News Releases and Statements

Carlos Victor Passapera Pinott, 53, was charged by complaint, and had his initial appearance Monday before United States Magistrate Judge Leslie A. Bowman of the District of Arizona.

According to court documents, Jose Alfredo Carbajal-Espinosa, 34, a citizen and national Mexico, was previously deported from the United States to Mexico on seven occasions.

Timothy Hummel, 26, of Colorado Springs, Colorado, made his initial appearance remotely while free on bond. His bond was continued at the hearing’s conclusion. 

Taryn Goin Naidoo, 41, of Diamondhead, Miss., received three sentences totaling 170 months, set to run concurrently, followed by 15 years of supervised release.

HSI Birmingham arrested Christian Martinez, 32, a Salvadoran national and U.S. fugitive, for violations of state law concerning attempted murder, shooting into an occupied dwelling and an alien in unlawful possession of a firearm. HSI Huntsville arrested Iris Ferreira-Cardoso, 49, a Brazilian national for violations of immigration law.

McKenna Danilo Bernardo, 23, of Burien, Washington, was charged by criminal complaint April 30, 2020, following an investigation by HSI, the King County Sheriff’s Office and Washington State Department of Corrections. Jason Allen Legg, 44, of Seattle, was charged by criminal complaint April 30, 2020, with possession of child pornography. David Craig Martin, 64, of Seattle, was charged by criminal complaint May 14, 2020, with possession of child pornography.

The operation, led by HSI New Orleans’s HIDTA task force, culminated in 29 federal and state arrests, the seizure of multiple firearms, cash, and controlled substances including fentanyl, methamphetamine, marijuana and other opioids.

Cristal Avila, 27, from Fort Worth, Texas, and Joseph Mora, 35, from Schertz, Texas, entered their guilty plea Aug. 7, in front of U.S. District Judge Mark Lane. Both pleaded guilty to one count of theft of government property.

ICE is firmly committed to the health and welfare of all those in its custody and is undertaking a comprehensive, agency-wide review of this incident, as it does in all such cases.

According to court documents, Brooks Thomas Nesbitt, 37, of Ontario, Canada, was a member of a large, international fraud and money-laundering ring, led by Mary Kathryn Marr. Between at least 2014 and 2019, Nesbitt operated boiler rooms located outside of the United States.

David Pettigrew, 48, was arrested Aug. 6 for transporting child pornography.

A 51-year-old unlawfully present Republic of China (Taiwan) national in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Krome Service Processing Center in Florida died Wednesday afternoon at the Kendall Regional Medical Center.

This was the largest single-state worksite enforcement operation in our nation’s history, resulting in the detention of 680 illegal aliens and the prosecution of 119 illegal aliens for stealing the identities of American citizens, falsifying immigration documents, fraudulently claiming to be U.S. citizens, and illegal re-entering the country after being deported, among other federal crimes.

Preliminary photographs reveal the man-passable passageway measures 3 feet wide and 4 feet high and is equipped with a fully developed ventilation system, water lines, electrical wiring, rail system, extensive reinforcement and shoring, known to be commonly used in sophisticated subterranean tunnels.

Those charged in the indictments include Dr. John Michael Korzelius, 68, a.k.a. “Dr. K,” of Camarillo, who worked at a Santa Ana pain management clinic where he allegedly wrote medically unnecessary prescriptions to “patients” who paid cash. Over the course of two years, Korzelius and other medical professionals working under his guidance, prescribed approximately 439,090 pills of 30mg oxycodone – the highest dose of short-acting oxycodone available, and the dose most popular for the drug-abusing population, according to court documents.

Rogelio Gomez-Arias, 24, of Klamath Falls, was sentenced to 135 months in federal prison and five years’ supervised release.

According to court documents and evidence presented at the sentencing hearing, between 2011 and 2018, Vladimir Volgaev, 69, of Sarasota, shipped more than 1,600 firearm components – including barrels, slides, receivers, and frames – from the United States to Ukraine. These components were used to construct fully functional firearms, including handguns and rifles.

Carlos Brewer, 42, of Pocatello, was sentenced in U.S. District Court to 235 months in federal prison for receiving sexually explicit images of minors.

Aaron Hervey Esparza Villarreal, 27, from Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, entered his guilty plea Aug. 4, in front of U.S. District Judge Marina Garcia Marmolejo. He admitted he was part of a conspiracy that involved smuggling cocaine hidden inside a tractor trailer. Jose Contreras Rodriguez, 58, and Ernesto Yadir Martinez Campos, 39, both from Mexico and, Viviano Hernandez, 41, a U.S. citizen residing in Mexico, pleaded guilty in July of 2020.

Cesar Augusto Berlanga Jr, 20, from Haltom City, Texas, was charged with importing meth into the United States and one count of conspiracy.

Alejandrina Quevedo-Hernandez, 21, from Brownsville, entered her guilty plea Aug. 4, in front of U.S. District Judge Rolando Olvera. She admitted to possessing with intent to distribute more than five pounds of cocaine when she attempted to enter the United States from Mexico.

Saudiel Doblado Carias, 28, was removed to Honduras on an ICE Air charter where he was handed over to Honduran authorities.

Agents quickly moved in to secure the scene and arrested Luis Rendon-Espinoza, Manual Delgado-Lopez, Miguel Daniel Luna and Felicitas Saenz charging them with various narcotics federal violations.

Valerian Chiochiu, aka “Onassis,” “Flagler,” “Socrate,” and “Eclessiastes,” 30, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Court Judge James C. Mahan in the District of Nevada. Chiochiu is a national of the Republic of Moldova, but resided in the United States during the period of the conspiracy. His plea came just over a month after the co-founder and administrator of Infraud, Sergey Medvedev of Russia, separately pleaded guilty June 26. Sentencing for Chiochiu has been scheduled for Dec. 11.