U.S. officials have announced that they have joined with Mexican authorities to arrest Paulino Ramirez-Granados, a man known to be one of the leaders of a forced-prostitution ring that operated in New York City.

As reported in an Associated Press article, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement stated on Thursday that Ramirez-Granados had been taken into custody in the small central Mexican town of Tenancingo, which has a population of about 10,000 and is located about 80 miles from Mexico City.

Tenancingo is considered the cradle of sex trafficking in Mexico. And the town has a reputation for sending sex slaves to New York.

Officials have stated that each prostitute from Tenancingo that is brought into New York nets the traffickers around $100,000 a year.

As reported in a piece in the New York Daily News, prostitution is so ingrained in the area the little boys in the town dream of growing up to one day be pimps.

“Many kids aspire to be traffickers,” explained Emilio Munoz Berruecos, a man who grew up in a nearby village and runs a local human rights center.

“This is a phenomenon that goes back half a century,” he added.

About the capture of Ramirez-Granados, the ICE explained that Mexican federal police had participated in the arrest, but that federal police would not be able to confirm the case or discuss any of the details pertaining to it.

Allegedly, Ramirez-Granados is part of a family group that tricked, threatened, beat, and abused at least 25 women from Mexico, forcing them to work in the sex trade.

Ramirez-Granados had been ranked as one of ICE's 10 most-wanted human trafficking fugitives.

The charges he faces in the U.S. concern sex trafficking, alien smuggling, money laundering, as well as conspiracy to import aliens.