MOULTRIE, Ga. — Depending on the circumstances and cunning of a criminal, different crimes have varying chances of getting solved.

But one category of crimes has a distinctly poor chance of police ever bringing the perpetrator to justice — those that don’t get reported.

Since a series of arrests in September by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement some people are refusing to report domestic violence and even armed robberies out of fear that they will end up being deported, an advocate for the Hispanic community told The Observer.

Earlier this week, Belen Bautista sought help from the Colquitt County Sheriff’s Office to make a simple point to migrants living in the community.

“A lot of people think if they report crimes (to police), they’re going to get locked up,” Bautista said. “It doesn’t work like that.”

Bautista requested a Spanish-speaking deputy to address her church to get that message across. On the day she went to the sheriff’s office, she told a deputy that an acquaintance had been brutally beaten in a domestic incident the previous night, but was afraid to report it.

The previous weekend, she said, a woman and her daughter were robbed by a group in a hold-up in which a shot was fired.

Later that same weekend on Sunday morning a Colquitt County migrant farmworker was fortunate to survive a bullet that hit him in the chest during a robbery at his Green Street residence.

“I’m trying to get it out here (about) family violence, mental and physical,” Bautista said. “What I’m trying to get out to the people, it doesn’t matter if you’re legal or illegal, you need to speak up.”

The deputy who spoke with Bautista told her that no one who reports a crime is reported to immigration officials. In the case where someone is arrested, his or her fingerprints would be put in a database to which ICE has access.

When immigration personnel showed up in Colquitt County in late September, they arrested some 10 or 12 people, Sheriff Rod Howell told The Observer at the time. It was not a blanket sweep, but targeted certain people who had been selected due to criminal activity.

Those arrested had committed either felonies, such as violent crimes, or serious misdemeanors like driving under the influence. Some had multiple counts of driving without a license on the records.

Howell received calls from farmers who had employees pulled over and arrested, and the Hispanic community was spooked.

Many parents kept their children home from school for some days because of the ICE activities, Bautista said.

“They’re afraid of speaking up,” she said of crime victims. “They (say) they’re going to arrest me too. They’ll take my kids away and I’ll never see them again.

“They’re actually going to take away the person who’s hurting you and harming your kids. There’s a lot of people who don’t want to speak up. They’re afraid.”

With the Sunday morning shooting of Urban Antonio after a group of gunmen burst into the residence on Green Street, a gang of robbers nearly added a murder to their list of crimes.

The sheriff’s office believes at least six and possibly as many as 10 or 12 individuals are taking part in the hold-ups of Hispanic residents — a dozen incidents this year, including the shooting of Antonio. There have been as few as two participating in an individual robbery and perhaps as many as seven in one or two of the violent incidents.

After Antonio’s shooting the sheriff’s office requested assistance from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to help nab the gang members.

Told about Bautista’s account of robberies going unreported, Sgt. Chris Robinson said that it is important that the public notify police of those crimes. One detail in a report may seem insignificant to the victim, but could be the one that helps officers identify and arrest suspects.

A timely call also could allow deputies to converge on the location of a hold-up and catch the robbers as they are fleeing the scene.

Police have feared that someone will eventually be killed as the robbers have fired shots in several of their heists, causing minor injuries to two of the victims prior to Sunday’s shooting of Antonio.

“The Hispanic community needs to contact law enforcement if they’re victims,” Robinson said. “We can’t help them if they don’t tell us what’s happened. We need the community’s help.”

The sheriff’s office has several Spanish-speaking deputies who can assist, Robinson said.

Migrant workers are an integral part of farming in the county, and agricultural payments to farmers totaled some $473.23 million in 2015, according to the University of Georgia. Vegetable growers, who are especially dependent on migrant laborers for harvesting crops, earned income of well over $100 million.

Cabbage alone brought in income in 2015 of more than $34 million.