Grand Prairie man gets 20 years in federal prison for alien smuggling conspiracy investigated by Homeland Security Task Force

Date: May 26, 2026

Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov

Del Rio, TX – A Grand Prairie man was sentenced in a federal court in Del Rio to 240 months in prison for his involvement in a failed human smuggling event, announced U.S. Attorney Justin R. Simmons for the Western District of Texas.

According to court documents, Van Donovan Brown aka “Sledge” was actively recruiting load drivers, particularly on Facebook, for an alien smuggling organization while living abroad in Colombia and facilitated an April 2023 smuggling attempt through a WhatsApp group chat. Records also indicated that Brown submitted multiple CashApp payments to co-conspirator John Klotz aka “Remy.”

Brown was indicted on Oct. 2, 2024, with co-defendant Cameron Alexander Ford. Ford was sentenced to 120 months in federal prison on March 4, and Klotz, who was sentenced to 72 months on May 1. A fourth defendant, Jeffrey Ray Jilpas, was arrested Feb. 20, and is currently awaiting hearings set for next month. U.S. District Judge Ernest Gonzalez presides over the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ashley Ellis-Dotson prosecuted the case.

This prosecution is part of the Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) initiative established by Executive Order 14159, Protecting the American People Against Invasion. The HSTF is a whole-of-government partnership dedicated to eliminating criminal cartels, foreign gangs, transnational criminal organizations, and human smuggling and trafficking rings operating in the United States and abroad. Through historic interagency collaboration, the HSTF directs the full might of United States law enforcement towards identifying, investigating, and prosecuting the full spectrum of crimes committed by these organizations, which have long fueled violence and instability within our borders. In performing this work, the HSTF places special emphasis on investigating and prosecuting those engaged in child trafficking or other crimes involving children. The HSTF further utilizes all available tools to prosecute and remove the most violent criminal aliens from the United States. HSTF comprises agents and officers from FBI; ICE HSI; DEA; ATF; U.S. Border Patrol; USMS; U.S. Postal Inspection Service; Department of Transportation; IRS Criminal Investigation; Texas Department of Public Safety; as well as local police departments and sheriff’s offices, with the prosecution being led by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas.

IRS-CI is the law enforcement arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. It is the only federal law enforcement agency with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code. IRS-CI has 18 field offices located across the U.S. and maintains an international presence through attaché posts abroad.