "dwindled and are no longer available."
Uthmeier didn't mince words about what the money is for.
"Where money goes, where people go, so too does evil," he said. "We're going to be ready."
Miami-Dade is the single largest human trafficking hub in a state that ranks third in the nation for incidents, behind only California and Texas.
https://twitter.com/AGJamesUthmeier/status/2024946018983223759?s=20
The task force has already handled nearly 948 human trafficking cases affecting close to 1,400 victims – and that's before a wave of international visitors arrives this summer.
This Is What Happens When the Biden DOJ Steps Aside
The 120-year sentence for Marquett James wasn't just a courtroom victory – it was a direct rebuke of the previous administration.
Uthmeier's office said plainly that the Biden DOJ refused to prosecute James.
Florida's Office of Statewide Prosecution stepped in, worked with Homeland Security Investigations under the Trump administration, and delivered a sentence that ensures James never walks free again.
That's the model Uthmeier is scaling up now.
His office arrested more than 1,400 child predators in the past year and rescued more than 300 children who had been reported missing – and he made clear on Friday that the rescues are just the beginning of the work.
"Rescuing them is not the end, it is the beginning," Uthmeier said. "We've got to penetrate, bust our way in, take these scumbags down, rescue these women, and then find a way to wrap the community around them and bring them back to a healthy life."
The new partnership expands undercover operations, public awareness campaigns, and survivor support services – everything needed to move from rescue to recovery.
https://twitter.com/AGJamesUthmeier/status/2024916769551348179?s=20
What's Coming to Miami This Summer
Traffickers follow supply and demand, and the demand is all going to South Florida in 2026.
The FIFA World Cup alone will bring more than five billion viewers globally and tens of thousands of in-person visitors to Hard Rock Stadium for seven matches – and that's just one event on a calendar that also includes the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix, the World Baseball Classic, the G20 summit, Art Basel, and NASCAR Championship Weekend.
DHS has documented how major events create ideal conditions for trafficking operations – high-volume transportation, short-term lodging turnover, and crowds where victims can be moved without attracting attention.
Officials urged the public to use "see something, say something" protocols at gas stations, rest stops, and public transit, noting that the 120-year sentence for James began with an anonymous tip from someone who noticed something wrong.
That tip saved two women.
Here's what nobody in Washington will say out loud: the open border Biden ran for four years didn't just let in cheap labor – it fed the supply chain that keeps trafficking networks alive.
https://twitter.com/FLVoiceNews/status/2025911171434365313?s=20
Uthmeier's September sting in Polk County arrested 230 suspects and, in his words, "a disproportionate number" were illegal aliens from Venezuela, Mexico, Honduras, and several other countries – the same people Biden's DHS waved through by the millions.
Democrats didn't just ignore this problem.
They built the conditions that made it worse.
Now Florida is spending $1.5 million it shouldn't have to spend, staffing up a task force that federal prosecutors should have never abandoned, to protect women and children from a criminal enterprise that thrived under four years of deliberate neglect.
Uthmeier is ready.
The question is whether the rest of the country is paying attention.
Sources:
- James Uthmeier, Official Press Conference Remarks, Miami, Florida, February 20, 2026.
- Katherine Fernandez Rundle, Official Press Conference Remarks, Miami, Florida, February 20, 2026.
- "Attorney General James Uthmeier Secures 120-Year Prison Sentence for Convicted Human Trafficker," My Florida Legal, February 10, 2026.
- "James Uthmeier announces anti-human trafficking partnership with Miami-Dade State Attorney," Florida Politics, February 20, 2026.
- "230 arrested in major human trafficking operation in Florida," NBC 6 South Florida, September 19, 2025.
- Florida Statewide Council on Human Trafficking, 2025 Annual Report, My Florida Legal.
