Homeland Security Investigations

A federal judge sentenced a Chinese migrant who illegally crossed the border into Texas to 12 years in prison after authorities found several videos depicting child porn in his cell phone. One of the videos involved a girl who was under the age of five years.

A Texas man pleaded guilty to buying a gun for the Gulf Cartel used by gunmen in Mexico during a kidnapping where two U.S. citizens were murdered.

Border Patrol agents in the Miami Sector apprehended a group of Chinese migrants who were smuggled via boat to a beach landing. Border Patrol officials report increases in the smuggling of Chinese migrants in multiple border sectors.

Law enforcement teams raided an alleged auto-theft ring in Harris County and found more than two kilos of fentanyl, guns, vehicles, cash, and other drugs. The raid took place on the southwest side of Houston.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials report fentanyl smugglers are significantly increasing their use of the U.S. Postal Service and other express consignment carriers to bring the deadly drugs into the United States.

A woman residing illegally in the United States pleaded guilty this week before a federal judge to sex trafficking involving the use of force, fraud, or coercion of both adult and minor females. The victims were forced to perform commercial sex acts in a cantina in Houston.

A U.S. federal court sentenced a Salvadoran man to nearly four years in prison for his role in helping his wife and her boyfriend smuggle weapons and ammunition into Mexico. In one of the smuggling attempts, the group tried to send more than 13,000 rounds of ammunition across the Texas-Mexico.

Seventy missing children were found by authorities, most of them in West Texas, during a lengthy effort dubbed “Operation Lost Souls.”

A former Mexican police officer will spend 30 years in prison for having a series of videos and photographs where he sexually assaulted a young girl. Authorities in the U.S. discovered the videos inside a cell phone when the police officer tried to cross into Texas through a port of entry.

A federal court in South Texas sentenced a member of the Mexican Mafia gang to 33 months in prison for his role in a human smuggling scheme. The conviction came from a May 2021 incident where Rafael Alberto Cazarez, Jr. drove 54 migrants trapped inside a tank.

A federal grand jury indicted ten people for their roles in an alleged human smuggling incident that killed eight migrants. The deaths occurred in March when an alleged smuggler fled from police and crashed into oncoming traffic.

Law enforcement officials in Vermont rescued three women who were padlocked inside an apartment. Officials believe the women were being held against their will in a human trafficking scheme.

More than one hundred visitors and residents in the Texas border city of McAllen attended a rally and march to the border wall to shed light on the dangers of child trafficking. One guest speaker at the event, Karla Jacinto, recounted her story as a victim of child trafficking at the age of 12.

For a second time in as many days, Hutchinson County Sheriff Blaik Kemp and his deputies were forced to release migrants after federal officials refused to take them into custody. Sheriff’s office officials released the migrants, 24 in all, after Kemp exhausted all efforts to get assistance from federal agencies. Deputies arrested two suspects and charged them with Trafficking of Persons among other charges.

Officials in San Diego, California, report at least four migrants died and as many as 27 were injured when a human smuggler’s overloaded vessel capsized off the coast.

Antifa wasted no time in attacking the federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon, after officials removed the physical barrier put in place during last summer’s riots.

Federal authorities initiated a human smuggling investigation into a deadly crash this week that killed 13 individuals as an SUV with more than 25 people inside collided with a tractor-trailer in California.

A former Senate GOP and Republican National Committee (RNC) staffer accused of distributing child pornography was arrested at his Washington, D.C., home Friday.

Border Patrol agents in two Texas border sectors apprehended more than 160 migrants who were being held in human smuggling stash houses. The apprehensions took place in the Laredo and Rio Grande Valley Sectors.

CBP Air and Marine Operations (AMO) crews teamed up with other law enforcement agencies to interdict a boat traveling from the U.S. to the Bahamas with unreported currency onboard.

Laredo Sector Border Patrol agents continue to find armed human smugglers near the border in South Texas. Agents seized three weapons in a 24-hour period from smugglers moving groups of migrants into the U.S. interior.

Laredo Sector Border Patrol agents teamed up with local law enforcement and other federal agents to disrupt three human smuggling stash houses near the Texas border with Mexico. Agents apprehended 42 migrants over two days in three stash houses — none were wearing masks or other protective gear to prevent the spread of  COVID-19.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested multiple Antifa protesters after they allegedly vandalized the Portland, Oregon, ICE facility. The building has been a favorite site for direct actions in recent months.

Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol agents joined local and federal law enforcement partners to raid four human smuggling stash houses. Despite the threat of the Coronavirus pandemic, cartel-connected human smugglers continue to put lives at risk by packing migrants into houses and tractor-trailer rigs without masks or other personal protection equipment.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in Otay Mesa, California, seized a near-record 3,100 pounds of methamphetamine, fentanyl, and heroin at a commercial port of entry. The seizure is the second-largest seizure along the southwest border with Mexico in the agency’s history.

Federal prosecutors in Dallas announced the arrest this month of two more men in connection to a sex trafficking conspiracy involving a 13-year-old girl. Agents rescued the missing girl from a Dallas-area motel in September 2019.

El Paso Sector Border Patrol agents teamed up with ICE agents and officers to disrupt a human smuggling operation in New Mexico. The effort resulted in the arrest of two human smugglers and 57 migrants from six countries.

A former Louisiana narcotics detective faces federal drug trafficking charges following a sting operation where authorities found eight kilos of cocaine. The former investigator previously served one year and nine months in prison on separate drug charges while being assigned to a federal task force with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Police arrested five people in Arizona following a months-long operation to combat child exploitation and sex trafficking, including a former detective out on bond for another arrest on the same charges.

Rio Grande Valley Sector Customs and Border Protection officers seized nearly 360 pounds of methamphetamine during three failed drug smuggling attempts at South Texas border crossings. The seizures took nearly $8 million in drugs out of the hands of cartel-connected smugglers.

Federal officials called a cartel-connected smuggling tunnel under the Arizona-Mexico border “the most sophisticated tunnel in U.S. history.” The 1,300-foot structure stretched from a neighborhood in San Luis, Mexico, to its destination in San Luis, Arizona. Officials detected the tunnel prior to its completion, officials said.

A federal judge in the Southern District of Texas handed down prison sentences to three men involved in human smuggling and stash house operations. The trio smuggled more than 1,000 people in less than a year into Texas under extremely dangerous conditions.

Laredo Sector Border Patrol agents apprehended nearly 110 migrants in a 24-hour period in two separate human smuggling interactions. One involved a human smuggling stash house in Laredo, Texas. The second involved a tractor-trailer interdiction at an interior immigration checkpoint.

Tucson Sector Border Patrol agents discovered a human stash house on Friday. The raid followed a traffic stop by Nogales, Arizona, police officers which identified two Mexican illegal immigrants in a vehicle.

Laredo Sector Border Patrol agents recovered a large group of migrants being held in a stash house near the Texas border with Mexico. Border Patrol agents teamed up with Webb County Constable’s Office deputies and special agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigation (HSI) to carry out the raid.

A federal task force in Southern California recently discovered a sophisticated cross-border tunnel running from Mexico to the United States. The task force seized significant quantities of cocaine, methamphetamine, fentanyl, and marijuana during a search of the connected San Diego-area warehouse.