NEW YORK — One of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) 10 most wanted human trafficking fugitives was extradited Friday to face criminal charges 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 extradited to the United States on Jan. 27 and was arraigned Saturday at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn. Granados-Rendon faces a 21-count indictment charging him with racketeering and racketeering conspiracy involving predicate acts of sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion; sex trafficking of minors; interstate prostitution; alien smuggling and related offenses.
As set forth in extradition affidavits and other court papers, between October 1998 and June 2011, members of the Granados sex trafficking organization, including Raul Granados-Rendon and others, illegally smuggled young women into the United States where they were forced to work as prostitutes in New York City and elsewhere in the United States. The organization collected profits from the victims’ activities. When victims refused to work or resisted members of the organization beat and sexually assaulted them, and threatened the victims’ family members in Mexico, including the victims’ children.
HSI special agents have identified and rescued over 20 additional victims, all Mexican nationals, and arrested over a dozen additional traffickers or smugglers, all members or associates of the Granados family. Several victims were sexually assaulted by their traffickers, while others were physically assaulted. All the victims said the traffickers threatened to harm their family members.
To date, 13 members of the Granados organization have been indicted in the Eastern District of New York (EDNY) on sex trafficking charges. Raul Granados-Rendon was the last fugitive to be arrested and extradited to face the charges.
ICE
