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Tag: U.S. Department of Homeland Security

  • Some airports refuse to play Noem video on shutdown impact, saying it’s political

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    FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Airports big and small around the country are refusing to play a video with a message from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in which she blames Democrats for the federal government shutdown and its impacts on Transportation Security Administration operations.

    Airports in New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Las Vegas, Charlotte, Phoenix, Seattle and more say the video’s political content goes against their policies or regulations prohibiting political messaging in their facilities.

    Various government agencies, in emails to workers and on websites, have adopted language that blames Democrats for the shutdown. Some experts argue it could be in violation of the 1939 Hatch Act, which restricts certain political activities by federal employees.

    The shutdown has disrupted routine operations at some airports, leading to flight delays. Democrats say any deal to reopen the government has to address their health care demands, and Republicans say they won’t negotiate until they agree to fund the government. Some medical insurance premiums would double if Congress fails to renew the subsidy payments that expire Dec. 31.

    In the video, Noem says the TSA’s “top priority” is to help make travel pleasant and efficient while keeping passengers safe.

    “However, Democrats in Congress refuse to fund the federal government, and because of this, many of our operations are impacted, and most of our TSA employees are working without pay,” she continues.

    The TSA falls under the Department of Homeland Security. Roughly 61,000 of the agency’s 64,130 employees are required to continue working during the shutdown.

    A spokesperson for DHS responded to a request for comment restating some of the message from Noem’s video.

    “It’s unfortunate our workforce has been put in this position due to political gamesmanship. Our hope is that Democrats will soon recognize the importance of opening the government,” spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said.

    DHS said Friday that the video is being rolled out to airports across the country.

    In Columbus, Ohio, the video was not being aired at John Glenn International Airport as of Tuesday. Spokesperson Breann Almos said it is under legal review but did not provide a timeline.

    The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates John F. Kennedy International Airport, LaGuardia Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport, said it would not air the videos, citing rules against “politically partisan messages.”

    Near the border with Canada, travelers won’t see the video at Buffalo Niagara International Airport or Niagara Falls International Airport. The Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority said its “long-standing” policy and regulations prohibit “partisan messaging” in its facilities.

    The Chicago Department of Aviation said advertising and public service announcements must follow guidelines that “prohibit content that endorses or opposes any named political party.” In Florida, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport said it has a policy that doesn’t allow political messaging to be displayed in its facility. Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas said it had to “remain mindful of the Hatch Act’s restrictions.”

    “Per airport regulations, the terminals and surrounding areas are not designated public forums, and the airport’s intent is to avoid the use of the facility for political or religious advocacy,” the airport’s statement said.

    Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins said the county north of New York City won’t play the video at its local airport. In a statement, he called the video “inappropriate, unacceptable, and inconsistent with the values we expect from our nation’s top public officials,” and said its tone is “unnecessarily alarmist” as it relates to operations at Westchester County Airport.

    “At a time when we should be focused on ensuring stability, collaboration and preparedness, this type of messaging only distracts from the real issues, and undermines public trust,” he said.

    Even in red states, airports weren’t showing the video for various reasons. Salt Lake City International Airport wasn’t playing it because state law prohibits using city-owned property for political purposes, said airport spokesperson Nancy Volmer.

    The airport in Billings, Montana, “politely declined” even though it has screens that could show the video with audio, assistant aviation director Paul Khera said Tuesday.

    “We don’t want to get in the middle of partisan politics,” Khera said. “We like to stay middle of the road, we didn’t want to play that video.” ___

    Yamat reported from Las Vegas. Associated Press writers Mead Gruver in Fort Collins, Colorado; Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio; and Claire Rush in Portland contributed to this report.

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  • FACT FOCUS: Trump paints a grim portrait of Portland. The story on the ground is much less extreme

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    PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — President Donald Trump, members of his administration and conservative influencers painted a bleak portrait of Portland, Oregon, at a roundtable event at the White House Wednesday, alleging that the city has been besieged by violence perpetrated by “antifa thugs” and that it is essentially a war zone.

    “It should be clear to all Americans that we have a very serious left-wing terror threat in our country, radicals associated with the domestic terror group antifa that you’ve heard a lot about lately,” Trump said.

