DOJ says 11 migrants indicted in multi-state sex trafficking, drug, firearms case
DOJ says 11 migrants indicted in multi-state sex trafficking, drug, firearms case
Federal prosecutors say the alleged criminal enterprise spanned four states and targeted a teenage girl.
By
Greg Wehner Fox News
Published
June 30, 2026 10:26pm EDT close 
Video GOP lawmaker says it's 'really important' that US continues cartel crackdown
The US executed a kinetic strike in Venezuela, successfully eliminating a leader of the dangerous Tren de Aragua gang. Congresswoman Claudia Tenney highlights the pervasive threat of drug and human trafficking cartels, stressing the importance of protecting citizens and locating 146,000 human-trafficked children, a key mission for law enforcement.
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!Federal prosecutors have charged 11 Venezuelan and Colombian nationals — 10 of whom the Justice Department says are currently unlawfully present in the United States — in a sweeping, multi-state criminal case alleging the defendants trafficked a minor and an adult woman for sex while also dealing drugs and illegally trafficking firearms, the Justice Department announced Tuesday.
Ten of the defendants were arrested Tuesday during coordinated law enforcement operations in Ohio, Tennessee, North Carolina and Florida, while one remains at large. Prosecutors said 10 of the 11 defendants are currently in the United States illegally.
A 30-count federal indictment, returned June 11 and unsealed Tuesday, alleges four defendants conspired between July and August 2025 to sex traffic a minor and an adult woman. The Justice Department’s announcement appears to contain conflicting references to the minor’s age, describing the alleged victim as 17 in one section and 14 in a quote from the U.S. attorney.
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FBI agents are seen during a law enforcement operation. Federal prosecutors announced Tuesday that 11 illegal aliens from Venezuela and Colombia have been charged in a multi-state case alleging sex trafficking, drug trafficking and illegal firearms trafficking. (FBI Boston/X)
According to the Justice Department, the defendants traveled across state lines to promote prostitution and created online commercial sex advertisements in the central Ohio area.
Beyond the alleged sex trafficking scheme, prosecutors say members of the group also sold ecstasy and trafficked firearms, including at least nine guns. Some defendants are additionally accused of illegally possessing firearms while in the country.
"These defendants — ten of whom are currently illegally present in this country — allegedly engaged in a panoply of illicit trafficking activity, from drugs to firearms to human beings," U.S. Attorney Dominick S. Gerace II said. "We have no tolerance for anybody who commits such crimes in our communities, and we will prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law."
FILE – Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents escort a suspect during a law enforcement operation. Federal prosecutors announced Tuesday that 11 illegal aliens from Venezuela and Colombia have been charged in a multi-state case alleging sex trafficking, drug trafficking and illegal firearms trafficking. (X/HSI_Miami)
The charges stem from an investigation led by a Homeland Security Task Force.
"We will continue to work hard to keep Ohio safe and get narcotics, firearms, and violent criminals off the streets," FBI Cincinnati Special Agent in Charge Jason Cromartie said.
Acting Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Detroit Special Agent in Charge Jared Murphey said the indictment demonstrates the task force's commitment to protecting communities from transnational criminal organizations accused of exploiting vulnerable victims while trafficking drugs and firearms.
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Among those charged are six defendants living in Ohio. They include Venezuelan nationals Jean Pierre Alejandro Guillen Salcedo, 30, and Taidin Adreina Ferrer Guillen, 34, both of Hilliard; Venezuelan nationals Pedro Angel Colls-Flores, 34, and Alismar Daniela Contreras-Arevalo, 20, both of Columbus; and Colombian nationals Briyi Daniela Ordonez-Iter, 21, of Hilliard, and Julian David Patino Pena, 33, of Columbus.
Two additional defendants are Venezuelan nationals living in Tennessee: John Alexandre Fajardo-Ulzcategui, 27, and Jose Ruben Sanchez-Pena, 34, both of Smyrna.
The remaining defendants are Venezuelan national Keivar Elian Guillen Salcedo, 26, of Charlotte, North Carolina; Venezuelan national Therry Brayant Leon Gavida, 34, of Jacksonville, Florida; and Venezuelan national Dervin Alejandro Colmenares Quintero, 29, whose residence is listed as Mexico.
The Justice Department said the case is part of the Homeland Security Task Force initiative established under President Donald Trump's Executive Order 14159, Protecting the American People Against Invasion. The initiative is intended to target transnational criminal organizations, foreign gangs, human trafficking networks and violent criminal aliens operating in the United States.
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An indictment contains allegations only. All defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the Justice Department seeking clarification about an apparent discrepancy in its announcement regarding the age of one of the alleged trafficking victims and will update this story if a response is received.
Greg Wehner is a reporter for Fox News Digital covering U.S. news and crime, with a focus on breaking developments, law enforcement, public safety and major stories shaping communities across the country.
Socialist Momentum Grows as Melat Kiros Wins in Denver
Socialist Momentum Grows as Melat Kiros Wins in Denver
A democratic socialist who lost her job for speaking out about Gaza unseated a 29-year incumbent.
Akela Lacy
July 1 2026, 12:09 a.m. ET
Melat Kiros at a League of Women Voters candidate forum at Montview Presbyterian Church on May 28, 2026, in Denver.
Photo: RJ Sangosti/TheDenver Post via Getty Images
Leftists toppled a three-decade incumbent they’d made the face of the Democratic Party’s failures on Tuesday in Denver amid an anti-establishment wave that has powered progressive and socialist midterm victories across the country.
