HSI Nogales investigation leads to guilty plea of man for transportation of child pornography depicting minor victim in Mexico

NOGALES, Ariz. – On Monday, an Olympia, Washington, man pleaded guilty to transportation of child pornography as result of an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

Adolfo Aburto-Gonzalez, 24, is scheduled for sentencing Aug. 24, before United States District Judge Rosemary Márquez.

A complaint filed in March alleged that Aburto-Gonzalez was arrested after he entered the United States through Nogales, Mexico, and was found to be returning from an encounter with a 12-year-old minor, of whom he had explicit pictures and videos.

Aburto-Gonzalez accepted a plea agreement which requires that he be sentenced to a term of 10 to 12 years in prison, followed by a term of lifetime supervision as a registered sex offender.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Carin Duryee, District of Arizona, Tucson, is handling the prosecution.

The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative by the Department of Justice to combat the epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

HSI is a directorate of ICE and the principal investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), responsible for investigating transnational crime and threats, specifically those criminal organizations that exploit the global infrastructure through which international trade, travel, and finance move. HSI’s workforce of over 10,400 employees consists of more than 7,100 special agents assigned to 220 cities throughout the United States, and 80 overseas locations in 53 countries. HSI’s international presence represents DHS’s largest investigative law enforcement presence abroad and one of the largest international footprints in U.S. law enforcement.

Learn more about HSI’s child exploitation mission @HSIPhoenix.