Kidnappers grabbed a teenager headed for the Texas border with the goal of joining his father in California. The Mexican teen became the latest victim of a new trend developing in Mexico where cartel smugglers have been kidnapping migrants to extort their families.
The kidnapping took place last month in Monterrey, where a Mexican teenager from the state of Oaxaca boarded a bus headed for the Mexican border city of Reynosa, a police report exclusively obtained by Breitbart Texas revealed. The victim, a 17-year-old male, claimed kidnappers forced him to get off a bus when the it reached a bus station called the “Y” or “Y Griega.” The kidnappers took the teenager to a stash house.
Because the victim is considered a minor by Mexican law, officials blacked out his name in the report provided to Breitbart Texas. The report does not explain if kidnappers took the teenager by force or if he was approached by a human smuggler offering to get him into Texas.
The unknown individuals took the teenager to a stash house in Portal de Lincoln in the nearby suburb of Garcia where they held him for ransom. For several days the gunmen held the teen while demanding $30,000 USD from his father who had settled in California. The teen’s father was only able to get $5,000 that he wired to the account provided to him by the kidnappers. After the kidnappers learned they were not able to obtain more funds from the teen’s family, they left him in a city street.
State investigators with an anti-kidnapping unit met with the teen almost immediately after his release. Working with the teenager, investigators were able to find the location of the stash house and raided the home. While no one was inside at the time of the raid, authorities did find key information such as account statements and ledgers pointing to the criminal organization behind this kidnapping and other cases.
Gerald “Tony” Aranda is a contributing writer for Breitbart Texas.