MIAMI — A man from the Chicago area appeared in Miami federal court on Monday after he was arrested on federal child sexual abuse material-related charges after arriving in South Florida on a flight from Colombia.
Court documents state that federal agents arrested Martin Esho, 33, of Lincolnwood, Illinois, at Miami International Airport after he arrived on an American Airlines flight from Medellin.
While Medellin has developed a reputation as a hotbed of child sexual exploitation, agents did not accuse Esho of directly abusing children.
According to a federal criminal complaint, customs officers selected Esho for an electronic border search and looked at the contents of two iPhones that he had.
Authorities said that they found “images and videos” depicting the sexual abuse of children in password-protected folders on both devices.
According to the complaint, Esho claimed that the videos depicting young girls being raped and sexually abused by adult men “get downloaded inadvertently with his desired videos” but claimed that he “deletes” them.
Esho, agents said, “acknowledged previously viewing” some of the videos “but claims that he forgot to delete them.”
Agents arrested him on charges of possession and transportation of visual depictions involving the sexual exploitation of minors, initially taking him north to be held at a Broward Sheriff’s Office jail facility on behalf of the U.S. Marshals Service.
He has since been transferred back to Miami-Dade County, where records show he was being held at the Federal Detention Center in downtown Miami as of Tuesday afternoon.
Records show he’s set to appear before a Miami federal judge again on Wednesday afternoon for a detention hearing. He’s set to be arraigned March 23.
Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com - All rights reserved.
