A reputed Barrio Azteca gang member was sentenced to a decade in prison for holding migrants hostage until their families paid a ransom, officials said.
Alfredo Ochoa-Munoz, 37, was sentenced June 1 to 10 years in prison on each of four federal charges. The charges were conspiracy to take a hostage and three counts of hostage taking, federal court records show.
The sentences will be served concurrently, court records show. He pleaded guilty to the charges in January.
Ochoa-Munoz, who is from Juárez, is one of five men charged in connection with the hostage scheme.
The other men are Ricardo Barrientos-Noriega, Luis Roberto Arturo Meza-Marin, Eduardo Sarellano-Garcia and Michael Ryan Ratliff, officials said.
Meza-Marin and Barrientos-Noriega pleaded guilty to conspiracy to take a hostage and three counts of hostage taking. A sentencing date for the man have not been set.
Sarellano-Garcia is facing one count each of conspiracy to take a hostage and conspiracy to transport undocumented immigrants, and three counts of hostage taking, federal court records show. His case remains pending.
Ratliff pleaded guilty to conspiracy to transport undocumented immigrants and three counts of transporting undocumented immigrants. He was sentenced to 12 months in prison.
Sarellano-Garcia, Meza-Marin and Ochoa-Munoz are Barrio Azteca gang members, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Mexico officials said.
Migrants held as hostages
The incident began when three migrants were picked up after crossing illegally into the U.S. near El Paso and dropped off at two trailers in Vado, New Mexico, court documents state. The trailers were rented by Barrientos-Noriega, officials said.
The driver, who is not named in court records, took the migrants’ phones as he drove them to Vado, a complaint affidavit states.
The migrants were then given to Ochoa-Munoz when they arrived at the trailers, the affidavit states.
Ochoa-Munoz, Barrientos-Noriega and Meza-Marin allegedly told the migrants they were not allowed to leave the trailers until their families paid more money for their release. The migrants or their families already had paid a smuggler to get them into the U.S., the affidavit states.
Ochoa-Munoz was ordered by Barrio Azteca gang member Sarellano-Garcia to contact the migrants’ families and demanded payment for their release, officials said. The migrants were threatened with death, injury and continued detainment until their families paid the smugglers, the affidavit states.
Ochoa-Munoz and the other smugglers received full payments from the migrants’ families on Feb. 17, officials said.
The migrants were then picked up by Ratliff in a white Chrysler 300.
Ratliff and the migrants attempted to pass a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint on Interstate 10 between Las Cruces and Deming.
The migrants were “visibly nervous and were staring forward, avoiding eye contact” with the agents, the affidavit states.
Agents then detained the group for questioning. The migrants admitted to agents that they were in the U.S. illegally.
The migrants also told agents they had been held against their will.
Ratliff was arrested at the checkpoint. Ratliff allegedly told agents he had a good job and did not need to be “taking no (expletive) illegals,” the affidavit states. He then asked the agents if he was being accused of smuggling migrants.
He claimed he did not know the people in the Chrysler were illegally in the U.S., the affidavit states.
The three migrants were interviewed by agents and provided the location of the trailers they had been held in, officials said.
Agents went to the trailers, where they located and arrested the smugglers, officials said.