Ivan Banuelos Gandara, 23, pleaded guilty to human trafficking and child sex exploitation in March, court records show. Prosecutors dismissed child prostitution, sex assault, enticement, internet luring and drug charges as part of the plea deal.

Police arrested Gandara in April 2024 after a 13-year-old girl reported he was forcing her to have sex in exchange for money, food and marijuana, the said in a news release.

Detectives also found another 13-year-old victim while

“The amount of bravery these victims showed in coming forward cannot be overstated,” District Attorney Gordon McLaughlin said in a statement.

McLaughlin also thanked the multi-disciplinary human trafficking team that helped with the case and supported the victims.

“Human trafficking cases are incredibly complex, and these partnerships enable us to ensure victims are heard and offenders held accountable,” he said.

Gandara’s attorney could not immediately be reached for comment Friday.

Jamir Deante Bright was arrested in December 2024 on suspicion of three felony “sextortion” charges, including two counts of child sex exploitation and one count of criminal extortion.

Bright pleaded guilty to an added felony count of possessing child sexual exploitation material on May 18. He also pleaded guilty in a separate case on that date to misdemeanor harassment for posting private images, and was sentenced to four years of probation, court records show.

Sextortion is a form of exploitation where children are blackmailed, most often through the threat of publishing an explicit image, Aurora police said. It also includes sharing sexual images for money.

Students from several middle and high schools reported being sexually exploited by anonymous Instagram accounts in January 2024, which were later linked to Bright, police said. The Rangeview Raider Review, the student paper at Rangeview High School, sparked the police investigation by publishing an article about the anonymous account that obtained dozens of explicit photographs of students and sold the uncensored versions, or forced students to pay to have their photos removed.

If Bright successfully completes his probation, the felony charge will be removed from his record.

David Feil was sentenced Monday to 10 years in the Colorado Department of Corrections for child sex exploitation, a felony, which will be followed by 10 years of a sex offender , court records show.

Feil took a deal and pleaded guilty in March to two counts of child sex exploitation, dropping four felony charges of sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust from his case, according to court records.

Douglas County School District received a Safe2Tell tip in March 2025 from a student in Feil’s class at Roxborough Intermediate School about the man sending students inappropriate videos and connecting with children on social media, police said. The students nicknamed Feil “Mr. Pedophile,” according to his arrest affidavit.

Feil had previously received a written warning about having personal relationships with students, but continued to interact with them on social media and message them outside of class, the affidavit stated.

The man was hired at Roxborough Intermediate School in 2015, became a sixth-grade classroom teacher in 2017 and was fired in 2025.

“Feil’s actions followed a clear pattern of grooming, manipulation, and abuse of trust,” 23rd Judicial District Deputy District Attorney Brynn Chase . “He targeted vulnerable students, blurred boundaries over time, and worked to keep them silent. Thanks to the bravery of these victims, his exploitation of students has been put to an end.”

Douglas County District Court Judge Daniel Warhola called Feil’s behavior “unacceptable in this community and to this court,” during Monday’s sentencing hearing, according to the District Attorney’s Office.

James Christopher “Jim” Thomure, 57, of Centennial was arrested in June 2024 after he sexually assaulted and propositioned a 17-year-old student who was finishing an exam in his classroom in May 2024, according to police reports.

Thomure pleaded guilty to one count of sexual exploitation of a child, a felony, and misdemeanor child abuse in January. The district attorney’s office dismissed one count of child sex assault as part of the plea agreement.

The victim read a statement during Thomure’s sentencing hearing Friday and described feeling guilty after the assault and Thomure’s arrest and worrying about how it was impacting him. She convinced herself he thought it was a terrible mistake and regretted it, she said.

“However, this consideration and care was once again not extended when he chose not to plead guilty at the first plea hearing,” she said. “It was not extended when he made that choice knowing I would have to endure a trial over a crime we both know was committed.”

She described being weighed down with anxiety during her high school graduation, carrying the secret of what happened as she was expected to praise him while talking to her classmates.

“The experience has stayed with me for years. I am proud that I chose to stand with myself, with others who have spoken out, who are afraid to speak out or are unsure if they should,” she said.

In addition to 300 days in jail, Thomure was sentenced to eight years of intensive probation for sex offenders as part of the plea agreement.

“This man violated the trust placed in him as an educator and caused lasting harm to a young victim,” said Danielle Jaramillo, chief deputy district attorney. “Our office will continue to hold accountable those who exploit and prey on children.”

Thomure’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the sentencing.

Tera Johnson-Swartz, a 45-year-old Castle Rock woman who taught at STEM School Highlands Ranch, took a deal and pleaded guilty to child sex exploitation in January. The deal dropped several other charges from her case, including second-degree kidnapping, sexual assault with a 10-year age difference, unlawful electronic sexual communication and sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust, court records show.

