Dozens of missing children have been recovered in a major rescue operation in the US. More than 100 people from around 40 agencies worked on the initiative, which involved months of planning, according to a spokesperson for New York Governor Kathy Hochul.
Children found across state lines
All of the missing kids were from New York City and Long Island, but were found as far away as Pennsylvania. Some went missing recently, while others had been missing for long periods.
Det Lt Frank Messana of the Criminal Intelligence Section hailed the results of the operation as ‘incredible’. Some 34 missing children aged seven to 18 were recovered.
Some missing for a decade
Kevin Branzetti, the co-founder and CEO of the National Child Protection Task Force, told a press conference some of the kids had been missing for a decade. He said: ‘Missing kids are a community’s problem. They are not a police problem. They are not a social services problem.
‘Finding them is half the battle. Keeping them is really what we want.’
Other missing children were also located but turned down assistance, with many now adult-aged. Nassau Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said many of the kids were found using phone tracking and through social media.
Support for recovered children
DaMia Harris-Madden, commissioner of the New York State Office of Children and Family Services, said some of the children had been exploited or trafficked. ‘The goal here is to ensure that our children are brought home, but also that they are supported with concrete resources so that they don’t either run away again or they don’t go missing again,’ she said.
The initiative is the latest in a series of efforts to track down New York’s missing children. Similar operations over the last two years have found 168 kids. In 2025, there were 10,629 minors reported as missing to New York State police, with the vast majority reported as runaways. Some 1,079 active missing children’s cases were open across the state at the end of last year.
