News Releases and Statements

Seven members of an identity theft ring were arrested and charged for allegedly using stolen identities of more than 180 people with active store credit accounts at Home Depot, Sears, Kmart, Kohl's, and other retail stores to charge merchandise and gift cards and obtain store credit.

Mahendar "Mike" Singh pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiracy to violate the federal sex trafficking laws following a probe by ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the FBI. Singh admitted recruiting teenage girls to provide sex services throughout Sacramento and the Bay Area in exchange for money and drugs.

ICE's HSI - working collaboratively with our law enforcement partners including the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Vermont - had numerous prosecutions throughout Vermont in 2011.

A man from El Salvador, who was wanted for murder in his home country, was deported and turned over to El Salvador officials on Jan. 6 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers.

Fourteen people have been indicted by a federal grand jury for participating in a $5 million conspiracy to provide more than 3,500 fraudulent identity documents to illegal aliens across the United States.

Santos Elenilson Gonzalez-Rivas, 24, a citizen of El Salvador, was sentenced Wednesday in federal court to 24 months imprisonment, following an investigation by ICE's Enforcement Removal Operations (ERO).

The Human Smuggling and Trafficking Center's (HSTC) reach is vast. This past spring, the Center played an integral role in an INTERPOL-sponsored anti-human trafficking initiative in Accra, Ghana, called Operation Bia II. This operation resulted in the rescue of 116 children, all of whom were forced to work in the country's fishing industry...

Fifty individuals were charged in an indictment unsealed today in Puerto Rico with conspiracy to commit identification fraud in connection with their alleged roles in a scheme to traffic the identities of Puerto Rican U.S. citizens and corresponding identity documents.

A Las Vegas woman was sentenced Monday to 10 years in federal prison for importing more than $2 million of cocaine with the intent to distribute it in the United States.

Simon Jasper McCarty, 39, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright. McCarty admitted that between 2005 and 2007, he molested three different prepubescent boys outside of the United States and produced videos of the molestation.

An Atlanta man pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiring to possess with intent to distribute 53 kilograms (117 pounds) of cocaine, announced U.S. Attorney Kenneth Magidson, Southern District of Texas.

Fernando Garcia was indicted on Aug. 24 with distributing images and videos of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. On Jan. 27, 2011, an ICE HSI agent, acting in an undercover capacity, downloaded several images of child pornography and traced them back to an account belonging to Garcia.

Nicholas Brown, 24, was indicted for possessing child pornography on Aug. 24, 2011. On Monday, Brown stipulated that he possessed more than 100 videos of child pornography.

A Mexican man was sentenced on Monday to 24 years and four months in federal prison for holding for ransom the aliens he had violently hijacked from other alien smugglers. This sentenced was announced by U.S. Attorney Kenneth Magidson, Southern District of Texas.

A cook at an area fast-food restaurant remains in federal custody after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents arrested him Dec. 27 for illegally re-entering the country after being deported.

Jonathan Binns of Shenandoah, Pa., admitted that he took sexually explicit photographs and videos of two minor children in 2010, uploaded the child pornography to a computer and maintained the images on a thumb drive.

Bryan Ross Spears, 39, of Palm Coast, Fla., pleaded guilty on Sept. 15 to receiving child pornography over the Internet. After the sentencing hearing, Spears was remanded to the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service to await designation to a federal prison.

Mark Porter of Bethany, Conn. waived his right to indictment and has pleaded guilty to one count of accessing child pornography. The guilty plea is the result of an investigation conducted by ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the U.S. Probation Office for the District of Connecticut.

Gary Samuel Cochran, 53, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Dean D. Pregerson under a plea agreement reached last year. Cochran pleaded guilty in September 2011 to one count of production of child pornography, a charge that carries a mandatory minimum of 25 years in federal prison.

A man who attempted to board a flight from Orlando to London with 800 grams of cocaine in his digestive track was sentenced Monday to 24 months in federal prison for possession of cocaine with the intent to distribute.

Theft of American intellectual property is a serious crime, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and ICE announced today that their vigorous, ongoing efforts to protect America from the trade in counterfeit and pirated goods during fiscal year (FY) 2011 resulted in 24,792 seizures, a 24 percent increase over 2010.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers deported a man wanted in Mexico for possessing a firearm and jumping bail Thursday.

Joshua Gardner, 29, admitted that sometime between September 1997 and May 2002, he sexually abused two boys under the age of 12 on Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa, Japan. Kadena is a U.S. Air Force base under the territorial jurisdiction of the United States. At the time of the offenses, Gardner also resided in Okinawa.

Scott Allan Herrick, 40, of Twin Lakes, Mich., surreptitiously videotaped boys as they were dressing in the boys' locker room in the YMCA in Muskegon, Mich., where Herrick was a swim instructor. He also kept a massive collection of 100,000 images of child pornography with him at the Gerber Boy Scouts Camp in Twin Lakes.

Phillip Beyel, 27, of Cocoa Beach, Fla., allegedly had sexual intercourse with a child for a period of several months, while that child was 12 and 13 years old. During that time, Beyel used a cell phone to take videos of himself engaging in those sexual acts with the minor victim. He was arrested on Jan. 2 on state charges for lewd and lascivious conduct.