News Releases and Statements

Federal criminal charges have been filed against eight individuals suspected of running a Southern California-based alien smuggling organization that used cell phones to guide clients across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Three Mexican citizens were sentenced to 15 years in prison Wednesday for conspiring to force Mexican women to engage in prostitution, following an investigation by ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). The defendants pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge in August.

Rogelio Serrano-Lara from Matamoros, Mexico, was sentenced on Tuesday to 10 years in federal prison for his role in an alien smuggling/transportation conspiracy. His sentence was increased after witnesses testified that he robbed them and raped a woman. The case was investigated by ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

Two defendants, Malcolm Jamal Allen and Devon Leontae Sutton, who previously pleaded guilty to federal charges stemming from a multi-agency probe into a gang-run sex trafficking scheme involving underage girls, have each been sentenced to 10 years in prison.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) continues its public outreach campaign to generate awareness to combat human trafficking nationwide as part of the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Blue Campaign launched in July 2010.

A Micronesian couple who now reside in the Seattle-area were sentenced Wednesday for their role in a forced labor scheme uncovered in an investigation by ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Seattle Police Department's High Risk Victims Unit and the Longview Police Department.

The Glassboro Police Department and New Jersey State Police executed a search warrant at a residence in Glassboro yesterday. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) also participated, after law enforcement agencies developed valuable information that this location was being operated as a brothel.

Alejandro Tovar, 44, of Houston, was sentenced to 63 months in federal prison without parole for conspiring to transport illegal aliens within the United States for commercial advantage and private financial gain by U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal.

A 43-year-old Mexican national was found guilty on Friday by a federal jury for alien smuggling that resulted in the death of nine illegal aliens.

A Mexican citizen was sentenced to more than 21 years in prison Tuesday following his guilty plea in a violent human smuggling case investigated by ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). David Alejo-Ortiz led a violent group of alien smugglers who, in May 2008, physically, verbally and sexually abused at least 23 hostages in Phoenix.

Veniamin Gonikman pleaded guilty Tuesday to crimes related to an international conspiracy to compel women to work in exotic dance clubs in the Detroit-area. He is the ninth and final member of the charged conspiracy to be convicted. The investigation was conducted by ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

At a hearing today before U.S. District Judge John D. Bates in Washington, D.C., Irfan Ul Haq, 37, Qasim Ali, 32, and Zahid Yousaf, 43, each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.

A Guatemalan national was sentenced Friday to 87 months in federal prison for helping oversee the operation of a human smuggling 'drop house' in Lancaster where illegal aliens were held against their will, denied food and physically assaulted.

Emiliano Romero Ramirez, Maria Juana Rugerio Saucedo and Cristina Hernandez Suarez received a collective sentence of 65 years in prison for their involvement in a human trafficking operation.

Beleal Garcia-Gonzalez, 35, Mission, Texas, appeared before U.S. District Court Judge Randy Crane on Aug. 23. In addition to the 360-month prison sentence, Judge Crane sentenced Garcia-Gonzalez to a five-year-term of supervised release.

A husband and wife from northern Washington state have been sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to federal charges stemming from a probe by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations that revealed the pair had hired and harbored an illegal alien domestic worker.

Two suspected human smugglers are in custody following their arrest Thursday by U.S. ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents assigned to the Illegal Immigration Prevention and Co-op Team (IIMPACT).Information about smuggling activity led agents to observe a SUV stop and nine people bail out and flee into the desert.

HSI agents arrested Hak Tung Lam of Flushing, N.Y., Wen Wo Lam, 43, of Staten Island, N.Y., and Ying Yang, 30, of Flushing, for allegedly participating in smuggling more than 450 aliens into the United States.

Samuel Martinez Gonzalez, who was charged with sex trafficking, is scheduled to make his initial appearance in federal court Monday following his arrest Friday night, when authorities rescued three teenage girls he allegedly brought from Texas for the purpose of having them work as prostitutes.

"Pedro Marcos-Marcos, an illegal alien from Guatemala, was sentenced Monday to 240 months in federal prison for overseeing a human smuggling operation that used a ""drop house"" in Lancaster, Calif., where illegal aliens were rescued in 2009 after being held against their will, denied food and physically assaulted."

Two Mexican nationals pleaded guilty in federal court on Thursday to charges of conspiring to commit commercial sex trafficking of Mexican women, following an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

Edk Kenit and Choimina Lukas, a Micronesian couple living in Longview, Wash., pleaded guilty on Tuesday to document servitude in connection with an investigation involving U.S. ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). The investigation revealed that the pair compelled the labor of an 18-year-old Micronesian woman.

The Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, and Department of Labor announced the selection of Pilot Anti-Trafficking Coordination Teams (ACTeams) as part of a nationwide initiative to combat human trafficking. The initiative is designed to streamline federal criminal investigations and prosecutions of human trafficking offenses.

Four members of a Flagstaff family are facing federal charges following their arrest Thursday for exploiting Vietnamese nationals for nearly a decade in an elaborate forced labor scheme at their I Do, I Do Wedding Shop in Flagstaff, Ariz.