Douglas County District Court Judge Ryan James Stuart sentenced Johnson-Swartz on March 12 to 14 years in prison, according to a .

“Douglas County has some of the finest teachers in Colorado. I know, because — like many parents in our community — I have entrusted my four kids to be taught by them,” District Attorney George Brauchler stated in the release. “This warning is coming from the DA and a parent: if a teacher in our community exploits their position of trust with our kids for their own lascivious desires, we will seek to change their life forever.”

Johnson-Swartz’s employment at the Highlands Ranch school ended on Feb. 14, 2025, after her relationship with the 16-year-old student was uncovered, sheriff’s officials said.

Johnson-Swartz would buy the student cigarettes and let the student “take a hit” off her marijuana pen, according to the grand jury indictment. Their relationship was discovered when the student¶¶Ňőap phone was confiscated by their parents and the student¶¶Ňőap mother found thousands of texts to and from the former teacher, many containing sexually explicit content, according to the indictment.

Orlando Archuleta, 54, was arrested and charged with five felony counts of child sex exploitation, according to Arapahoe County court records. More than 15,000 child sex abuse images were found on his devices during a search, according to a from the Aurora Police Department.

Dzhamshed Yusupov, 38, faces seven counts of the same charge, court records show. Investigators found 69 images and more than 2,600 videos on his seized devices, police said.

As of Thursday, both men had posted a $10,000 bail, according to court records.

“Every image and every video represents the abuse of a real child,” Aurora Police Department Investigations Bureau Commander Marc Paolino stated in the release. “These are not files or data; they are innocent victims who deserve protection, dignity and justice.”

Aurora detectives received tips on both cases from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in early 2025, flagging online accounts sharing or possessing child sexual abuse material in Aurora, police said.

According to their arrest affidavits, officials with KiK, a messaging app, and Google submitted the tips after finding videos and photos of child sex abuse shared on those platforms.

The videos and photos showed infants, children and animals being abused and assaulted, detectives wrote in the affidavits.

Investigators traced the IP addresses of the accounts to Yusupov’s and Archuleta’s homes, police said.

Yusupov is next set to appear in Arapahoe County District Court on Feb. 25 for a preliminary hearing, according to court records. Archuleta will next appear on March 2.

The investigations both remain active, according to the Aurora Police Department. Anyone with any information can contact Metro Denver Crime Stoppers at 720-913-7867.

Tera Johnson-Swartz pleaded guilty during a Wednesday hearing in Douglas County District Court to one count of sexually exploiting a child, a felony, court records show.

The plea deal dropped five other felony charges from her case, including second-degree kidnapping, sexual assault with a 10-year age difference, unlawful electronic sexual communication and two counts of sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust–pattern of abuse, according to court records. The deal also dismissed one misdemeanor charge of contributing to the deliquency of a minor.

Johnson-Swartz, a 45-year-old Castle Rock woman who taught at STEM School Highlands Ranch, was accused of kissing and initiating sex with a student younger than 18 years old. Her employment at the school ended on Feb. 14, 2025.

The woman’s relationship with the student was discovered when the student’s parents found deleted text chains with the former teacher, according to a grand jury indictment. The chains included roughly 2,400 text messages, many containing sexually explicit content.

Johnson-Swartz is scheduled to appear in court for a sentencing hearing on March 30.

Patricio Alejandro Illanes, 39, faces 10 counts each of sexual exploitation of a child – creates material; sexual exploitation of a child – publishes, sells or distributes; sexual exploitation of a child – possession with intent to distribute; sexual exploitation of a child – producing a performance; and unlawful practice of occupation or profession, according to a release from the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office.

Illanes was most recently an English teacher at Arvada Senior High School, but he has since been fired. Illanes was also employed by the city of Longmont and taught at Erie Middle School. He had access to students at other schools in Boulder County and in Denver, according to the release.

Illanes is being held at the Boulder County Jail without bail.

Boulder County Digital Forensics Lab detectives began investigating Illanes in September after they received three tips from Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, reporting that Illanes’ account was creating and selling sexually explicit content, according to the release.

Detectives searched Illanes’ cell phone and found multiple videos of individuals who appeared to be minors engaging in sexually explicit activity. Those videos had been shared on encrypted messaging applications and paid subscription pornography sites, the release said.

Illanes also asked minors to “perform a script” in front of a green screen while he photographed and filmed them, according to the release. Four individuals who live outside of Colorado told police they were minors at the time.

The content was removed, and Illanes’ accounts have been deactivated.

In addition to Arvada Senior High School and Erie Middle School, Illanes interacted with students through City of Longmont Children, Youth and Family Services, TGTHR in Boulder and Longmont, New Meridian High School in Longmont, the Longmont Public Library, Centaurus High School in Lafayette, Mapleton School District in Denver and Erie High School.

