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July 25, 2023
|Financial Crimes
Akolade Ojo, 31, of Owings Mills, received the 46-month prison sentence followed by three years of supervised release at the U.S. District Court in Baltimore on July 5. Ojo must also pay $1,320,186.19 in restitution.
July 24, 2023
|Enforcement and Removal
The 35-year-old native of Santa Catarina Pinula, Guatemala, is wanted by law enforcement authorities for felony charges of child abuse, crimes against children and abduction in Guatemala. He is the subject of a Red Notice issued by Interpol, the international criminal police organization.
July 24, 2023
|Enforcement and Removal
On July 20, ERO Boston removed Thiago Jorge-Alves, 37, an unlawfully present Brazilian fugitive wanted for drug trafficking in Brazil.
July 24, 2023
|Enforcement and Removal
The 21-year-old noncitizen unlawfully entered the United States on an unknown date at an unknown location. U.S. Border Patrol encountered him Dec. 25, 2021, near Hidalgo, Texas, served him with a notice to appear, and transferred him to ICE custody.
July 24, 2023
|Narcotics
Heriverto Ramirez, 36, of Brownsville, pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute 1,741 grams of fentanyl on July 20 following an investigation conducted by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Texas Department of Public Safety.
July 21, 2023
|Narcotics
U.S. Attorney Mac Schneider for the District of North Dakota announced that Juan Sillas-Rocha, 45, of Tijuana, Mexico, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance, continuing criminal enterprise, and conspiracy to commit murder in furtherance of the continuing criminal enterprise before Chief Judge Peter Welte in Fargo, North Dakota, on July 13.
July 21, 2023
|Enforcement and Removal
On an unknown date at an unknown location, the noncitizen illegally entered the United States without being inspected, admitted or paroled by an immigration officer. On Aug. 29, 2022, the Nassau County Court convicted him of sexual abuse first degree: contact by forcible compulsion.
July 20, 2023
|Human Smuggling/Trafficking
A federal judge sentenced Miguel Angel Ceballos-Acuna, 30, a Mexican citizen residing illegally in the United States, to federal prison following his conviction of attempted human smuggling resulting in the death of a child.
July 20, 2023
|Child Exploitation
On July 12, a judge sentenced Javier Garza Jr., 24, of Port Isabel, for producing child sexual abuse material following an HSI Rio Grande Valley Child Exploitation Task Force investigation.
July 20, 2023
|Child Exploitation
David Edward King, 59, of Ellicott City, Maryland, pleaded guilty Feb. 14, and the judge sentenced him to 168 months in prison followed by 30 years of supervised release.
July 19, 2023
|Cultural Property, Art and Antiquities Investigations
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ICE Deputy Director and Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Director Patrick J. Lechleitner traveled to Rome to repatriate an original edition of a stolen 15th century Columbus letter to Italian officials on July 19. HSI had collaborated with international partners and subject matter experts since September 2011 on this multifaceted international investigation.
July 19, 2023
|Organized Crime
The alliance provides a multifaceted approach to disrupting and dismantling organized theft groups through partnerships, investigations and consumer awareness. Organized theft groups are sophisticated criminal organizations that profit from illegally obtaining goods that are later sold for economic gain, such as through cargo theft, organized retail crime, and other theft- and fraud-related criminal activities.
July 18, 2023
|Narcotics, Financial Crimes
On June 14, a judge sentenced Veronica Dittman, 28, of Tempe, to five years in prison for her role in operating multiple darknet pages selling illicit drugs with two previously sentenced co-conspirators. The sentence follows a multiagency investigation involving HSI Arizona.
July 18, 2023
|Narcotics
On July 11, a judge sentenced Hector Francisco Ramirez-Roman, 39, of San Luis, Rio Colorado, Mexico, to 108 months in prison followed by four years of supervised release for posing with intent to distribute methamphetamine.
July 18, 2023
|Enforcement and Removal
Deportation officers from ICE ERO Washington, D.C. removed Josue Salvador Hernandez-Portillo, an undocumented Salvadoran national, from the United States to El Salvador on July 14. Hernandez-Portillo was wanted by authorities in his home country for deprivation of liberty and aggravated homicide.
July 17, 2023
|Enforcement and Removal
Patrick Connors, 31, was admitted into the United States in August 2021 and violated the terms of his admission when he failed to depart by November 2021. Law enforcement officials in Ireland and the United States identified Connors as a member of a transnational criminal organization called the Traveling Conmen Fraud Group. ERO Boston arrested him in Billerica, near Boston.
July 17, 2023
|Child Exploitation
On July 13, special agents with HSI San Juan and PRCACTF arrested Edgardo Romero-Montalvo, 37, of Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, in Florida. The arrest follows a federal indictment accusing him of child exploitation crimes.
July 14, 2023
|Enforcement and Removal
Ion Marius Paun, 30, is wanted in Romania for the violation of domicile and for violating a protection order.
July 14, 2023
|Firearms, Ammunition and Explosives
Acting Special Agent in Charge of HSI Kansas City Taekuk Cho and Acting United States Attorney Susan T. Lehr announced that Senior United States District Judge John M. Gerrard sentenced Joshua Thomas Alan Casiano, 36, of Kearney, Nebraska, on July 10, 2023 to five years’ imprisonment for possession of stolen firearms, following an HSI, law enforcement partner investigation.
July 14, 2023
|Human Smuggling/Trafficking
As detailed in pleadings filed prior to the sentencing hearing, Jose Cruz Noguez,49, of Mexicali, Mexico was a coordinator of the event in which two SUVs – a GMC Yukon and a Ford Expedition – were modified by removing the seats in the passenger compartments so that undocumented migrants literally could be stacked on top of one another. 
July 14, 2023
|Firearms, Ammunition and Explosives, Operational
Between May 2021 and January 2023, the U.S. Navy seized the weapons, which included more than 9,000 rifles, 284 machine guns, approximately 194 rocket launchers, more than 70 anti-tank guided missiles, and more than 700,000 rounds of ammunition, during routine maritime security operations conducted in and around the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea.
July 14, 2023
|Child Exploitation
Luke Allen Gregory, a 55-year-old resident of Hitchcock, Texas, was sentenced in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas to serve 270, 120, and 120 months for the production, possession and receipt of child pornography, respectively, as well as another 120 months for the transfer of obscene material to a minor.
July 13, 2023
|Narcotics
Following the success of Operations Blue Lotus and Four Horsemen, which stopped nearly 10,000 pounds of fentanyl and led to 284 arrests during a two-month period earlier this year, the next phase of DHS’s campaign to target and disrupt the fentanyl supply chain has stopped over 5,000 pounds of precursor chemicals used in the production of fentanyl in its first few weeks.
July 13, 2023
|Narcotics
Ascencion Garza Jr., a 64-year-old resident of Hebbronville, Texas, was sentenced in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas to 12 years in federal prison to be immediately followed by five years of supervised release for possession with intent to distribute approximately 16 kilograms of cocaine. Garza pleaded guilty to the charges on January 10.
July 13, 2023
|Financial Crimes
Shakeeb Ahmed, 34, of New York, New York, is charged with wire fraud and money laundering, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The unsealed indictment charges Ahmed with wire fraud and money laundering in connection with his attack on a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange.
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