5 charged with taking migrants hostage in California to demand relatives pay ransom

Four men were arrested and charged with kidnapping migrants who had been smuggled into the United States and demanding their relatives pay ransom for their release, officials said Monday.

The men have pleaded not guilty after they were arraigned on an indictment, the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles said. A fifth man has been charged in the case but remains a fugitive, prosecutors said in a statement.

The defendants took the four migrants from an Arizona gas station last year and later held them hostage at a house in California, prosecutors said. The suspects allegedly used one of the hostage’s cellphone to demand ransom money from the victim’s family member in exchange for their release. 

Three of the hostages were later moved to a motel where one escaped through a second-story bathroom window and ran to a nearby store, the statement said. One of the suspects followed him and “body-slammed the victim, placed him in a chokehold, and punched him repeatedly in the face in an attempt to re-kidnap him,” the statement said.

The defendants were identified as Miguel Angel Avila, 22, of Hemet; Omar Avila Salmeron, 41, of South Los Angeles; Jose Jaime Garcia, 20, of San Jacinto; Gabriel Michel Becerra, 22, of Palmdale; and Jose Alfredo Moreno Gonzalez, 21, of Oak Hills. Becerra is currently a fugitive.

“These defendants allegedly preyed upon victims who sought to emigrate to our country by demanding ransom from the victims’ families in exchange for their release,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada of the Central District of California said in a statement.

On March 23, 2023, Avila, Garcia, and Becerra allegedly drove one of the hostages to a gas station, where they took $11,000 in cash from the victim’s brother in exchange for the victim’s release.

Migrants seeking to cross into the United States are frequently kidnapped by gangs and drug cartels in Mexico, and are also known to be vulnerable to kidnappings in the United States.