A Moldovan fugitive convicted of torturing her victim with savage beatings before throwing them from a ninth-floor window has been arrested by US immigration officers, capping a 12-year flight that spanned continents and exposed flaws in cross-border enforcement. Victoria Sorocean was taken into custody on November 4 in Los Angeles by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. Sentenced in 2013 to 17 years in a Moldovan prison for premeditated murder committed with exceptional cruelty, she escaped justice by fleeing her homeland immediately after the verdict.
The detention, announced today by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ends her time hiding in plain sight across the United States. Court documents from Chisinau detail a night of calculated horror in a cramped apartment. Sorocean and an accomplice cornered their victim, raining down blows with a wooden stick and electrical cable which tore flesh and shattered bone.
As the assault peaked, they dragged the victim to the balcony and shoved them over the edge, sending them crashing nine storeys to the pavement below with fatal results. The appalling brutality ensured her conviction, but Sorocean went on the run soon afterwards.
She slipped into the United States illegally soon after, evading capture until ICE officers nabbed her on January 10, 2020 under the Trump administration. A barrage of asylum claims and legal appeals stalled her deportation, allowing her release in 2022.
For the next four years, she blended into the shadows of Los Angeles until a tip-off triggered a swift ICE raid. Agents moved in, securing her in seconds for the trip back to federal holding.
DHS hailed the operation as a win against the influx of violent fugitives, underscoring the high stakes in a system strained by delays.
Tricia McLaughlin, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at DHS, delivered a searing rebuke in today’s statement: “It shocks the conscience that the Biden Administration released into America a cruel, violent illegal alien who tortured a human being, beat them with an electrical cable and a stick, and then threw her victim from a ninth-floor window.
“These are the types of barbaric criminal illegal aliens ICE is targeting every single day.
“70% of all ICE arrests are of illegal aliens charged or convicted of a crime in the US.
“This does not even include foreign fugitives like this convicted murderer. Under President Trump and Secretary Noem, the world’s criminals are no longer welcome in the US.”
ICE records validate the statistic: 70 % of arrests target non-citizens with US convictions, leaving foreign warrants like Sorocean’s to specialised hunts.
Enforcement has ramped up, with DHS logging over 65,000 arrests in the administration’s first 100 days, prioritising those with violent pasts.
Sorocean’s evasion echoes a darker trend in Eastern Europe, where corrupt networks shield the guilty from Interpol’s reach. A November 2024 New York Times expose revealed a Moldovan operation that spirited away at least 20 fugitives, evading red notices and fuelling a diplomatic backlash.
Europol’s most-wanted roster still lists dozens from the region, pressing for tighter global nets.