EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) — The three migrants admitted to being in the U.S. illegally.
After crossing the border, a driver picked them up and dropped them off at two mobile homes in Vado, New Mexico, but not before taking away their phones.
Prosecutors said the driver turned the migrants over to Alfredo Ochoa-Munoz, aka, Guero, a member of the Barrio Azteca gang from Juarez, Mexico.
According to court documents obtained by Border Report, Ochoa-Munoz and others informed the migrants that they were not allowed to leave the trailers until their families paid more money for their release, and at the direction of another Barrio Azteca member known as “The Godfather,” Ochoa-Munoz contacted the migrants’ families and demanded payment for their release.
The migrants were threatened with death and injury and being detained until such payments were received. On Feb. 17, 2022, Ochoa-Munoz and his co-defendants received payments from the families, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Mexico.
Prosecutors say Michael Ryan Ratliff picked up the migrants, who were told they’d be driven to their next destination.
However, U.S. Border Patrol agents at the immigration checkpoint between Las Cruces and Deming, New Mexico, detained the group and arrested Ratliff.
The migrants reportedly told agents they had been held against their will and eventually led agents to the trailers, where they arrested Ochoa-Munoz, Ricardo Barrientos-Noriega, and Luis Roberto Arturo Meza-Marin.
The four individuals and Eduardo Sarellano-Garcia, a.k.a. “Padrino,” or the “Godfather,” were indicted by a federal grand jury on May 19, 2022.
Ochoa-Munoz this year pleaded guilty to conspiracy to take a hostage and three counts of hostage-taking. On Wednesday, he was sentenced to 120 months in prison.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Meza-Marin, 33, of Chihuahua, Mexico, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to take a hostage and three counts of hostage-taking on June 16, 2022. Barrientos-Noriega, 24, of Torreon, Mexico, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to take a hostage and three counts of hostage-taking on Sept. 29, 2022. Both will remain in custody pending their sentencing, which has not been scheduled.
Ratliff, 33, of Corinth, Texas, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to transport illegal aliens and three counts of transporting illegal aliens on June 9, 2022. He was sentenced to 12 months in prison or time served, and three years of supervised probation.
According to court documents, Sarellano-Garcia is also known as “Psycho,” “Saiko,” and “X.”