Illanes was employed with the city of Longmont until 2021. In a , the city said police are not aware of any victims associated with either the library or the city’s Children, Youth and Family Services.

While the city already conducts background checks on all employees, it is actively reviewing its hiring and background-check policies, the statement said.

The Boulder County Sheriff’s Office asks any potential victims to contact the law enforcement agency where the suspected victimization happened.

Illanes was set for a hearing on advisement at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Boulder County Jail courtroom, according to court records.

In addition to police in Arvada, Longmont, Erie and Lafayette, detectives from two counties in Oregon, a police department in Ohio, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation assisted in the investigation.

Austin Ryan Lauless coerced, exploited and threatened at least 84 children on social media into producing thousands of sexually explicit images and videos between 2019 and 2023, according to a news release from the Indiana U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The victims include children between the ages of 13 and 17 from nearly every state and at least five other countries, federal officials said in the release. Investigators believe there may still be more undiscovered victims.

Lauless pleaded guilty in September to 13 counts of sexual exploitation of a child, five counts of sex trafficking of a minor, two counts of advertising child sexual abuse material and possession of child sexual abuse material, court records show.

He was sentenced Wednesday to 84 years in federal prison, which will be followed by a lifetime of supervised release, according to court records.

Lauless posed as “Cason Fredrickson” and “APOPHIS” on the internet, pretending to be a teenager from New York and other cities, federal officials said. He used photos from public Instagram pages to conceal his real identity: a man in his late 20s who lived in hotels and motels across Colorado and Texas.

The man misrepresented his age, identity, background and likeness to groom minors and create a false sense of safety, federal prosecutors said. He also used voice modulators and third-party image and video apps to edit content and keep up his disguise.

“He feigned romantic interest in victims, told them they were attractive and pretended to be in online relationships,” the news release stated. “He purchased items for many victims through Amazon — including fishnet stockings, sexual devices and customized t-shirts — which he instructed them to wear while producing sexually explicit material.”

Lauless threatened to publicly release the images and videos if his victims failed to comply with his demands or if they tried to tell their parents or law enforcement, federal prosecutors said.

He sold child sex abuse material at least 141 times and admitted to federal investigators that his collection included thousands of photos and videos, including videos of sadomasochistic abuse and bestiality.

“This case represents one of the most egregious forms of exploitation the FBI investigates,” Special Agent in Charge Timothy J. O’Malley of the FBI’s Indianapolis field office said in a statement. “This was not an isolated crime — it was a nationwide and international campaign of exploitation.”

The case was prosecuted as part of , a national initiative from the U.S. Department of Justice that focuses on battling child sex exploitation and abuse.

Anyone who believes they were, or who believes they know someone who was, a victim of Lauless should contact their local FBI office, call the FBI tip line at 1-800-225-5324 or submit information online at .

Michael Ray Lozano, 52, was arrested on Dec. 4 and charged with eight counts of felony sexual exploitation of a child, according to a from the Aurora Police Department.

Federal investigators first learned about a suspect in Aurora attempting to download child sexual abuse material in 2023, police said. FBI agents later searched Lozano’s home and seized an unknown number of devices, which together stored several terabytes of explicit material involving children.

The FBI handed the investigation over to the Aurora Police Department in August 2025 so charges could be filed in state criminal court after the Assistant U.S. Attorney’s Office in Colorado declined to accept the case, according to Lozano’s arrest affidavit.

Lozano allegedly downloaded the files through Freenet, a free software that shares documents between users and attempts to hide which computers upload to or download from the network, the affidavit stated.

Law enforcement across the country has investigated the trafficking of child sex abuse material on Freenet since 2011, police said in the affidavit. Message boards on the website allow users to post keys to explicit photos and videos for others to download, or to discuss the sexual exploitation of minors.

Some of the files believed to have been downloaded by Lozano between December 2022 and August 2023 include videos of children — as young as 2 and as old as teenagers — engaging in sexual contact with each other and with unidentified adults, according to the document. Many of the videos were nearly an hour long, and at least one was more than 90 minutes.

When FBI agents searched Lozano’s home in August 2023, he told them he had an attraction to minors and watched the videos “to keep his urges under control,” the affidavit stated.

He told agents he started watching child sex abuse material in 1996, that he viewed it nightly and that he downloaded “new content” every few months.

The FBI reviewed the materials found on Lozano’s devices between October 2023 and August 2025, according to the affidavit. That’s when the case was transferred to the Aurora Police Department and, in September, an arrest warrant was issued for Lozano.

As of Thursday, Lozano had posted bail at $5,000, police said. He is next scheduled to appear in court Friday morning.

Anyone with information on the case is asked to contact Metro Denver Crime Stoppers at 720-913-7867. Tipsters can remain anonymous and may be eligible for a reward of up to $2,000.

This is a developing story and may be updated.