    But the reality on the ground in Portland is far from the extremes described at the White House.

    Here’s a closer look at the facts.

    The protests

    TRUMP: “In Portland, Oregon, antifa thugs have repeatedly attacked our offices and laid siege to federal property in an attempt to violently stop the execution of federal law.”

    THE FACTS: There have been nightly protests outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland for months, peaking in June when police declared one demonstration a riot. There have also been smaller clashes since then: On Labor Day, some demonstrators brought a prop guillotine — a display the U.S. Department of Homeland Security blasted as “unhinged behavior.”

    The protests at the ICE facility, which is outside downtown, have largely been confined to one city block and have attracted a range of participants. During the day, a handful of immigration and legal advocates mill about and offer copies of “know your rights” flyers. Daytime marches to the building have also included older people and families with young children. At night, other protesters arrive, often using megaphones to shout obscenities at law enforcement.

    While the administration claims protesters are antifa, short for “anti-fascists,” antifa is not a single organization but rather an umbrella term for decentralized far-left-leaning militant groups that confront or resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations.

    The building was closed for three weeks from mid-June to early July because of damage to windows, security cameras, gates and other parts of the facility, federal officials said in court filings submitted in response to a lawsuit brought by Portland and Oregon seeking to block the Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard. The building’s main entrance and ground-floor windows have been boarded up.

    Protesters have also sought to block vehicles from entering and leaving the facility. Federal officials argue that this has impeded law enforcement operations and forced more personnel and resources to be sent from other parts of the country.

    However, in the weeks leading up to the Trump administration’s move to federalize 200 members of the Oregon National Guard on Sept. 28, most nights drew a couple dozen people, Portland police correspondence submitted to the court shows.

    Protests began growing again after the National Guard was ordered to Portland over the objections of local and state officials.

    Since June, Portland police have arrested at least 45 people, with the majority of those arrests taking place in June. Meanwhile, federal prosecutors have charged at least 31 people with crimes committed at the building, including assaulting federal officers; 22 of those defendants had been charged by early July.

    Is Portland on fire?

    TRUMP: “The amazing thing is, you look at Portland and you see fires all over the place. You see fights, and I mean just violence. It’s just so crazy. And then you talk to the governor and she acts like everything is totally normal, there’s nothing wrong.”

    THE FACTS: Fires outside the building have been seen on a handful of occasions. In June, a man was arrested after he lit a flare and tossed it onto a pile of materials stacked against the vehicle gate, according to federal prosecutors, who said the fire was fully extinguished within minutes.

    More recently, social media videos of the Labor Day protest showed a small fire lit on the prop guillotine. And in early October, following the announcement of the National Guard’s mobilization, videos on social media showed a protester holding an American flag on fire — and conservative influencer Nick Sortor stomping the fire out.

    There have also been some high-profile confrontations between protesters and counterprotesters. In late September, conservative media figure Katie Daviscourt was hit in the face with a flagpole and suffered a laceration, police logs show. In early October, Sortor, who has more than 1 million followers on X, was arrested along with two other protesters following an altercation. Local prosecutors ultimately declined to charge him after finding that one of the protesters had pushed him and that “any physical contact he had with other persons was defensive in nature.”

    While Portland police correspondence submitted to the court notes a few instances of “active” energy and disturbances between protesters and counterprotesters, many entries describe low energy and “no issues” in the weeks leading up to the National Guard’s mobilization.

    A new tongue-in-cheek website has also launched in recent days: isportlandburning.com shows multiple live cameras in the city and near-real-time data from the city’s fire department.

    Shops and sewers

    TRUMP: “I don’t know what could be worse than Portland. You don’t even have sewers anymore. They don’t even put glass up. They put plywood on their windows. But most of the retailers have left.”

    THE FACTS: This is false. Portland does have sewers — its sewer and stormwater system “includes more than 2,500 miles of pipes, nearly 100 pump stations, and two treatment plants,” according to the city’s website. The largest sewer pipe is the East Side Big Pipe, which has an inside diameter of 22 feet, while the smallest are only six inches in diameter.

