Mexican National Sentenced for Role in Carolinas Sex-Trafficking Ring

WASHINGTON – Ciro Bustos-Rosales, a citizen of Mexico, was sentenced in federal court in Columbia, S.C., for his role in a sex trafficking ring involving at least one teenage girl. Bustos-Rosales was sentenced to 70 months in prison, ordered to pay restitution to the victims of his crimes in an amount of $52,500, and placed on supervised release for the rest of his life. As a condition of supervised release, U.S. District Judge Joseph F. Anderson Jr. ordered that Bustos-Rosales be surrendered to immigration officials for deportation proceedings and further ordered that Bustos-Rosales not return to the United States while on supervised release. The sentencing for Bustos-Rosales’ co-defendant, Jesus Perez-Laguna, also set for today, was continued after Perez-Laguna complained that he was not prepared to go forward with sentencing.

During their guilty plea hearings in September 2007, both men admitted that they were involved with transporting a 14-year-old girl across the border between the United States and Mexico and the border between North Carolina and South Carolina in order for the minor to engage in prostitution. Additionally, both men admitted that they harbored illegal aliens for the purpose of prostitution. “Sex traffickers prey on young women who are brought into the United States, far from home, and unaware of the U.S. legal system or their rights to be free from this form of involuntary servitude,â€