NYC locals help arrest Ecuadorian migrant accused of raping 13-year-old girl

An Ecuadorian migrant who allegedly raped a 13 year old girl in New York City was arrested Tuesday, after a flurry of tips from locals helped find and identify the suspect.

The suspect, identified as 25-year-old Christian Geovanny Inga-Landi, attacked the teen and held another teenage boy at knife-point last week. He has been charged with rape and kidnapping, according to the New York Post.

The arrest comes after the New York Police Department released images and video of Inga-Landi, and a sketch of the man. His identity was confirmed by locals, partly due to a large boar tattoo on his chest.

“We had tips coming in actually naming the perpetrator, so they knew who he was,” Joseph Kenny, the NYPD’s chief of detectives, said during a news conference. “One of the tips we actually received was from a landlord who stated the male had come to his building about two weeks previous trying to rent the room."

Police officials claimed Inga-Landi came into the country illegally, and was apprehended by Customs and Border Patrol agents in Eagle Pass, Texas, in 2021. But he was later released into the country and went to Queens, in New York City. He has never been arrested by NYPD, but he encountered cops during a domestic violence dispute, and was given three police summonses.

Kenny said locals in the Queens neighborhood, which is where the rape occurred, subdued him on Tuesday morning. The crimes all took place at a local park, in broad daylight, sparking widespread tension in the area.

“The perpetrator has made statements after waiving Miranda Rights, where he indicated he has a drug problem, that he found the knife he used to threaten the two teens, that this was the first time he’d ever done anything like this,” Kenny said. “He IDs himself in video that was shown to him.”

Misty Severi is an evening news reporter for Just the News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.