    Local and state officials have suggested that many of Trump’s claims appear to rely on images from 2020. Portland famously erupted in more than 100 days of large-scale unrest and violent protests after George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police that year. Police were unable to keep ahead of splinter groups of black-clad protesters who broke off and roamed the downtown area, at times breaking windows, spraying graffiti and setting small fires.

    But Portland has largely recovered from that time. Under a new mayor and police chief, the city has reduced crime, and the downtown — which has more than 600 retail shops, many with glass storefronts — has seen a decrease in homeless encampments and increased foot traffic. This summer was reportedly the busiest for pedestrian traffic since before the coronavirus pandemic, and a recent report from the Major Cities Chiefs Association found that homicides from January through June decreased by 51% this year compared to the same period in 2024.

    Gov. Tina Kotek said she told Trump during a phone call that “we have to be careful not to respond to outdated media coverage or misinformation that is out there.”

    Accusation of a cover-up

    KRISTI NOEM, Homeland Security Secretary: “I was in Portland yesterday and had the chance to visit with the governor of Oregon, and also the mayor there in town, and they are absolutely covering up the terrorism that is hitting their streets.”

    THE FACTS: Noem did visit Portland on Tuesday and met with Kotek and Mayor Keith Wilson. Both officials disagree with Noem’s narrative.

    Kotek has repeatedly said that “there is no insurrection in Portland,” including in conversations with Trump and Noem, and that the city does not need “military intervention.” She has also continually called for any protests to be peaceful and said that local law enforcement can “meet the moment.” After Trump threatened to send the National Guard to Portland, Wilson said in a statement that the city has protected freedom of expression while “addressing occasional violence and property destruction.”

    Observations on the ground in Portland support Kotek’s statement. While the nightly protests at the ICE facility have been disruptive for nearby residents — a charter school relocated this summer to get away from crowd-control devices — life has continued as normal in the rest of the city. There is no evidence of the protests in other areas of the city, including the downtown area about two miles away.

    Portland residents have taken to social media to push back against the Trump administration’s statements about their city with the hashtag #WarRavagedPortland, posting photos and videos that show protesters in inflatable unicorn and frog costumes, along with people walking their dogs, riding their bikes and shopping at farmers markets.

    ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

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  • Illinois Democrats call for investigation of fatal shooting of Franklin Park man by ICE agent

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    Hours after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents fatally shot a man in Franklin Park, U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, a Democrat from Chicago, called for a full investigation of the shooting at a news conference Friday night held in tandem with local officials and immigrant rights leaders.

    He spoke over a loud group of protesters who called out, “Don’t investigate, abolish ICE!” The shouts drowned him out and aides brought him a microphone.

    Garcia condemned the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for “judging an individual who was killed by one of their agents” and “casting him in the worst light.” He said he met with the man’s family after the shooting.

    Asked whether the agents had been wearing body cameras, Garcia said he was not aware.

    The man who was killed, identified by federal officers as Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, 38, was fatally shot after he allegedly tried to flee a traffic stop and struck an officer with his vehicle, leaving him with serious injuries.

    The shooting in the typically quiet, working-class northwest suburb, which has a population that is more than half Hispanic, immediately brought calls for transparency from Illinois political leaders and condemnation from activists who decried the “aggressive” tactics of immigration agents.

    Federal officials, meanwhile, said the officer who opened fire acted appropriately and in fear for his life. He was recovering from severe leg injuries Friday at a local hospital, where his condition had stabilized.

    The Department of Homeland Security said in a written statement that Villegas-Gonzalez is a citizen of Mexico and was in the U.S. illegally, though further details were not provided.

    According to DHS, immigration officers conducted a vehicle stop Friday morning to arrest Villegas-Gonzalez, who has a record of reckless driving offenses.

    Records show that a man whose name and age matches Villegas-Gonzalez has received a number of traffic tickets in Cook County, but an initial search by the Tribune revealed no criminal incidents locally.

    Villegas-Gonzalez “refused to follow law enforcement commands and drove his car” at officers, striking one of the ICE agents and dragging him “a significant distance,” the DHS statement said. “Fearing for his life, the officer discharged his firearm and struck the subject.”

