Overview

• He was extradited from Mexico in February 2021 and transferred to federal custody in Brooklyn.
• Between 2001 and 2009, the network lured Mexican women with false promises of romance and forced them into prostitution across at least 16 U.S. states.
• Victims were subjected to physical beatings, coerced abortions and threats against themselves and their families to maintain control over their forced labor.
• His siblings, Ernesto and Giovanni Hernandez-Velazquez, each received 210-month sentences while sister Arcelia Hernandez-Velazquez was released after time served of roughly five years.
• Since 2009, the U.S.-Mexico Bilateral Human Trafficking Enforcement Initiative has led to over 175 U.S. federal prosecutions and numerous Mexican actions against cross-border traffickers.