2/27/2017

NEW YORK —One of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) 10 most wanted human trafficking fugitives was sentenced Friday based on his guilty plea for sex trafficking. This is subsequent to an initial arrest Sept. 2016 in Mexico, following a joint investigation between ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Mexico City, HSI New York and the Mexican Federal Police.

Raul Granados-Rendon, 30, was sentenced Friday to 15 years’ incarceration and five years’ supervised release. The sentencing is based on Granados-Rendon guilty plea to trafficking young Mexican women into the U.S. and forcing them into prostitution. He was also ordered to pay restitution to a victim in the amount of $1,229,760. Paulino Ramirez-Granados is the latest member of the Granados organization to be sentenced in this case since 2013.

“With a promise of companionship and a better life in the United States, Paulino Ramirez-Granados, instead trafficked unsuspecting women from Mexico into a life of exploitation and prostitution here in New York,” said HSI New York Special Agent-in-Charge Angel M. Melendez. “HSI agents will relentlessly pursue human trafficking organizations and its members until they are all dismantled and brought to justice.”

“This extensive Mexican sex trafficking operation has preyed upon countless young women, exploiting and dehumanizing these victims in terrible ways, in order to line their own pockets. This prosecution and sentence signify the dismantling of an exploitative family organization and our continued commitment to seeking justice for its victims,” stated United States Attorney Robert Capers.

Since 2009, the Department of Justice and HSI have collaborated with Mexican law enforcement counterparts in a Bilateral Human Trafficking Enforcement Initiative aimed at strengthening high-impact prosecutions under both U.S. and Mexican law. The initiative is aimed at dismantling human trafficking networks operating across the U.S.-Mexico border, bringing human traffickers to justice, reuniting victims with their children and restoring the rights and dignity of human trafficking victims held under the trafficking networks’ control. These efforts have resulted in successful prosecutions in both Mexico and the United States, including U.S. federal prosecutions of more than 50 defendants in multiple cases in New York, Georgia, Florida, and Texas since 2009, and numerous Mexican federal and state prosecutions of associated sex traffickers. In the Eastern District of New York’s comprehensive anti-trafficking program, more than 70 defendants have been indicted in sex trafficking cases to date, and provided assistance to more than 135 victims, including 39 minors. In addition, through the Eastern District of New York’s anti-trafficking program, 18 children have been reunited with their victim-mothers.

https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/hu...enced-15-years