Long Beach Fugitive Extradited From Colombia, Faces LA Court on Child Abuse Charges

A former Long Beach resident accused of possessing thousands of images of child sexual abuse and of flying to Tanzania to sexually assault a teenage girl made his initial appearance in a Los Angeles federal courtroom today after being extradited from Colombia. Ivan Lozano Hernandez, 39, was remanded to federal custody following the hearing, more than two years after a federal grand jury in Los Angeles first indicted him.

According to FBI Los Angeles, Lozano Hernandez was charged with enticement of a minor to engage in criminal sexual activity, travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct, engaging in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place, and possession of child pornography. The bureau's Los Angeles account said its post referenced coordination with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California, the Los Angeles Police Department, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

Federal court filings, as reported by the Signal Tribune, show Lozano Hernandez first made contact with a 14-year-old girl in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, over WhatsApp in December 2019. Court records describe more than a year of grooming before he flew to Tanzania in October 2021, just before the girl turned 16, where he sexually assaulted her and recorded the abuse on video, according to the same filings.

How the Case Reached Federal Investigators

The case began not in a courtroom but in an email. The Signal Tribune's report on the court filings states that the investigation opened in early 2022 after the victim's parents discovered the online communications and her father emailed the Los Angeles Police Department. That tip led local police to refer the matter to the FBI, which sent agents to interview the victim at the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, per the same account.

Investigators later seized evidence showing Lozano Hernandez possessed more than 4,000 images and videos depicting child sexual abuse, according to federal court records cited by the Signal Tribune. He was one of nine defendants charged in March 2023 as part of a Southern California child exploitation sweep, according to Patch, which reported that he remained a wanted fugitive for more than two years following that indictment.

A Fugitive Hunt That Spanned Three Continents

Colombian National Police arrested Lozano Hernandez on July 21, 2025, at José María Córdova International Airport in Rionegro as he attempted to board a flight to Mexico, according to El Colombiano. The outlet reported he was carrying dual airline tickets to different destinations, an apparent tactic to evade law enforcement, and had been living in Medellín before trying to flee. Colombian authorities were also investigating him at the time for allegedly using WhatsApp to solicit intimate photographs from a 15-year-old minor in Colombia, El Colombiano reported, describing an ongoing pattern of alleged digital grooming while he hid abroad.

His capture was made possible by an Interpol Red Notice and the Angel Watch initiative, a database collaboration between U.S. Homeland Security Investigations and foreign law enforcement that tracks the international travel of known and suspected sex offenders, according to Swissinfo. Formal extradition proceedings then moved through Colombia's Supreme Court of Justice before he was returned to Los Angeles to face the federal charges outlined in his original indictment.

Federal Penalties and the Broader Enforcement Push

Under federal statutes 18 U.S.C. § 2422 and § 2423, charges of enticement of a minor and engaging in foreign illicit sexual conduct carry mandatory minimum prison sentences ranging from 10 to 30 years, with maximum penalties of up to life imprisonment, according to the Department of Justice. Those laws extend U.S. jurisdiction to American residents who travel internationally to abuse minors, allowing prosecutors to pursue cases even when the underlying conduct occurred overseas.

The prosecution falls under Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide Department of Justice initiative launched in 2006 that coordinates federal, state, and local resources including the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations against child sexual exploitation. The Justice Department noted that its Central District of California office charged nine individuals across Southern California in the March 2023 sweep alone, reflecting what federal prosecutors described as a sustained regional effort targeting transnational digital predators who groom minors online before traveling to abuse them.