News Releases and Statements

Dante Reyes, the last of 23 defendants in custody who were charged in a Latin Kings racketeering conspiracy, pleaded guilty Thursday.

A 17-month-old girl was rescued and reunited with her mother in Mexico Thursday afternoon after officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) located her in a San Diego apartment where she was being held by her paternal grandmother.

Geoffrey Jones, 61, used a file sharing program to download child pornography from the Internet. HSI special agents executed a search warrant at his residence May 30, 2012. A forensic examination showed that Jones's computer, external hard drive and CDs contained more than 600 images and videos depicting child pornography.

Mark Dean Garrison of Denison, Texas, was sentenced Friday to 46 months in federal prison.

Gregory John Schaffer, a New Jersey man posing as a business owner, was indicted today in federal court in New Jersey for engaging in sexual activity with two minors and possession of child pornography.

Chad F. Summers, 40, of Albuquerque, entered a not-guilty plea to the five-count indictment. The indictment charges him with the following crimes: three counts of receiving and one count of possessing child pornography, and one count of being a felon possessing a firearm.

Kevin Zajack, 46, of Charleroi, Pa., pleaded guilty to the charge at a hearing in U.S. District Court, Western District of Pennsylvania. He faces up to 10 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine. Sentencing is scheduled for July 9, 2013.

Oklahoma's first-ever federal human trafficking sentences, including six people sentenced over two days, were announced Tuesday following their guilty pleas to sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion, and coercion and enticement to travel in interstate commerce to engage in prostitution.

Carlos Lopez-Roldan, 30, was arrested in Caguas after an HSI investigation revealed that he allegedly used a video recording device to produce nude images of a 12-year-old girl identified as Jane Doe.

HSI special agents are attempting to locate Fredy Marcelo Arbito, 30, of Hightstown, N.J., who is wanted for possessing child pornography. He allegedly was also duping at least one young victim to produce additional child pornography.

GPX/GXP USA (GPX), a seismic surveying company based in Sealy, Texas, pleaded guilty Tuesday to harboring and transporting illegal aliens. The guilty plea is the result of an investigation by ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

HSI special agents provided the family of an elderly Raleigh woman with a $45,000 check recovered from a Jamaican lottery scheme.

Edgar Daniel Mazariegos-Cifuentes, a Guatemalan citizen illegally residing in Monroe, N.Y., was sentenced to 10 years in prison followed by lifetime supervised release for transporting a minor to engage in sexual activity.

Nathan Welter made his initial appearance in federal court Friday afternoon following his indictment for allegedly using Craigslist to sell a variety of counterfeit sexual dysfunction medications, which he claimed to buyers were genuine.

William Jesus Brandel-Mena, a Honduran criminal alien convicted of child molestation in Florida, pleaded guilty Thursday to a felony charge of illegally re-entering the United States following a prior removal.

Graham Godbey was sentenced to two years in federal prison for possession of child pornography as the result of an investigation by ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Niagara, Canada, Regional Police Service.

Special agents with ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), working jointly with the South Carolina Secretary of State's Office, Blazer Investigations and Pfizer, seized approximately $4 million in counterfeit goods and pharmaceuticals during a two-week operation that ran from Feb. 19 through Wednesday.

Mehdi Khorramshahgol, a U.S. citizen and Iranian national, has been accused of allegedly exporting tens of thousands of dollars of industrial parts manufactured by U.S. companies to Iran, in violation of U.S. trade sanctions.

After a five-day trial in Albany, a jury has convicted Annie George of Rexford, N.Y., of harboring an illegal alien.

Ethan Nguyen, the operator of temporary employment agencies that provided contracted services in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, Pa., was sentenced Thursday to one year in prison on federal charges of harboring illegal aliens and mail fraud.

Two corporate owners/operators of Signal Microsystems in Addison, Texas, a company that sold computers domestically and internationally, were arrested Thursday by members of the North Texas Counterproliferation Task Force on an indictment alleging that they illegally shipped computer equipment to Iran through Dubai.

Micalia Valenzuela, an Everett woman heavily involved with a Mexican drug trafficking organization, was sentenced Friday to five years in prison following a probe by the Seattle-area Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF), including ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

ICE's HSI has presented the MSP and HCSO with funds obtained from a criminal investigation for their assistance in the investigation and successful prosecution of a mid-Michigan dairy farm that was staffed almost exclusively with illegal aliens.

A Maryland man was indicted Thursday on charges of conspiring to export, and exporting, American manufactured industrial products and services to Iran. This indictment follows an investigation by the FBI and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Baltimore field office.

Hector Aleman Lemos, the former leader of the Flushing, Queens, chapter of the violent international gang La Mara Salvatrucha, also known as MS-13, pleaded guilty Thursday to racketeering and murder conspiracy charges. This plea stems from an investigation by ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Yonkers (N.Y.) Police Department.