A security guard who worked at the Krome Service Processing Center, the main immigration detention facility in South Florida, was arrested on charges of stealing $5,382 in cash from a detainee who was being processed for deportation.
The accused is Matthew Christian Torres, 31 years old, a resident of Palmetto Bay. Torres was not a direct employee of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), but worked for Akima Protective Services, a private contracting company that operates at the facility located in southwestern Miami.
The fact came to light when Krome personnel were preparing the deportation documents for a detainee identified only by the initials W. J., who alerted them that he was missing that amount of cash.
A representative from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) at the facility provided investigators with surveillance camera footage from August 19th.
The images, reviewed on-site, show Torres placing the victim's money inside a ledger without recording it in the property book.
According to the arrest report from the Miami-Dade County Sheriff's Department, the cameras later captured the guard hiding the money inside his black jacket before entering an employee restroom.
Upon returning to the common area, Torres took out a transparent plastic bag with cash from inside his jacket and tucked it into the right pocket of his pants.
The report states that Torres "never informed a supervisor about the money belonging to the victim."
The county authorities arrested him at the facility and took him to the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, where he faces a charge of third-degree grand theft, a felony under Florida law punishable by up to five years in prison. On Wednesday, his bail was set at $2,500.
The case puts Akima Protective Services under scrutiny, whose affiliated company, Akima Infrastructure Protection, secured a potential contract of up to $685.5 million with ICE in August 2024 for detention support services at Krome, which includes detainee management, transportation, food services, and detainee banking.
ICE issued a statement asserting that it "takes allegations of misconduct very seriously" and demands "the highest standards of professional and ethical conduct" from its staff and contractors, adding that it thoroughly investigates every complaint received.
The case is being investigated by the Miami-Dade County Sheriff's Department.
Krome has been the subject of systematic complaints about inadequate conditions, with reports of severe overcrowding in 2025, when it housed nearly 1,700 people in a space designed for 600.
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