    Both the agent and Villegas-Gonzalez were taken to nearby Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, where Villegas-Gonzalez was pronounced dead, authorities said.

    At Friday night’s news conference, state Rep. Norma Hernandez, a Melrose Park Democrat, said Villegas-Gonzalez had only a traffic violation when agents stopped him Friday.

    “We don’t trust you and we don’t want you here,” she said. “We need to abolish ICE. You cannot get rid of the 14 million undocumented immigrants here.”

    U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez, a Chicago Democrat, and other public officials on the city’s Northwest Side, condemned the shooting and also called for an investigation.

    “We demand a full and thorough investigation into what happened today. DHS is not above the law,” the statement released Friday said. “They should immediately release all body camera footage, warrants, and relevant information on this case. Our community deserves answers and accountability, not the scapegoating of our most vulnerable.”

    One of Villegas-Gonzalez’s Franklin Park neighbors said he had a girlfriend and two young kids, and he believed he worked at a factory or warehouse.

    Several videos surfaced quickly on social media Friday showing the disturbing aftermath of the shooting.

    One, taken by a bystander from across the street, showed two officers in front of a gray sedan that had smashed into the side of a semitruck. The officers could be seen opening the driver’s side door and dragging a limp Villegas-Gonzalez to the side of the road.

    A local activist who was out in the area documenting ICE patrols Friday morning posted another video to his Facebook profile where a truck driver could be heard talking to emergency dispatchers. The camera then pans over to Villegas-Gonzalez, who is lying on the side of the road bleeding, with his hands apparently restrained behind his back. The two officers who removed him from the car are kneeling over him, calling for help and putting on gloves.

    The fatal shooting occurred just days after Trump’s administration announced it was beginning a surge of immigration law enforcement in Chicago, dubbing it “Operation Midway Blitz” and claiming it would target “criminal illegal aliens” who have taken advantage of the city and state’s sanctuary policies.

    The announcement marked the first official word from the Trump administration about increased immigration enforcement after Trump vacillated between vows of “going in” to Chicago with the potential deployment of National Guard troops to fight overall crime, to a stepped-up immigration enforcement role by ICE agents.

    By Friday night, about 25 protesters stood by a small memorial of candles and flowers along Grand Avenue, near the site of the shooting.

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FBI employees watch as a vehicle is towed from the scene where an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed a man after the agency says he tried to flee a traffic stop in the car and struck an officer with his vehicle on Sept. 12, 2025, in Franklin Park. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)

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Tess Kenny, Caroline Kubzansky

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  • FBI and Homeland Security ignored ‘massive amount’ of intelligence before Jan. 6, Senate report says

    FBI and Homeland Security ignored ‘massive amount’ of intelligence before Jan. 6, Senate report says

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security downplayed or ignored “a massive amount of intelligence information” ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S Capitol, according to the chairman of a Senate panel that on Tuesday is releasing a new report on the intelligence failures ahead of the insurrection.

    The report details how the agencies failed to recognize and warn of the potential for violence as some of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters openly planned the siege in messages and forums online.

    Among the multitude of intelligence that was overlooked was a December 2020 tip to the FBI that members of the far-right extremist group Proud Boys planned to be in Washington, D.C., for the certification of Joe Biden’s victory and their “plan is to literally kill people,” the report said. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said the agencies were also aware of many social media posts that foreshadowed violence, some calling on Trump’s supporters to “come armed” and storm the Capitol, kill lawmakers or “burn the place to the ground.”

    The special counsel who investigated the FBI’s probe of ties between Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign found himself at the center of a heated political fight as he appeared before a congressional committee.

    Jeff Woodke, and his wife, Els, pose for a photo at their home in McKinleyville, Calif., Monday, June 5, 2023. American missionary Jeff Woodke was taken by Islamic extremists in Niger and held in captivity for six-and-a-half years. Woodke and his wife, Els, recently spoke to The Associated Press in their first joint interview, sharing previously unreported details about his captivity and their frustrating interactions with the U.S government. (AP Photo/Shaun Walker)

    An American missionary who spent six years in captivity in Africa says he was beaten, locked in chains and pressured repeatedly to convert to Islam.

