HRV 2021

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested 23 fugitives sought for their roles in known or suspected human rights violations during a nationwide operation which concluded on April 1. ICE’s National Fugitive Operations Program, in coordination with the ICE Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center (HRVWCC) and the ICE Office of the Principal Legal Advisor, worked with ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, Newark, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Seattle, San Francisco, and Washington field offices to arrest these known or suspected human rights violators.

All foreign nationals arrested during this operation have outstanding final orders of removal and are subject to repatriation to their countries of origin. Thirteen individuals are also in the U.S. with convictions for crimes including, but not limited to, homicide, aggravated assault with a weapon, burglary, disorderly conduct, damage property, larceny, indecent exposure, resisting officer, and DUI offenses.

A Guatemalan national previously removed to his home country by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) was convicted in a Guatemalan court for his role in sexual violence targeting indigenous women in the 1980s. Francisco Cuxum Alvarado, 66, was convicted of crimes against humanity by a High-Risk Court in Guatemala City, Guatemala and sentenced to 30 years imprisonment.

Pursuant to a joint investigation by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Philadelphia Field Office and the FBI, a Pennsylvania man was arrested on charges alleging that he tortured a victim in the Kurdistan region of Iraq in 2015. A superseding indictment returned in the Middle District of Pennsylvania charges Ross Roggio, 53, of Stroudsburg, with suffocating the victim with a belt, threatening to cut off one of the victim’s fingers, and directing Kurdish soldiers to inflict other severe physical and mental pain and suffering on the victim.

U.S. Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero today announced the unsealing of an indictment charging Moses Slanger Wright, 69, of Philadelphia, with fraudulently attempting to obtain citizenship, fraud in immigration documents, false statements in relation to naturalization, and perjury following an investigation by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Philadelphia.

During Liberia’s First Civil War, the Armed Forces of Liberia was locked in a campaign for control of the country with various rebel groups, most notably Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia. The indictment alleges that the defendant, when applying for U.S. citizenship, was not truthful about his activities during Liberia’s First Civil War while he was a member, and ultimately the commanding general of, the Armed Forces of Liberia. According to the indictment, Wright either personally committed, or ordered Armed Forces of Liberia troops under his command to commit numerous atrocities, including but not limited to, the persecution, murder, and assault of civilian noncombatant Gio and Mano tribesmen, as well as the false arrest and false imprisonment of civilian noncombatants.

Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) arrested a former high-ranking Somali army officer accused of multiple human rights violations against Somali civilians during the 1980s. Special agents arrested Yusuf Abdi Ali, aka Tukeh, Nov. 17 in Springfield, Virginia for those human rights abuses, which include extrajudicial killing; torture; cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; and arbitrary detention.

Ali, a 69-year-old Springfield resident, served as a lieutenant colonel in the Somali National Army and Commander of the Fifth Brigade in Northwest Somalia from approximately May 1987 to July 1988 under the dictatorship of Siad Barre. During this time, the Somali army committed numerous serious human rights violations against civilians.

A Manchester, N.H., woman was convicted today by a federal jury of two counts of procuring citizenship unlawfully. The guilty plea is the result of an extensive investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

A federal jury in New Hampshire found that Beatrice Munyenyezi, 43, obtained her U.S. citizenship unlawfully after fleeing her home country of Rwanda by misrepresenting material facts to U.S. immigration authorities both before and after she arrived in the United States. Munyenyezi, who was charged in June 2010, faces up to 10 years in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine on each count.

A former member of the Guatemalan army whom witnesses say participated in a massacre there three decades ago that claimed at least 162 lives was deported to his native country Tuesday, capping an effort by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to investigate the case and win the ex-commando's removal from the United States.

Pedro Pimentel Rios, 54, arrived in Guatemala on board an ICE Air Operations charter removal flight and was immediately turned over to Guatemalan law enforcement officials. The Santa Ana, Calif., maintenance worker is wanted in his native country on criminal charges for his role in the Dos Erres massacre.

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A former Peruvian Army major was successfully extradited from Miami to Lima, Peru, for his role in the 1985 murders of 69 unarmed men, women and children in Accomarca, located in the southern province of Ayacucho, Peru. He arrived at the Jorge Chávez International Airport on July 14, where he was placed in custody by the Peruvian National Police.

Telmo Ricardo Hurtado-Hurtado, 50, was wanted by Peruvian authorities for homicide stemming from his role in the "Accomarca Massacre." The extradition is the result of extensive investigative work conducted jointly by: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Department of Justice, Department of State and Peruvian law enforcement authorities.

George Saigbe Boley, 62, formerly of Hilton, N.Y., arrived in Monrovia, Liberia, at approximately 7:30 p.m. GMT (3:30 p.m. EDT). Boley, the leader of the LPC during the Liberian civil war, was found by an immigration judge Feb. 6, 2012 to be removable from the United States. This was the first removal order obtained by ICE under the authorities of the Child Soldiers Accountability Act of 2008, which added the recruitment and use of child soldiers as a ground of inadmissibility to and deportability from the United States. The immigration judge with the Executive Office for Immigration Review – a component of the U.S. Department of Justice – also found Boley inadmissible based upon the government's charge of commission of extrajudicial killings in Liberia in the 1990s and that Boley had abandoned his lawful permanent resident status.

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The leader of a human smuggling organization and 21 brothel operators and prostitutes were indicted without detention in South Korea following an investigation by the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency-International Crime Investigation Unit (SMPA-ICIU) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Seoul.

SMPA-ICIU officers and HSI special agents identified Korean national Kyung Jong Jang, 58, as the leader of the South Korea human smuggling organization. Jang was arrested Monday for violating multiple Korean laws, including kidnapping and arranging for sex trafficking. If convicted, he faces five to seven years in prison. Twenty-one Korean citizens including operators of brothels in the United States and prostitutes were also arrested on criminal charges in South Korea.

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