Seven Americans died when their safari helicopter went down in Kenya on August 19.
Days later, someone broke into the Coral Gables mansion the couple left behind.
Police say one of the two people found inside wasn't even supposed to be in this country.
ICE Says One Suspect Has No Legal Status
Henry Parra and Adam Hlavaty built a life together in South Florida.
Parra was a Navy veteran who became an aviation maintenance executive.
Hlavaty co-founded a real estate development company.
Both died August 19 when their helicopter went down in Kenya's Samburu County.
Their nearly $3 million Coral Gables home sat empty, checked only by a housekeeper who stopped in daily.
Sometime between August 20 and August 22, someone broke in and ransacked it.
Gone were a Range Rover, a Porsche Taycan, personal and business documents, jewelry, and a sculpture worth more than $500,000.
A stolen MacBook gave the suspects away when investigators pinged its location through Apple's tracking app, leading them to a house in northwest Miami-Dade.
A search warrant turned up Geybert Alexander Garcia hiding in a second-floor closet, with Melany Pavon-Perdomo found nearby in a bedroom.
Garcia is a U.S. citizen, according to court records.
Pavon-Perdomo is not.
ICE says she is in the country illegally and has never adjusted her immigration status.
The agency lodged a detainer the same day she was booked.
An ICE spokesperson didn't mince words: "we will find you, we will arrest you, and we will deport you."
Garcia and Pavon-Perdomo are both charged with burglary and grand theft.
Investigators also say they found materials for making fake IDs inside the house.
This Is a Pattern, Not a One-Off
This isn't the first time ICE has described organized crews of illegal immigrants targeting the homes of wealthy Americans.
Agents broke up a network they called the South American Theft Group last fall.
Its members allegedly used burner phones and encrypted messaging to scope out which houses would sit unguarded before hitting them, according to ICE.
A mansion with a dead owner and a housekeeper who only visits once a day fits that profile exactly.
Whatever else is true about Miami-Dade's cooperation with federal agents, this time the jail didn't stand in the way.
Pavon-Perdomo was handed over, and a detainer went on her file instead of a court date followed by release.
Now go 1,200 miles north and watch the opposite play out in real time.
Governor JB Pritzker recently told the Raging Moderates podcast he "can't believe anything" ICE says and suggested agents are breaking the law themselves.
Chicago and Cook County won't hand suspects to ICE at the jail door, so agents have to chase them into neighborhoods instead.
Ask the family of Todd Stewart how that trade-off worked out.
Prosecutors in Martinez, California say the illegal immigrant charged with killing him during a burglary attempt had already been cut loose by a local judge on an earlier burglary case, days before Stewart died.
A dead California man, an illegal immigrant a judge let go anyway, and now a Miami mansion burglarized while its owners were still being identified in a foreign morgue.
That's not a coincidence.
That's what happens when a governor picks a fight with ICE instead of picking up the phone.
Garcia and Pavon-Perdomo are due back in court for arraignment on September 28.
A judge still has to sort out the burglary charges.
ICE has already sorted out the rest.
Sources:
- Sarah Rumpf-Whitten, "Cuban national in US illegally, man accused of burglarizing luxury home after owners killed in Kenya crash," Fox News, August 27, 2026.
- "ICE captures South American theft ring members in Texas," Fox News, November 7, 2025.
- "Archived: NYC sanctuary policies continue to shield criminal aliens," U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
- "Illegal immigrant charged with murder a day after CA judge released him for burglary case," ABC News 4.
- "Pritzker claims you 'can't believe anything ICE is doing,' suggests it's committing 'felonies,'" Fox News.
