EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Two men are facing charges of hostage taking after members of a transnational organized crime task force raided an Albuquerque, New Mexico, home where 10 migrants were being held for ransom.
Task force members found the home after the FBI received a call on March 1 from a Guatemalan woman saying she had been told to wire transfer 90,000 quetzales ($11,700) or else her husband would be turned over to a Mexican drug cartel.
The woman received a video sent repeatedly from various phone numbers of her husband on his knees stating his name, the date and that he was being held against his will in Albuquerque.
Court records show the woman later received a telephone call from a number with a New Mexico 505 area code.
The wife said she could hear four people on the call including one with a Guatemalan accent, one with a Mexican accent and an English speaker struggling to speak Spanish. She was told to wire the money in the next 48 hours, or her husband would be turned over to the Zetas drug cartel or other “mafia” members, court documents state.
The wife was told to immediately secure about a fifth of the ransom (20,000 quetzales or US$2,600) and deposit it into an account in a bank in Guatemala or her husband would be harmed.
FBI agents tracked the “proof of life” video of the hostage to a home on Aritas Road in Albuquerque. The organized crime task force went to a judge and executed a federal search warrant on March 2.
Court records show task force members found 10 migrants inside the home, including the known hostage and an unaccompanied minor, 20 cellphones and several pair of shoes. They also found a ledger with alleged names, dates of stay and final destination of migrants.
“Based on my training and experience, these observations are consistent with the location being used as a stash house for a human smuggling organization,” an FBI agent who is a member of the task force wrote in a federal complaint affidavit filed March 3 in U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico.
Two men believed to be caretakers at the stash house were taken into custody. Tomas Mateo Gaspar and Isaias David Jose were charged with hostage taking and harboring illegal aliens.
A search of Jose’s phone allegedly yielded text conversations alluding to individual migrants receiving “green light,” which means their relatives had paid ransoms as high as $23,000, the complaint alleges. Jose told investigators a year ago his father paid smugglers to bring him to the U.S. and has been working in Tennessee and New Mexico since.
Some of the migrants now being held as material witnesses pointed to Gaspar as one of the caretakers. One said he was among those who evaded capture by the U.S. Border Patrol when a group of 45 migrants crossed illegally into the United States.
Another said he was kept in a locked room at the house with others and that their captors yelled at them to be quiet or they “would get rid of them,” court documents state.
Gaspar allegedly told investigators he has been in the U.S. for less than two years, came to Albuquerque from Lubbock, Texas, three weeks ago looking for work. A “friend” set him up at the home and gave him a car to move about and purchase whatever was needed, the complaint alleges.
The suspects made an initial appearance Tuesday before a U.S. magistrate judge. They face a detention hearing on Thursday.
There was no word of arrests of any English speakers nor Mexican cartel members.
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