News Releases and Statements

Loredana Angel, 34, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court April 13 to felony charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and illegal reentry of an alien. Daniel Rostas, 30, pleaded guilty Wednesday, and Legenda Rostas, 28, pleaded guilty March 1 to the same charges. Angel and Legenda Rostas told authorities that they are sisters and that the Rostas are married.

Dubbed the matriarch of her narcotics trafficking and distribution empire, Erlinda Ramos-Bobadilla, 62, received the lengthy prison sentence March 28 for her role in the network, which included procuring, planning and arranging acts of violence, including murders, in furtherance of the conspiracy.

According to court documents, Ana Maria Hernandez, 53, portrayed herself to be a USCIS employee and defrauded numerous noncitizen victims and their family members by falsely representing that she would process their immigration applications for a substantial fee.

On April 6, a federal jury convicted Pierre De Romeo Smith of seven charges, including sex trafficking, production of child pornography, possession with intent to distribute controlled substances and unlawful possession of a firearm.

Cecilio Jimenez-Bautista, 26, of Mexico, appeared in federal court April 6 to face charges that he sexually abused a 17-year-old unaccompanied minor he and his brother guided from Tijuana, Mexico, into the United States in June 2022.

Officers from ERO Washington, D.C. participate in the selection course at the Harper-Presgrave Regional Law Enforcement Complex in Harrisonburg, Virginia March 21-23

Aldo Albert Velásquez Asencio, 57, was removed from the United States on March 31.

HSI Kansas City acting Special Agent in Charge Taekuk Cho and U.S. Attorney Steven A. Russell announced that Cristian Yanira Ruiz-Cardona, 28, was sentenced on April 6, 2023 in federal court in Omaha, Nebraska, for use of immigration documents not lawfully issued, false representation of a Social Security number with intent to deceive, and making a false claim to U.S. citizenship.

Officials flew Benito Sanchez-Jimenez, 41, from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport to Alexandria International Airport in Louisiana April 5 on a flight coordinated by ICE’s Air Operations Unit.

Fugitive Justin Robinson, who escaped from the Ray County Jail on the evening of March 27, is back in custody, April 7, due to the unified effort of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Kansas City, the Ray County Sheriff’s Office, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Clay County Sheriff’s Office and a variety of concerned citizens.

Robert Reeves III, 37, of Dallas, received the sentence March 28 for breaking into businesses and stealing cash from bitcoin-related automated teller machines. As part of his sentence, Reeves must also pay restitution in the full amount of the victims’ losses, which totals more than $55,000. 

ICE is firmly committed to the health and welfare of all those in its custody and is undertaking a comprehensive, agency-wide review of this incident, as it does in all such cases.

This new form gives noncitizens the option to update their information online in addition to the existing options of doing so by phone or in-person. It will enable noncitizens to comply with their immigration obligations more easily and improve the accuracy of address information reported to ICE by utilizing address autofill to ensure U.S. Postal Service standardization.

Wilson Nuyila Tita, 47, of Owings Mills, Maryland, received the over-five-year sentence followed by two years of supervised release on April 4 at the U.S. District Court in Baltimore.

Roberto Antonio Garay Saravia is a retired military officer from the Salvadoran Armed Forces, who during his active duty was involved in multiple operations, including the El Mozote Massacre, where more than 1,000 civilian adults and children were killed.

A federal grand jury indicted Davey Hines, 30, of Naperville, on one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, one count of theft or receipt of stolen mail, four counts of unauthorized access device fraud and four counts of aggravated identity theft in February 2021 for events that occurred between June 2018 and December 2019.

Peter Griffin, 78, and three co-defendants pleaded guilty in federal court April 4 in connection with their operation of five illicit massage businesses in California and Arizona. For years, the businesses profited by exploiting women to perform commercial sexual services under the guise of offering therapeutic massage.

Bryan Calderon, 37, was sentenced in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas to 92 months for the possession of child pornography and 92 months for the distribution of child pornography, both to run concurrently.

Over the weekend of April 1, Jorge Ivan Gastelum Avila, 42, of Mexico, aka Cholo Ivan, was extradited to the United States and made his initial appearance in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia yesterday to face international drug trafficking and firearms charges.

In the second quarter of fiscal year 2023, the CPAA program repatriated more than 135 artifacts to multiple nations.

Jake Delahney Taylor, a 38-year-old resident of Brazoria, was convicted Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas of sexual exploitation of a child, distribution and possession of child pornography and destruction of property.

A judge sentenced Leon B. Hensley, 42, to 293 months in federal prison on child pornography charges.

According to court records, law enforcement began investigating Jason Robert Wesely, 39, a former member of the Iowa National Guard, after receiving a cyber tip from a social media platform in May 2020.

Urbino Garcia-Bahena, a 32-year-old unlawfully present noncitizen residing in Houston, was sentenced in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas to 151 months in federal prison for conspiracy to commit hostage taking.

The leadership panel spent the morning sharing inspirational messages with a diverse audience of professionals.