News Releases and Statements

Andrew Craig Sustaita, 31, from Spring, Texas, who was a former Harris County sheriff's deputy, pleaded guilty March 15 to producing and possessing child pornography.

The letter, originally written in 1493, was stolen from the National Library of Catalonia in Barcelona and sold for approximately $1 million.

Gregory John Schaffer, 39, of Bayonne, NJ, was previously found guilty on all three counts of an indictment charging him with two counts of production of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography. He was convicted following a three-day trial before U.S. District Judge Jose L. Linares, who imposed the sentence Tuesday in Newark federal court.

Tyler Robert Bachtel and two others were charged, on May 24, with sex trafficking and related crimes, following an investigation by special agents with HSI Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania State Police.

According to court documents, the indictments resulted from an extensive Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) investigation dubbed Operation Highlife. The Mississippi-based drug trafficking organization is charged with distributing more than 40 kilograms of methamphetamine, more than 3 kilograms of cocaine and over 100 pounds of marijuana illegally smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico across numerous states to include Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Texas, Tennessee and California.

Within the three months, from January to mid-April this year, ICE prepared more than 440 detainers against aliens booked by NYPD or NYDOC.

Benjamin Jenkins, a/k/a “Rei,” a/k/a “Reithe8th,” a/k/a “Dani Domo, was indicted by a federal grand jury May 23 and ordered held in federal custody pending trial in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

Adam Scott Caward, 33, received the 26-year sentence from United States District Judge John A. Kronstadt after admitting that he sold and possessed acetyl fentanyl.

Anyi “Angie” Artica-Romero, 33, was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison. Milton Noel Romero, 35, who has been in custody for about 14 months, was sentenced to time served. The defendants were also ordered to forfeit more than $800,000 in illegal proceeds from the scheme. The court also ordered the defendants to pay more than $31,000 in restitution.

Timothy Allen Weaver, 36, from Dearborn, Montana, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Brian Morris, to 500 months in federal prison, a lifetime of supervised release, and $3,000 in restitution to the victim.

Hernandez is the sixth detainee to pass away in ICE custody in fiscal year 2018, which began Oct. 1, 2017.

Juan Saravia-Salamanca, an unlawfully present Salvadoran national, was located and arrested by an ICE ERO Fugitive Operations Team outside his Raleigh, N.C., residence Dec. 12, 2017, after the government of El Salvador informed ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) National Gang Unit Nov. 21, 2017, that it had issued a warrant for Mr. Saravia-Salamanca’s arrest.

Deportation officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) removed Emmanuel Olugbenga Omopariola, 61, to Nigeria May 24.  He had been in ICE custody in the Dallas area since his arrest on April 18, 2018, when he surrendered himself at the ERO Dallas Field Office.

Of the 156 arrested, 74 had criminal convictions.  One hundred forty-seven men and nine women were arrested; they range in age from 19 to 64 years old.

In addition to the 39 illegal aliens administratively arrested on immigration violations, HSI special agents also criminally arrested one U.S. citizen who is a suspected human smuggler; he has been federally charged with human smuggling.

Richard Laugel is charged with the unlawful possession of firearms silencers, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison; possession with intent to distribute narcotics, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison; and the unlawful possession of firearms with defaced serial numbers, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

Joel “Animal” Martinez, was sentenced for racketeering conspiracy involving the murder of a 15-year-old boy in East Boston as a result of the HSI Boston investigation.

Eric Daniel Doyle, a 37-year-old former Kalispell resident, admitted to supplying buyers from Europe, Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada with firearms and ammunition magazines when he was interviewed by law enforcement in September 2014.  In about February 2014, Doyle began selling firearms on a website to people in other countries.

A total of 49 foreign nationals were arrested over the last seven days in the Philadelphia Metropolitan region during a targeted enforcement operation conducted by ICE aimed at criminal aliens, immigration fugitives, re-entrants, and other immigration violators, which ended Sunday.

Teams from ICE's HSI Boston, the U.S. Coast Guard, and U.S. CBP partnered to engage in a large-scale, Maritime Active Shooter Exercise May 21, led by the Massachusetts State Police that took place  midstream on vessels sailing through Boston Harbor in Massachusetts.