News Releases and Statements

The indictment charges Ramses Owens, Dirk Brauer, Richard Gaffey, and Harald Joachim Von Der Goltz, with wire fraud, tax fraud, money laundering, and other offenses in connection with their roles in a decades-long criminal scheme perpetrated by Mossack Fonseca & Co. (“Mossack Fonseca”), a Panamanian-based global law firm, and related entities.

Laveaux Francois, 56, a native of Haiti and citizen of Canada, entered the United States without admission or parole by an immigration officer.

Raul Granados-Rendon, a member of the Granados family sex trafficking ring based in Tenancingo, Tlaxcala, Mexico, was sentenced Monday in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York (EDNY) to eight years’ imprisonment.

Consistent with the agency’s protocols, the appropriate state health and local law enforcement agencies have been notified about the death, as have the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General and the ICE Office of Professional Responsibility. Additionally, ICE has advised Russian Embassy representatives.

Fuyi Sun, 54, aka “Frank,” a citizen of the People’s Republic of China, was sentenced in New York federal court to three years in prison for violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) in connection with a scheme to illegally export to China, without a license, high-grade carbon fiber, which is used primarily in aerospace and military applications. 

A dozen New York based businesses have partnered with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in New York Thursday by joining the agency’s employment compliance program IMAGE, or “ICE Mutual Agreement between Government and Employers.”

Michael Christopher Laird, 26, of California, pleaded guilty on Aug. 23 to possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine.

Pharmacist Vilawoe Aku Boadu, 39, of Peoria, Ariz., was sentenced Thursday by U.S. District Judge Steven P. Logan to 120 months in prison. Zinka Sisic, 30, of Phoenix, who worked as a Pharmacy Technician for Boadu, was previously sentenced to 48 months in prison. Boadu and Sisic were both convicted of conspiring to distribute controlled substances and conspiring to launder money involved in a drug trafficking offense.

Consistent with the agency’s protocols, the appropriate state health and local law enforcement agencies have been notified about the death, as have the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General and the ICE Office of Professional Responsibility.

Roughly 33,600 website domain names were criminally seized in a collaborative effort between ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Europol, Interpol and police agencies from 26 different countries. Industry partners participating in the operation were fully responsible for civilly seizing 1.21 million domain names and shutting down 2.2 million erroneous ecommerce links featured on social media platforms and third-party marketplaces.

Following a sting operation at a Dallas hotel earlier this month, law enforcement liberated dozens of women sold for sex, announced U.S. Attorney Erin Nealy Cox, Northern District of Texas.

Officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) on Friday removed five illegal aliens from El Salvador, who were fugitives wanted in their home country for various serious crimes, including aggravated murder.

Raul Gorrin Belisario, 50, a Venezuelan citizen with a residence in Miami, Florida, was charged in an indictment filed, Aug. 16, 2017, in the Southern District of Florida with one count of conspiracy to violate the FCPA, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and nine counts of money laundering. Former Venezuelan National Treasurer Alejandro Andrade Cedeno, 54, a Venezuelan citizen residing in Wellington, Florida, pleaded guilty under seal, Dec. 22, 2017, to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. Gabriel Arturo Jimenez Aray, 50, a Venezuelan citizen residing in Chicago, Illinois, and former owner of the Banco Peravia bank, pleaded guilty under seal, March 20, 2018, in the Southern District of Florida to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Margarito Yepez-Sanchez, 25, an illegal alien from Mexico, was first charged by criminal complaint on Sept. 21, 2017.  

Andreea Dumitru, a/k/a “Andreea Dumitru Parcalaboiu,” an immigration attorney based in Queens, New York, was found guilty Nov. 19 in Manhattan federal court of asylum fraud, making false statements to immigration authorities, and aggravated identity theft.

A female MS-13 gang member wanted to face charges in El Salvador was arrested under Operation Matador in March, pursuant to an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations.  She was removed Nov. 16 to El Salvador by ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO). 

Six gang members and associates of the violent New York City gang, “Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods”, also known as “Nine Trey,” were charged Monday following an investigation by ICE's HSI New York with the NYPD and the New York Field Division of the ATF.  This investigation led to an indictment with multiple charges to include racketeering and firearms offenses.

Federico Garcia Jr., 44, who had worked for the former U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) at the ports of entry in the 1990s, faces up to 20 years in federal prison after he pleaded guilty to defrauding numerous legal and illegal aliens.

Rami Najm Asad-Ghanem, 52, who was commonly known as Rami Ghanem, a naturalized United States citizen who was living in Egypt at the time of the offenses, was found guilty of the missile conspiracy charge late Thursday afternoon in U.S. District Court. The jury returned the verdict at the conclusion of a nine-day trial.

Quanguan Zheng, 61, a Chinese citizen, entered the United States lawfully, on May 24, 2015, at the Newark International Airport. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) admitted Zheng to the United States as a nonimmigrant visitor for pleasure (B-2) until Nov. 23, 2015.

Brandon Hileman, 25, of Lebanon, Missouri, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge M. Douglas Harpool to the charge contained in an Oct. 18, 2017, federal indictment.

Daniel Mata-Armendariz, 23, of Colorado Springs, Colorado, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Denver on Feb. 6, 2018; a superseding indictment was obtained on March 20. Mata-Armendariz pleaded guilty before by U.S. District Court Judge Christine M. Arguello on June 5, 2018. He was sentenced on Nov. 13.