More than a week after her disappearance, a teenage girl from Arizona was found on the other side of the border.
The 15-year-old was visiting relatives in Nipomo, Calif., when she went missing around 1 a.m. on July 1, according to the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office.
During the investigation, officials discovered that the teenager had been persuaded to flee to Mexico with Daniel Navarro, 38, who posed as a teenager on Instagram, the US Department of Justice said in a news release .
He drove them from Nipomo to Tijuana, Mexico, the night before the quinceañera scheduled for the teenager, Julie Le, 20, who had also befriended her through social media. Both Navarro and Le are California residents.
Previous coverage:A 15-year-old girl from Arizona disappears in California; ongoing research
It was not an isolated incident, the Justice Department said. Navarro also tried to convince one of the teenager’s relatives to run away and previously requested sexual images of other teenagers through social networks.
On July 10, Navarro and Le were arrested as they entered the US from Mexico. The 15-year-old was rescued from a residence in Tijuana by Mexican authorities the next morning. He has since been reunited with his family, according to the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office.
The Republic does not name the teenager because he is a minor.
The sheriff’s office was assisted by agents from Homeland Security, the FBI and US Customs and Border Patrol. The US Department of Justice intends to prosecute the case in federal court and said in the news release that it will pursue a charge of transportation with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity with a minor, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence 10 years in federal prison. up to life without parole.
The journalist of the Republic Angela Córdoba Pérez contributed to this article.
Contact criminal justice reporter Gloria Rebecca Gomez at grgomez@gannett.com or on Twitter @glorihuh.
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