On Sunday authorities arrested Salvador Portillo-Saravia, a fugitive who has been on the run since Fairfax County early last month for allegedly raping an eight-year-old Centreville girl.
Portillo-Saravia, 29, who lived in the Sterling area, was an acquaintance of the family. He was inside the family's home on Cardigan Square in Centreville the morning of Dec. 26 and sexually assaulted the child, Fairfax County police said. The victim reported the incident to a family member on the same day, Officer Bud Walker, a spokesman for the Fairfax County Police Department, said at the time.
Portillo-Saravia, a member of the MS-13 gang, had snuck back into the United States illegally after being to his native El Salvador in 2003. He also had spent time in the Loudoun County jail for public intoxication shortly before the alleged assault.
Portillo was remanded into the custody of the Houston Police Department after his arrest Sunday and will be extradited to Virginia, police said. He is facing charges of rape and sodomy.
Authorities from the U.S. Marshals Service, ICE, Fairfax County police and Houston joined in on the effort to capture Portillo-Saravia.
“The location and arrest of this fugitive, wanted by Virginia authorities on some of the most egregious charges that ICE investigates, is an example of seamless cooperation among law enforcement agencies in Northern Virginia and Houston,” said Enrique M. Lucero, field office director for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations in Washington, D.C. in a statement released Monday afternoon.
