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A customs officer wears a U.S. Customs and Border Protection badge at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, October 27, 2017.
Mark Lennihan/AP
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Mark Lennihan/AP
NEW YORK — A Peruvian gang leader suspected of nearly two dozen murders in his home country was arrested by U.S. immigration authorities in New York on Wednesday.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Thursday that wanted “Los Killers” leader Gianfranco Torres-Navarro was arrested in Endicott, New York, about 145 miles northwest of New York City. He is being held at a federal detention facility near Buffalo awaiting an immigration hearing, ICE said.
Torres-Navarro, 38, entered the United States illegally from the Texas-Mexico border on May 16. He was arrested that day and received a notice to appear in court for immigration proceedings, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said it took action to arrest Torres-Navarro after receiving information on July 8 that he was wanted in Peru.
“Gianfranco Torres-Navarro poses a significant threat to our communities, and we will not allow New York to become a safe haven for dangerous aliens,” said Thomas Brophy, chief of deportation operations for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Buffalo field office.
Immigration agents also arrested Torres-Navarro’s girlfriend, Michelle Sol Ivana Ortiz Ubilos, who Peruvian authorities said was Torres-Navarro’s right-hand woman. She is being held at a processing center in Pennsylvania, according to ICE’s online detainee locator system.
Online immigration detention records for Torres-Navarro and Ortiz Ubilos do not include information for attorneys who could comment on their behalf.
The Peruvian judicial system confirmed to the Associated Press that it had ordered an international manhunt on July 3 to find Torres-Navarro and his accomplice Ortiz Ubiluz.
According to Peruvian authorities, Torres-Navarro was the leader of a criminal organization called the Ventanilla and Callao Killers, which used violence to thwart rivals and prevent them from encroaching on its core business of extorting construction companies.
Gianfranco 23 has previously managed to evade efforts to hold him accountable
Torres-Navarro allegedly fled Peru following the killing of retired police officer Cesar Quegua Herrera and the shooting of a municipal employee at a restaurant in San Miguel in March, Peruvian media reported.
Peru’s National Police said the “Los Killers” group was founded in 2022 in the Pacific coast region where Peru’s main ports are located. Six members were arrested in a series of raids in June and charged with murder, contract killing and extortion.
The Peruvian prosecutor’s office said Torres-Navarro was a member of the Los Malditos de Angamos criminal group. He was also known as “Gianfranco 23,” a reference to the number of people he is suspected of killing.
Torres-Navarro has previously evaded challenges to hold him accountable for his alleged crimes.
In 2019, while on the run, he was sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison for illegal possession of weapons. He remained at large until he was arrested at a toll booth near the Peruvian capital of Lima in 2021. But even then, he did not spend long in prison. After being acquitted in that case, Torres-Navarro was released in December last year.
Soon after, Los Killers’ violence escalated further, culminating in a shooting in San Miguel, Peruvian authorities said.
Peruvian authorities say Torres-Navarro’s girlfriend, Ortiz Ubilos, played a key role in the “hitman” case. The prosecutor’s office said she was Torres-Navarro’s lover, deputy and cashier.
She also has a large following on social media platform TikTok, where she showcases their lavish lifestyle, including designer clothes, resort vacations and shooting targets at a shooting range.
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