Priest-in-training arrested at San Diego airport

A 23-year-old man from Ohio, who was in training to become a priest, has been arrested for allegedly planning to have sex with infants in Mexico, officials have said.

Joel A. Wright was a student at a Roman Catholic seminary in Columbus and had arranged to 'buy' a three-year-old child via an advert he posted on Craigslist.

He was arrested at San Diego airport on Friday with the intention to engage in a sexual act with a minor and attempting to travel 'in interstate and foreign commerce' for the purpose of engaging in illegal sexual conduct.

The arrest is the culmination of a months-long investigation by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, after an undercover agent engaged in an email conversation with Wright back in November, Fox Baltimore reported.

According to the 11-page report by ICE's Homeland Security Investigations in San Diego, an undercover agent received a tip-off that prompted the agent to take over an email account and start communicating with Wright.

The priest-in-training still believed he was speaking to a Mexico-based male tour guide whom he had met after placing an ad on Craigslist.

In an email, Wright allegedly said: 'I want to adopt/ own a baby girl (under the age of three) and I want to have intercourse with her after I own her (but don't be telling people that)'.

He also included a picture of himself and said that he had previous experience with infants, Fox said.

Wright later booked a flight from Ohio to San Diego to meet a friend of the tour guide, after which he planned to travel across the border to Mexico to meet female infants.

He was taken into custody at San Diego International Airport by special agents with U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement and is due to be arraigned in federal court on Monday.

Dave Shaw, special agent in charge for HSI San Diego, said in a statement to KTLA: 'Pedophiles who mistakenly believe they can escape justice by committing child sex crimes outside the U.S. should be on notice that HSI will seek to vindicate the rights of those victims regardless of where they live.'

Wright is no longer a student at the Pontifical College Josephinum, where he had studied for one semester, after he left without authorization, and is no longer a member of his diocese in Steubenville.

Father John Allen, of the Pontifical College, told Fox News that the seminary was 'shocked, saddened and truly sickened by the intent of the alleged actions'.

He added that they are 'eager' to help with the investigation.

The probe was conducted as part of ICE's Operation Predator, launched in 2003 as 'an international initiative to protect children from sexual predators'.

Since the operation's inception, federal investigators have arrested more than 12,000 individuals for crimes against children, the statement said.