A traffic stop in North Carolina may have prevented a case of trafficking involving a teenage girl from Florida, officials say.
Deputies with the Nash County Sheriff’s Office arrested Alejandro Hernandez Vazquez, 40, after realizing his 16-year-old female passenger had been reported missing by Florida's Coral Springs Police Department only five hours earlier.
Nash County Sheriff Keith Stone described the crime as a "true case of child trafficking."
"It was not like she was bound in the car and things of that nature, but you know, it's a young 16-year-old and a grown man, and he's manipulated her and carried her across this country," Nash County Sheriff Keith Stone told ABC. "This is a true case of child trafficking."
Deputies initially pulled over Alejandro Hernandez Vazquez at midnight on July 4 after he committed a traffic violation in a 2016 Audi SUV on Interstate 95. The release noted that the deputies "developed reasonable suspicion to believe that criminal activity was afoot" after asking a series of routine questions.
