(The Center Square) – Texas Department of Public Safety officers continue to find missing children and arrest those on its criminal illegal immigrant most wanted list.
With April being “Child Abuse Prevention Month,” DPS troopers have rescued more than 600 children through its Interdiction for the Protection of Children (IPC) Program, DPS said. IPC officers are trained “to identify victims of exploitation, missing children, crimes against children and high-risk threats against children,” DPS said.
Through Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security mission, Operation Lone Star, DPS troopers rescued more than 900 children illegally brought into the U.S. in Texas alone under the Biden administration, The Center Square reported.
So far this year, DPS and other agencies have arrested 21 Texas 10 Most Wanted fugitives, sex offenders and others, including six sex offenders and seven criminal illegal immigrants – with $25,000 in rewards being paid for tips that yielded arrests, DPS said.
One recent arrest was of a fugitive on Texas’ 10 Most Wanted Criminal Illegal Immigrants List, 46-year-old Mexican national Carlos Ortiz. He was arrested after DPS received a tip through Crime Stoppers.
Ortiz was wanted by authorities in Tarrant County since October 2024 on charges of continuous sexual abuse of a young child. He was arrested at an apartment complex in Haltom City by multiple authorities, including special agents from DPS’ Criminal Investigations Division, Haltom City Police and U.S. Marshals North Texas Fugitive Task Force.
Since 2008, Ortiz had been arrested in Tarrant County for assault causing bodily injury to a family member and driving while intoxicated, according to DPS records.
Another fugitive arrested on Texas’ 10 Most Wanted Criminal Illegal Immigrants List was 25-year-old Honduran national Anderson Ronaldo Reyes Giron. He was arrested in north central Austin and wanted by authorities in Travis County since February for deadly conduct (discharging a firearm) and in Williamson County since March on property theft charges.
He was first arrested under the Trump administration in January 2017 by U.S. Customs and Border Protection “for alien removal.” By August 2024, he was arrested by the Austin Police Department officers for deadly conduct (discharging a firearm) and subsequently bonded out of jail, according to DPS records.
Through the governor’s Public Safety Office, taxpayer money is allocated to Texas Crime Stoppers to offer cash rewards to anyone who provides information that leads to the arrest of one of Texas’ 10 Most Wanted Fugitives, Sex Offenders or Criminal Illegal Immigrants. To be eligible for cash rewards, tipsters must provide information to authorities by calling the Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-252-TIPS (8477), submitting a tip through DPS website or Facebook page.
“All tips are anonymous – regardless of how they are submitted – and tipsters will be provided a tip number instead of using a name,” DPS says.
As offenders are arrested and come off of the lists, others are added.
Two recent additions include U.S. citizens, Rondarrius Evans, 21, of New Boston, to the Texas 10 Most Wanted Fugitives List and Rodolfo Martinez Jr., 42, to the Texas 10 Most Wanted Sex Offenders List.
Evans is wanted by authorities in Bowie County since last August on two capital murder charges and drug charges. Martinez Jr. is wanted in Harris County since last November for indecency with a child by sexual contact.
Texas Crime Stoppers is offering cash rewards for tips that lead to their arrests.
