Colombian machete murderer removed from the United States
Pedro Nel Moreno-Romero, 51, was removed from the United States on November 24, 2014 by the Department of Homeland Security’s Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers in Miami, Florida. Moreno-Romero was convicted of aggravated murder in 2013 in Colombia and sentenced to 35 years imprisonment. He murdered a friend, then dismembered the body with a machete and discarded the remains in a plastic bag.
Moreno-Romero had been on the run since 2007. He fled Colombia the next day after committing the murder and illegally entered the United States at or near Hidalgo, Texas, in August 2007. He’s been living in the U.S. undetected for seven years. Moreno-Romero was finally apprehended and ordered removed by an immigration judge in May 2014. His subsequent appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals was denied in October 2014. Moreno-Romero was immediately taken into custody by Colombian authorities upon his arrival in Bogota.
Since 2009, the Department of Homeland Security has removed more than 720 foreign fugitives from the United States, who were being sought in their native countries for serious crimes, including kidnapping, rape and murder. In 2013, ICE conducted 368,644 removals nationwide. Over 82 percent of individuals removed from the interior of the United States had been previously convicted of a criminal offense.
