Kavankumar Patel, An Illegal, Receives 10-Year Sentence For Sex Trafficking

India-West News Desk

OMAHA, NE – Kavankumar Patel, a 27-year-old Indian national living in the US illegally, was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison on two counts of sex trafficking of a minor, federal prosecutors announced.

Upon completing his prison term, Patel will serve a five-year term of supervised release and faces deportation.

Senior U.S. District Judge Joseph F. Bataillon imposed the sentence following an investigation by the Homeland Security Task Force and the Omaha Police Department that led to the rescue of two teenage victims.

The case began in January 2025, when officers responding to a theft report at the AmericInn hotel in Omaha uncovered signs of human trafficking. Authorities recovered two girls, aged 15 and 16, who had been brought to the hotel from out of state to be sold for commercial sex.

The victims told investigators they were instructed to engage in sex acts with hotel employees in exchange for reduced room rates, with the threat that they would be removed from the hotel if they refused. Multiple hotel employees were implicated: investigators stated that two paid the traffickers for sex with one of the victims, while a third employee had sex with the other. Patel, a hotel employee, admitted to using money from the hotel cash register to pay the traffickers for access to one of the minors.

The victims reported having little food and feeling they had no choice but to comply with the demands of their traffickers, who arranged commercial sex acts and posted advertisements for the victims online.