    Matt Olsen, Assistant Attorney General of the National Security Division of the Department of Justice, right, testifies with, from far left, Chris Fonzone, General Counsel at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, George Barnes, Deputy Director of the National Security Agency (NSA), David Cohen, Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and Paul Abbate, Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), during a Senate Judiciary Oversight Committee hearing to examine Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and related surveillance authorities, Tuesday, June 13, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

    The Biden administration is releasing what it says are newly declassified examples of how U.S. surveillance programs are used.

    FILE - Part of a Nov. 6, 2016, letter from FBI Director James Comey to Congress is photographed in Washington on Nov. 6, 2016. Comey told Congress that a review of new Hillary Clinton emails has "not changed our conclusions" from earlier this year that she should not face charges. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick, File)

    As Donald Trump readies for a momentous court appearance Tuesday on charges related to the hoarding of top-secret documents, Republican allies are amplifying, without evidence, claims that he’s the target of a political prosecution.

    Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the Democratic chairman of the Homeland panel, said the breakdown was “largely a failure of imagination to see threats that the Capitol could be breached as credible,” echoing the findings of the Sept. 11 commission about intelligence failures ahead of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

    The report by the panel’s majority staff says the intelligence community has not entirely recalibrated to focus on the threats of domestic, rather than international, terrorism. And government intelligence leaders failed to sound the alarm “in part because they could not conceive that the U.S. Capitol Building would be overrun by rioters.”

    Still, Peters said, the reasons for dismissing what he called a “massive” amount of intelligence “defies an easy explanation.”

    While several other reports have examined the intelligence failures around Jan. 6 — including a bipartisan 2021 Senate report, the House Jan. 6 committee last year and several separate internal assessments by the Capitol Police and other government agencies — the latest investigation is the first congressional report to focus solely on the actions of the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis.

    In the wake of the attack, Peters said the committee interviewed officials at both agencies and found what was “pretty constant finger pointing” at each other.

    “Everybody should be accountable because everybody failed,” Peters said.

    Using emails and interviews collected by the Senate committee and others, including from the House Jan. 6 panel, the report lays out in detail the intelligence the agencies received in the weeks ahead of the attack.

    There was not a failure to obtain evidence, the report says, but the agencies “failed to fully and accurately assess the severity of the threat identified by that intelligence, and formally disseminate guidance to their law enforcement partners.”

    As Trump, a Republican, falsely claimed he had won the 2020 election and tried to overturn his election defeat, telling his supporters to “ fight like hell ” in a speech in front of the White House that day, thousands of them marched to the Capitol. More than 2,000 rioters overran law enforcement, assaulted police officers, and caused more than $2.7 billion in damage to the Capitol, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report earlier this year.

    Breaking through windows and doors, the rioters sent lawmakers running for their lives and temporarily interrupted the certification of the election victory by Biden, a Democrat.

    Even as the attack was happening, the new report found, the FBI and Homeland Security downplayed the threat. As the Capitol Police struggled to clear the building, Homeland Security “was still struggling to assess the credibility of threats against the Capitol and to report out its intelligence.”

    And at a 10 a.m. briefing as protesters gathered at Trump’s speech and near the Capitol were “wearing ballistic helmets, body armor, carrying radio equipment and military grade backpacks,” the FBI briefed that there were “no credible threats at this time.”

    The lack of sufficient warnings meant that law enforcement were not adequately prepared and there was not a hardened perimeter established around the Capitol, as there is during events like the annual State of the Union address.

    The report contains dozens of tips about violence on Jan. 6 that the agencies received and dismissed either due to lack of coordination, bureaucratic delays or trepidation on the part of those who were collecting it. The FBI, for example, was unexpectedly hindered in its attempt to find social media posts planning for Jan. 6 protests when the contract for its third-party social media monitoring tool expired. At Homeland Security, analysts were hesitant to report open-source intelligence after criticism in 2020 for collecting intelligence on American citizens during racial justice demonstrations.

    One tip received by the FBI ahead of the Jan. 6 attack was from a former Justice Department official who sent screenshots of online posts from members of the Oath Keepers extremist group: “There is only one way in. It is not signs. It’s not rallies. It’s f—— bullets!”

