BOGOTA — And United States who was captured and faces criminal charges in Miami would have used a Medellín prostitution network led by Colombians to have sexual relations with underage girls, Colombian police said Wednesday.
Stefan Correa, 43, was preparing to board a plane bound for Bogotá when he was detained at Miami International Airport on April 18. The US authorities found nine cell phones with around 50 videos with a dozen girls between 9 and 15 years old.
Minors Network
The Colombian police established that Correa would have used a network that “supplied” minors in Medellín, a city that is experiencing a boom in tourists and faces an increase in cases of sexual exploitation.
Colonel Edwin Urrego Pedraza, head of the Criminal Investigation and Interpol Directorate of the Police, explained that it would be the same network that would have offered minors to another American who was found on March 28 in a hotel in Medellín in the company of two minors of 12 and 13 years of age.
That 36-year-old man from Fort Lauderdale, in southern Florida, was detained for 12 hours and then released by the authorities, in a procedure that is being investigated by the Attorney General’s Office to verify alleged irregularities.
The Colombian authorities ordered his capture. “It has already been located, we know that it is in the state of Ohio and there we are also exchanging information with the HSI agency” of the US government, said Urrego Pedraza. HSI is short for Homeland Security Investigations, which is the investigations division of the Department of Homeland Security.
In Miami, Stefan Correa faces accusations of attempted sex trafficking of minors and attempting to travel to engage in illegal sexual conduct. If he is convicted he could face sentences of between 15 years in prison and life in prison.
Correa would have traveled to Colombia about 45 times since 2022.
Evidence
According to a sworn statement from one of the agents who searched him at the airport, one of the phones had several videos in which he was having sexual relations with a girl between 12 and 14 years old.
On another of the phones there were videos of sexual relations with another even smaller minor, between 9 and 11 years old, according to the agent’s testimony, which constitutes part of the basis of the accusations presented by the US federal prosecutor’s office.
The phones also contained text message exchanges between Correa and another person, apparently a sex trafficker, which began on April 16. In those messages, Correa asked about the age of the girls who were available, according to the document that appears in the online court file. The trafficker, who is not identified by name, responded that they were between 11 and 12 years old and Correa told him that he preferred small, thin girls.
In one of the messages, Correa indicates that he would pay the trafficker about 300,000 Colombian pesos—equivalent to about $75—and the same amount and an iPhone cell phone to one of the girls, 11 years old.
The Colombian authorities are also investigating a 57-year-old American who allegedly lured a 17-year-old minor to his apartment in Medellín, to whom he then offered money for sexual services. A judge ordered him sent to jail, prosecutors said Monday.
Following complaints involving foreign tourists, Medellín, Colombia’s second city, restricted the demand for sexual services — which are not criminalized or regulated in the country — in an attempt to prevent child sexual exploitation.
Source: AP
