Sureno Gang Member Found Guilty of Possessing Child Pornography and Failure to Appear

DEL Rio, Texas - A federal jury in Del Rio convicted a Sureno gang member this week for possession of child pornography and failure to appear, announced U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas, Justin R. Simmons.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, in February 2020, ICE Homeland Security Investigations received a Cybertip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which revealed that a Google account had uploaded six videos of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) to a Google Drive in January 2020. HSI agents reviewed the videos and confirmed they contained CSAM. The email account and its corresponding phone number belonged to Samuel Sandoval Chavez, 42. A search warrant for the Google account further revealed that Sandoval had searched terms included "cute teenage Latino boys" and "teen boyfriend."

HSI found additional videos of child pornography saved on Sandoval's account under a folder labeled with the "devil" emoji. HSI executed a search warrant on Sandoval's home and retrieved a cell phone containing 71 images of child pornography and 82 images of child erotica.

Sandoval was indicted and subsequently arrested in Idaho, where the district judge granted release pending trial and ordered Sandoval to appear in the Western District of Texas for initial appearance, a hearing at which Sandoval failed to appear. Sandoval had instead fled to Mexico and was later apprehended at the Eagle Pass Port of Entry in April 2025.

At trial, defense attorneys argued that Sandoval did not knowingly possess the material because it came from a WhatsApp group chat and automatically downloaded to his phone. The evidence, however, showed that the material was not merely passively downloaded. A forensic review of Sandoval's phone revealed cached data showing that he personally opened the images and videos. Given the strength of the government's case, the jury returned a swift 30-minute guilty verdict.

ICE HSI investigated the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Nallely Duarte and Amy Greenbaum are prosecuting the case.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys' Offices and CEOS, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit Justice.gov/PSC.

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