    The social media company Parler, a favored platform for Trump’s supporters, directly sent the FBI several posts it found alarming, adding that there was “more where this came from” and that they were concerned about what would happen on Jan. 6.

    ”(T)his is not a rally and it’s no longer a protest,” read one of the Parler posts sent to the FBI, according to the report. “This is a final stand where we are drawing the red line at Capitol Hill. (…) don’t be surprised if we take the #capital (sic) building.”

    But even as it received the warnings, the Senate panel found, the agency said over and over again that there were no credible threats.

    “Our nation is still reckoning with the fallout from January 6th, but what is clear is the need for a reevaluation of the federal government’s domestic intelligence collection, analysis, and dissemination processes,” the new report says.

    In a statement, Homeland Security spokesperson Angelo Fernandez said that the department has made many of those changes two and a half years later. The department “has strengthened intelligence analysis, information sharing, and operational preparedness to help prevent acts of violence and keep our communities safe.”

    The FBI said in a separate response that since the attack it has increased focus on “swift information sharing” and centralized the flow of information to ensure more timely notification to other entities. “The FBI is determined to aggressively fight the danger posed by all domestic violent extremists, regardless of their motivations,” the statement said.

    FBI Director Christopher Wray has defended the FBI’s handling of intelligence in the run-up to Jan. 6, including a report from its Norfolk field office on Jan. 5 that cited online posts foreshadowing the possibility of a “war” in Washington the following day. The Senate report noted that the memo “did not note the multitude of other warnings” the agency had received.

    The faultfinding with the FBI and Homeland Security Department echoes the blistering criticism directed at U.S. Capitol Police in a bipartisan report issued by the Senate Homeland and Rules committees two years ago. That report found that the police intelligence unit knew about social media posts calling for violence, as well, but did not inform top leadership what they had found.

    Peters says he asked for the probe of the intelligence agencies after other reports, such as the House panel’s investigation last year, focused on other aspects of the attack. The Jan. 6 panel was more focused on Trump’s actions, and concluded in its report that the former president criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 presidential election and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol.

    “It’s important for us to realize these failures to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Peters said.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Eric Tucker and Rebecca Santana contributed to this report.

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  • Feds: Theft of frozen beef in Nebraska uncovers crime ring

    Feds: Theft of frozen beef in Nebraska uncovers crime ring

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    LINCOLN, Neb. — An investigation into the theft this summer of several semitrailers loaded with frozen beef from Nebraska has led to arrests and uncovered a multimillion-dollar theft ring targeting meatpacking plants in six Midwestern states, federal authorities said.

    The U.S. Department of Homeland Security reported Tuesday that the discovery of the Miami-based theft ring began in June with a Nebraska investigation into the theft of semitrailers loaded with nearly $1 million in frozen beef from areas near Grand Island and Lincoln.

    The investigation, led by the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office in Nebraska and Homeland Security’s Major Crimes Task Force in Omaha, determined that the theft ring was targeting beef and pork packaging plants in Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota and Wisconsin.

    Charging documents say federal investigators used phone records and GPS tracking devices on trucks being driven by three men from Miami to place the men in and around meatpacking plants where trailers of meat products were stolen. The documents don’t say what the men did with the meat. Lancaster County Sheriff’s Capt. Michael Peschong said Wednesday that officials are still investigating those details.

    “We haven’t nailed down the exact details on where all the meat stole ended up yet,” Peschong said.

    Investigators said they have identified approximately 45 thefts that occurred across the six Midwest states totaling $9 million in loss.

    On Oct. 20, investigators arrested 38-year-old Yoslany Leyva Del Sol, 37-year-old Ledier Machin Andino, and 39-year-old Delvis L. Fuentes, all of Miami, in south Florida. Online court documents show they are charged with transporting stolen goods and money laundering in Florida’s federal court.

    Lopez was released on bond last Friday and plans to plead not guilty, according to his attorney, Omar A. Lopez of Miami. Del Sol’s bond hearing is set for Thursday, said his attorney, Alfredo Izaguirre of Coral Gables, Florida. Del Sol also plans to plead not guilty, Izaguirre said.

    An attorney for Andino did not immediately return a phone message left for her.

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