Two cartel-connected human smugglers pleaded guilty to ransom kidnapping migrants in the border city of Laredo, Texas.
Court documents revealed that 26-year-old Jesus Ochoa and 29-year-old Luis Armando Garcia pleaded guilty to kidnapping and hostage-taking charges during a hearing before U.S. District Judge Marina Garcia Marmolejo, who ordered they be held without bond until sentencing. Ochoa is a U.S. citizen, while Garcia is a Mexican national and in the country illegally, the U.S. Attorney’s office revealed.
The case began on November 19, 2021, when the two men picked up four migrants on the banks of the Rio Grande and took them to a house, federal prosecutors claimed in a criminal indictment. While the migrants had been promised a trip to San Antonio, the two men kept them and demanded a ransom payment. The men held the migrants at gunpoint as they called relatives in New Jersey, Florida, and other states.
The kidnappers requested that the money be sent via wire and went to a Walmart to pick up some of the proceeds, the indictment revealed.
According to prosecutors, federal authorities were able to trace the phones to a general location in Laredo. When Ochoa and Garcia saw the authorities nearby, they panicked and took the migrants to an industrial park.
Once there, the migrants were able to ask a trucker for a phone and called for help.
All of the smuggling activities in Laredo are controlled by the Cartel Del Noreste faction of Los Zetas in Nuevo Laredo across the border. That criminal organization has established itself as one of the most violent and sadistic in Mexico.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.