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09/29/2003
U.S. Reports Success in Nabbing Child Predators, Sex Offenders Worldwide
Natives of Mexico, Haiti among arrested in "Operation Predator"
Washington -- Two female Mexican nationals and a native of Haiti are among those who have been arrested in a sweeping U.S. government crackdown worldwide against child predators and sex offenders, says the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
ICE, part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said that since the July 9 launch of "Operation Predator," more than 1,000 of these criminals have been arrested in the effort to protect children worldwide.
The agency said in a September 26 statement that the international arrests were made by coordinating with ICE overseas offices and with law enforcement agencies of other countries. ICE said that international arrests of child predators and sex offenders will continue to increase as the agency focuses on the sex tourism industry.
ICE Director Michael Garcia pointed to President Bush's remarks September 23 before the United Nations that human smuggling and trafficking represents a new humanitarian crisis spreading across the world.
In those remarks, Bush said that "there's a special evil in the abuse and exploitation of the most innocent and vulnerable. Governments that tolerate this [sex] trade are tolerating a form of slavery." The president called for all nations to enact laws making it a crime to abuse children sexually, and noted the U.S. contribution of $50 million to organizations "that are rescuing women and children from exploitation."
Garcia said that "more and more children, boys and girls not even old enough to read, are falling victim to the increasingly organized and profitable trade of human trafficking." He said that in the United States, "certain individuals pay significant sums of money to travel to other countries and engage in prostitution with children."
Garcia said that through Operation Predator and a piece of legislation recently signed by President Bush called the Protect Act, "the Department of Homeland Security is working around the clock to identify and remove these people not only from American streets, but also to hold them accountable wherever they commit these heinous crimes."
Among those arrested in Operator Predator were two female Mexican nationals, who were sentenced to 210 months imprisonment for luring four teenaged Mexican girls to the United States and holding them captive as prostitutes in a brothel in Plainfield, New Jersey.
The sentences handed down against these women were among the first under the U.S. Trafficking and Victims Protection Act, which was enacted in 2000.
Also arrested was a citizen of Haiti, who pleaded guilty for fondling his own 12-year-old daughter. The agency said that Fritz Laguerre had originally been arrested by the Palm Beach, Florida sheriff's office for raping the daughter and had evaded ICE's efforts to deport him from the United States.
The operation also produced the arrests of 27 child predators in Miami, Florida. Included in this group was the arrest of Bayardo Rafael Chamarro, a Nicaraguan national, who had evaded U.S. law enforcement efforts to deport him from the country. Chamarro was caught on a surveillance camera groping a 12-year-old girl in a department store in Miami. He was subsequently charged with lewd and lascivious molestation on a child under the age of 16.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
