WASHINGTON -- More than 19,000 fugitives were rounded up by the U.S. Marshals Service nationwide recently as part of Operation FALCON 2008.
Those figures were announced Wednesday by U.S. Marshals Service director John Clark in Washington, D.C. During June, federal, state and local law enforcement agencies across the U.S. helped marshals clear more than 25,000 outstanding warrants, with each state choosing one week during the month to conduct an intensive effort to locate and arrest wanted fugitives.
In Utah, 161 fugitives were arrested. This was the fifth FALCON (Federal and Local Cops Organized Nationally) operation by U.S. marshals.
Nationally, officers put gang members, sex offenders and violent criminals at the top of their fugitive priority lists. A total of 161 people wanted in homicides was arrested, as well as 388 gang members and 1,096 wanted on sex offenses.
Among the notable arrests nationwide:
Roger Allen Chipman, who walked away from a Michigan prison work detail in 1970, was arrested in Wisconsin. Investigators discovered that since disappearing in 1970, Chipman had assumed a new identity, been arrested twice under his alias and actually had his false name on a sex offender registry.
Steve Kwon and Jae Hawn Shim, wanted on four counts of murder, including two children, were arrested at the Port of Entry in Douglas, Ariz.
In addition to the arrests, officers seized 418 weapons, 34 vehicles, 2,400 kilograms of drugs and $1.5 million in cash.