Voters chose democratic socialist Melat Kiros, an attorney who lost her job for condemning her industry’s silence on Israel’s genocide in Gaza, ahead of longtime Rep. Diana DeGette, a Democrat representing Denver who touted progressive positions on domestic issues but drew criticism that she had grown complacent over three decades in Congress and generally followed the party line on support for Israel.
DeGette’s defeat in Colorado’s 1st Congressional District brought more bad news for Democratic incumbents reeling after losses in New York last week. Party leaders are facing a surge in public frustration with their brand and a cascade of voters who say they don’t wield power effectively. Though some Democratic leaders have discounted those races and claimed that the ascendant candidates’ vision is out of step with the party’s base, leftists and progressives are continuing to notch wins under their noses as they take the battle over the future of the Democratic Party to the polls.
“In the last week, we have taken out 40 years of incumbency,” said Usamah Andrabi, spokesperson for Justice Democrats, which backed Kiros and two of the candidates who won in New York.
Members of the Democratic establishment “hate that they can no longer simply spend unlimited sums of money to buy a seat in Congress, and we are truly proving that organized people power and mass movements can beat the money,” he said. “We’re just having an amazing fucking cycle.”
Kiros, who will face Republican Christy Peterson in November, is heavily favored to win in the solid Democratic district.
“In the last week, we have taken out 40 years of incumbency.”
Anti-incumbent sentiment also came through in the tight Democratic race for governor, where the state attorney general framed himself as the choice against the establishment despite holding statewide office. Two-term Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser defeated sitting Sen. Michael Bennet after casting himself as outsider who went after President Donald Trump in court dozens of times and won — a fairly standard tactic for Democratic state attorneys general.
That’s not to say every race in Colorado was a warning sign for the establishment. In the statewide race for Senate, the incumbent safely kept his seat as progressive challenger Julie Gonzales fell short of ousting centrist Sen. John Hickenlooper. (Hickenlooper had refused to debate Gonzales and tried to thwart her run early in the race.)
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In the district encompassing Colorado Springs, Jessica Killin, an Army veteran and previous chief of staff to former second husband Doug Emhoff, easily beat Joe Reagan, a populist second-time candidate and fellow veteran. Killin had far outraised him with the backing of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Days before the 5th Congressional District primary, Killin pledged to sign onto a new pact from conservative House Democrats to promote capitalism, equating socialism with the right-wing MAGA movement and promising to fight both. Killin will face first-term incumbent GOP Rep. Jeff Crank, whose district the Cook Political Report changed from “solid” to “likely” Republican.
State Rep. Manny Rutinel, a self-proclaimed progressive who’d recently reneged on some of his policy pledges, meanwhile, beat a former state lawmaker backed by conservative Democrats’ Blue Dog PAC in the 8th District, rated a “toss up” and one of the DCCC’s “races in play” that could help determine control of the House. He’ll face freshman GOP Rep. Gabe Evans, who was ranked last summer as the most vulnerable incumbent in the country.
Rutinel campaigned in the heavily Latino district on fighting the “cruelty” of Trump’s immigration policy and attacked the record of his opponent, Shannon Bird, on the issue. He positioned himself as the candidate who would do more to rein in Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Backed by the campaign arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Rutinel backed off of some of his more left-leaning stances during his campaign, such as restricting military funding for Israel, establishing Medicare for All, and opposing fracking. He ran without the support of the Working Families Party, which had previously endorsed him but backed another candidate who dropped out of the race.
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I'm inWhile Blue Dog-backed Bird had the institutional support of the centrist and party-aligned New Democrat Coalition Action Fund and EMILY’s List as well as the pro-Israel Democratic Majority for Israel PAC, Rutinel had the advantage in fundraising and dominated ad space.
“Voters can see through the hollow words and platitudes of the corporate-backed candidates who have tried to hijack our working families-centered messaging during this campaign,” said Carlos Valverde, Southwest regional director for the Working Families Party. “People are tired of status-quo, do-nothing politics that protect the comfortable while working families struggle with housing, healthcare, wages, and basic dignity.”
In Denver, according to Andrabi, on-the-ground energy from the campaign’s supporters made the crucial difference. While DeGette received a last-minute infusion of super PAC money, the Kiros campaign “knocked 115,000 doors in this race, which is just insane.”
IT’S EVEN WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT.
What we’re seeing right now from Donald Trump is a full-on authoritarian takeover of the U.S. government.
This is not hyperbole.
Court orders are being ignored. MAGA loyalists have been put in charge of the military and federal law enforcement agencies. The Department of Government Efficiency has stripped Congress of its power of the purse. News outlets that challenge Trump have been banished or put under investigation.
Yet far too many are still covering Trump’s assault on democracy like politics as usual, with flattering headlines describing Trump as “unconventional,” “testing the boundaries,” and “aggressively flexing power.”
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IT’S BEEN A DEVASTATING year for journalism — the worst in modern U.S. history.
We have a president with utter contempt for truth aggressively using the government’s full powers to dismantle the free press. Corporate news outlets have cowered, becoming accessories in Trump’s project to create a post-truth America. Right-wing billionaires have pounced, buying up media organizations and rebuilding the information environment to their liking.
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I’M BEN MUESSIG, The Intercept’s editor-in-chief. It’s been a devastating year for journalism — the worst in modern U.S. history.
We have a president with utter contempt for truth aggressively using the government’s full powers to dismantle the free press. Corporate news outlets have cowered, becoming accessories in Trump’s project to create a post-truth America. Right-wing billionaires have pounced, buying up media organizations and rebuilding the information environment to their liking.
In this most perilous moment for democracy, The Intercept is fighting back. But to do so effectively, we need to grow.
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