The California Justice Department broke up sex trafficking during this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, arresting 14 alleged buyers and saving 10 victims, including a 16-year-old girl.

The comics and pop culture convention has been held every year in San Diego since 1970.

This year’s event was held from July 25 through Sunday. The multiagency San Diego Human Trafficking Task Force went after people using Comic-Con as a cover to try and buy sex, the office of California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a release Tuesday.

The task force used multiple approaches to make the arrests, including posing as johns to ferret out potential victims and their traffickers and posting ads selling sex.

Over the course of three days, the task force found nine potential adult victims of human trafficking as well as the teen and arrested the alleged sex buyers. The attorney general’s office didn’t name any of the suspects.

The high attendance at San Diego Comic-Con offers alleged traffickers a cover for illicit activity. The event draws over 135,000 each year, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.

“Unfortunately, sex traffickers capitalize on large-scale events such as Comic-Con to exploit their victims for profit. These arrests send a clear message to potential offenders that their criminal behavior will not be tolerated,” Mr. Bonta said in a statement.

The organizers of San Diego Comic-Con denounced the alleged illicit activity.

“Obviously we find this very disturbing and, while we were not made aware of this operation, it is our understanding that the arrests were made outside of the event. We work closely with a variety of law enforcement entities throughout the year and stand ready to assist in any way we can,” the nonprofit San Diego Comic Convention (Comic-Con International) told San Diego NBC affiliate KNSD.

• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.