Operation FALCON nets thousands of fugitives

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 this morning by the director of the U.S. Marshals Service, John Clark, in Washington, D.C. During the month of 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 for homicide were arrested, as well as 388 gang members and 1,096 sex offenders.

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 put 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.

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