Four Venezue­lan na­tion­als, in­clud­ing two mi­nors, were res­cued from a sus­pect­ed hu­man traf­fick­ing op­er­a­tion in Rio Claro on Sat­ur­day, while a busi­ness­man was ar­rest­ed and de­tained un­der a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der is­sued un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions, 2026.

The Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit (CTU) said the op­er­a­tion, dubbed Op­er­a­tion Pur­ple Rain, was con­duct­ed fol­low­ing weeks of sur­veil­lance at a Fras­er Street premis­es, act­ing on in­tel­li­gence from In­ter­pol.

Dur­ing the raid, 42-year-old Ryan Mark was ar­rest­ed and lat­er de­tained un­der the or­der. Po­lice re­port­ed that 11 in­di­vid­u­als were present at the lo­ca­tion. Four were iden­ti­fied as traf­fick­ing vic­tims: a 15-year-old Venezue­lan girl, a 17-year-old Venezue­lan girl, a 27-year-old Venezue­lan woman, and a 30-year-old Venezue­lan woman, the moth­er of the 15-year-old.