Four illegal aliens are accused of operating a sophisticated theft ring, stealing some $1.7 million in goods in nine burglaries that targeted mostly Asian American business owners across Florida, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd reveals.
“We have these organized criminals coming through the southern border targeting legitimate Americans, legitimate small business people, and looking for people in gated communities with nice houses and jewelry,” Judd said during a news conference:
There able to do that because we have a nonexistent system to keep these criminals out of our country … we have a failed immigration policy … from the time they enter, they failed to appear [in immigration court]. They don’t intend to go by any of society’s rules … they’re sexually battering children and it can all be controlled with an immigration policy that says ‘You’ll come here legally like our Asian American victims did, so we can vet you, and you will not come here [through] Catch and Release.’ [Emphasis added]
News conference (August 15, 2024)
Sheriff Judd is giving details regarding a 17-month investigation of a South American Theft Group (SATG) who burglarized homes in six Florida counties, stealing nearly $1.7 million in property.All of the suspects were living in Winter Garden, Florida, and were in the United States illegally. They specifically targeted homes belonging to small business owners.Click here to read the release: https://tinyurl.com/mp3wej87
Posted by Polk County Sheriff's Office on Thursday, August 15, 2024
The four illegal alien suspects — 33-year-old Geraldine Galeano-Perez, 25-year-old Milton Ayala-Sierra, 41-year-old Jason Alexander Higuera-Ruiz, and 36-year-old Geiler Orobio-Cabezas — are charged with racketeering and burglary crimes related to nine burglaries targeting wealthy Asian Americans across Hillsborough County, Pinellas County, Pasco County, Polk County, Manatee County, and Collier County.
Galeano-Perez, Judd said, is a violent convicted criminal from Colombia who illegally crossed the United States-Mexico border in July 2021 near Hidalgo, Texas. She was apprehended by Border Patrol and released into the U.S. interior with a Notice to Appear (NTA) before a federal immigration judge.
In December 2022, after failing to appear for her court hearing in New York, a federal immigration judge ordered Galeano-Perez deported from the U.S. That year, she was arrested in New York on drug crimes but thanks to the state’s sanctuary policy, was not turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Galeano-Perez was arrested in April of this year in Hillsborough County on burglary charges. After several transfers of custody, she ultimately ended up in Polk County Jail, where she remains on a $365,000 bail and an ICE hold.
Ayala-Sierra first crossed the southern border in July 2021 near Hidalgo. Like Galeano-Perez, he was apprehended, given an NTA, and released.
Ayala-Sierra, though, was given a GPS ankle monitor through the federal government’s Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program. That same month, he ripped the ankle monitor off and was ordered deported in December 2022 in New York when he failed to appear before a federal immigration judge.
Ayala-Sierra was deported to Columbia in June of this year without having been prosecuted for the racketeering and burglary charges against him.
Orobio-Cabezas had already been deported from the U.S. in July 2023 after having been arrested in Troy, Michigan, on burglary charges. At some point, Orobio-Cabezas illegally crossed the border and was arrested in Hillsborough County in April of this year.
He is currently in Pinellas County Jail facing an illegal re-entry conviction.
Higuera-Ruiz first illegally crossed the southern border in December 2021 near San Luis, Arizona. He too was released into the U.S. interior and asked to check in with ICE agents at a later date. Despite the charges against him, Higuera-Ruiz is now at-large after he cut his GPS ankle monitor off.
“We can stop this. But if we don’t you’re going to continue to be victims,” Judd said. “We’re going to continue to chase these people around … but quite frankly we’d like to use these resources on our homegrown criminals.”
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at
