Press Release from the US Attorney’s Office for Arizona June 4, 2011:

THREE MEXICAN HOSTAGE-TAKERS SENTENCED FOR HOLDING ILLEGAL ALIENS FOR RANSOM

TUCSON, Ariz. – Faustino Chiquete-Reyes, Miguel Leyva-Rocha and Angel Reyna-Vargas were each sentenced on Friday by visiting U.S. District Judge Mark W. Bennett to 132 months, 132 months and 96 months in prison, respectively, for Conspiracy to Commit Hostage Taking. Chiquete-Reyes and Leyva-Rocha also face five years supervised release following their imprisonment and Reyna-Vargas will be on three years of supervised release. All three will be deported, however, immediately following the completion of their prison sentences. All three were also ordered to pay restitution for ransom fees exacted from the aliens that were being held.

“These defendants are disturbing examples of the lawless human smuggling underworld in which kidnapping and treating humans as cargo has become standard,” said U.S. Attorney Dennis K. Burke. “The offenders sentenced today conducted kidnapping and hostage-taking enterprises in the very midst of our community and neighborhoods. Such reckless and dangerous behavior will not go unpunished.”

On November 29, 2009, an illegal alien who was being held hostage was allowed to make a call for ransom money to a relative in California. The relative subsequently contacted authorities and federal agents were able to pinpoint the location of that cellular call to a home in Tucson. Within 24 hours, federal agents and members of the Pima County Sheriff’s SWAT team surrounded the home and had six suspects in custody and 14 hostages safely freed. All of the illegal aliens who were held hostage were eventually deported and five of the suspects were indicted by a federal grand jury for hostage-taking and weapons charges. One suspect was a minor and he was charged and convicted separately, as a juvenile. In addition, Nestor Chiquete-Reyes, brother of Faustino, was convicted and sentenced to 88 months in prison earlier this year for his role in this conspiracy. Both the juvenile and Nestor will also be deported at the completion of their sentences.

The investigation in this case was conducted by Tucson-based U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) with assistance from the Pima County Sheriff’s Office. The prosecution is being handled by Micah Schmit, Assistant U.S. Attorney, District of Arizona.

CASE NUMBER: CR-09-2910-TUC-RCC

COMMENT: One of the nastier things about illegal immigration is the violence being done to illegal immigrants from Mexico …by other Hispanics.

I interviewed a victim of border bandit crime and he asked “why are our people doing this to us?”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 15th, 2011 at 7:29 am and is filed under border issues, crime, politics. Tags for this post: border issues, border security, illegal aliens, illegal immigrants, us attorney arizona. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.