Dennis De Jesus, Sex Trafficking, Florida 2014

A 46-year-old Fort Lauderdale man has pleaded guilty to traveling to Colombia to engage in sexual activity with minors, enticing the minors to engage in sexual activity, and knowingly possessing a visual depiction of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

Dennis De Jesus, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, pled guilty to the charges on an unspecified date. He faces a mandatory minimum term of 10 years in prison up to a statutory maximum term of life in prison.

The investigation began in September 2014, when HSI in Bogotá, Colombia received information that De Jesus intended to travel to Colombia in order to engage in sexual activity with minors.

An undercover operation was conducted by the ICE-HSI’s Attaché Office in Colombia and the Colombian Attorney General’s Technical Investigative Corps Transnational Criminal Investigative Unit (CTI TCIU). The operation revealed that De Jesus had traveled to Medellin, Colombia in June 2013 and engaged in illicit sexual conduct with minor females.

De Jesus was arrested and his home was searched, where a computer and cellular telephone were seized. The computer contained videos depicting De Jesus with minors wearing costumes and masks, and the telephone contained text messages between De Jesus, the undercover officer, and two minors.

De Jesus is scheduled to be sentenced on June 30, 2015 at 9:00 a.m. by U.S. District Judge James I. Cohn. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Francis Viamontes and Jodi Anton.

The investigation was a collaborative effort between HSI (Miami and Bogota), United States Customs and Border Protection, the Judicial Attaché’s Office in Bogota, Colombia, the Broward Sheriff’s Office, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the CTI TCIU, the Colombian Navy, the Colombian Army Special Forces, and Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar.

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