News Releases and Statements

During the five-day enforcement action, ERO officers apprehended aliens with criminal convictions, in addition to others who fall under the agency’s enforcement priorities. Those arrested had criminal histories with past convictions for rape, kidnapping, robbery, burglary and other serious criminal offenses.

Yaowapha Ritdet, 56, of Ukiah, admitted she knowingly hired Thai nationals who were illegally present in the United States to work at her restaurants, Ruen Tong Thai Cuisine and the Walter Café, both located in Ukiah.

Lubomir Koscak, 30, wanted by Slovakian authorities for robbery, was taken into ICE custody on Jun. 20 as part of operation Project Red II pursuant to an Interpol notice.  Koscak violated the terms of his non-immigrant Visa Waiver admission to the United States by overstaying his admission period and was consequently issued an administrative removal order.

Troy A. Paul, 48, admitted viewing images of child pornography on a Russian photo sharing website several times between January and June 2014. Paul further admitted viewing child pornography emailed to him approximately 100 times using the iPhone assigned by his employer.

The indictment alleged that on Dec. 12, 2012, Titus Ombina Aboge, 32, a citizen of the Republic of Kenya, and an alien in the United States, while living in Ada, Oklahoma, falsely and willfully represented himself to be a U.S. citizen on U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service’s Employment Eligibility Verification Form I-9.

A citizen and national of El Salvador was removed from the United States on Aug. 12, by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO).  She is charged in El Salvador for being a member of the transnational criminal gang, MS-13.  

Luis Raul Quiroz-Gongora, aka “El Zorro,” 29, was transferred by ICE ERO officers to the custody of representatives from the Mexican Attorney General’s Office. An arrest warrant issued in November 2013 by a judge in Sonora, Mexico, charges Quiroz with murder. 

Upon execution of the search warrant, a large cache of weapons, including fully automatic firearms and live hand grenades, were discovered inside the storage unit. The Kane County Sherriff’s Bomb Squad was summoned to the scene to secure the grenades. Further investigation identified the renter of the storage unit as 31-year-old Juan Mexicano of Addison, Illinois.

Jose William Quintanilla, 41, pleaded guilty just as trial testimony was set to begin Nov. 12, 2015. Adelio De Jesus Batres, 53, and Hugo Alexander Melendez-Gonzalez, 38, had pleaded guilty prior to trial.  Melendez-Gonzalez, Quintanilla and Batres were sentenced to 327 months, 360 months and 330 months in federal prison, respectively.

CBP’s training program at the port focuses on helping state and local law enforcement become more familiar with current trends being used by smugglers to bring people or contraband into the United States illegally. Knowledge such as this can be useful during routine side-of-the-road stops as well as in a targeted smuggling operation.

Jamie Sailas, 31, of Metro Denver, who is in custody, was remanded at the conclusion of the sentencing hearing. In addition to the 258 months in federal prison, U.S. District Court Judge William J. Martinez also sentenced Sailas to also serve 30 years of supervised release.

Michael Van Culin, 32, of Monroeville, New Jersey, was sentenced to 10 years in state prison, including 8 ½ years of parole ineligibility by Superior Court Judge Benjamin C. Telsey in Salem County. He pleaded guilty on Feb. 29 to a first-degree charge of manufacturing child pornography. 

Victor Lamar Coates, 47, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, pleaded guilty to conspiring with convicted co-conspirator Martez Gurley, 41, of Napa, California, to traffic in counterfeit and misbranded Viagra and Cialis, and introducing those drugs in interstate commerce.

David Stephens, 51, was first identified by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in February 2015 for sharing images of child rape and abuse over a peer-to-peer file sharing network. HSI agents executed a court-authorized search warrant on Stephens’ home the following month, seizing electronic devices with thousands of pornographic images, including self-produced photos of his molestation of a young child.

Andrew Kimura, 31, of Sacramento, worked in the DMV’s Sacramento office where he processed applications for commercial and non‑commercial driver’s licenses. Kimura was convicted of conspiring with others and accepting bribes to obtain commercial driver’s licenses for individuals who had not taken or passed the necessary DMV examinations.

On Sunday, Aug. 14., U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations’ (HSI) Deputy Assistant Director (DAD) Patrick “PJ” Lechleitner was featured in a documentary that aired on CNN.

Joshua Paul Crouch, 28, pleaded guilty Aug. 10 to attempting to transfer obscene material to a minor. As a result of the guilty plea before U.S. District Judge John F. Walter, Crouch faces a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison when he is sentenced Oct. 24.

John Anthony Perez, 37, of Aransas Pass, Texas, was sentenced by Senior US. District Judge Hayden Head to 250 months in federal prison on each of three counts, which are to run consecutively. The 750-month total sentence will also be followed by 20 years of supervised release during which time he will have to comply with numerous requirements designed to restrict his access to children and the Internet.

Reynaldo Ramirez, 38, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos to 235 months in federal prison to be immediately followed by 20 years of supervised release; he must also and register as a sex offender. Ramirez pleaded guilty to the charges in May.

Chukwuma Jonas Osuagwu, 43, of Dallas, is charged along with codefendant, James W. Mitchell, 34, of Boston, in a 12-count indictment, unsealed Aug. 9, with tax and mortgage fraud offenses.