10,000 arrested in child sex-predator probe, U.S. says

By Antonio Olivo
Tribune staff reporter
Published June 7, 2007

Immigration authorities have arrested more than 500 sexual predators of children in Illinois during the last four years, the sixth-highest total in the country, under a special initiative called Operation Predator, federal officials plan to announce Thursday.

Nationwide, the investigation, run by the department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has nabbed about 10,000 child sex offenders, with 85 percent of those arrested found to be non-citizens, said ICE spokeswoman Gail Montenegro. That high percentage reflects the nature of the investigation, which focused on foreign nationals and targeted international Internet rings used by people in the U.S., she said.

More than 5,500 of those arrested around the country have been deported, she said.

In the Chicago area, those arrested included a former principal at Chicago International Charter School's West Belden campus on the Northwest Side, an Aurora police officer, a Wilmette junior high school teacher and a Chicago pediatrician -- all of them U.S. citizens who kept child pornography in their homes or solicited children for sex over the Internet, Montenegro said.

Non-citizens arrested included a 26-year-old Mexican national convicted of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl in Moline and a Nicaraguan national in central Indiana convicted of molesting a 6-year-old girl.

Both men served prison time and were later deported, officials said


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