Posted on Tue, Dec. 04, 2007

Mother of Mexican kidnap victim helps nab suspect in KentuckyBy LISA J. ADAMS
Associated Press Writer

MEXICO CITY --
A woman whose private investigative work and persistence led to the capture of several suspects in her son's 2-year-old kidnapping case helped authorities collar yet another collaborator - this time in the U.S., she said Tuesday.

Maria Isabel Miranda said she took a flight to Kentucky from her Mexico City home on Nov. 26 after receiving an e-mail from a man who had seen kidnapping suspect Brenda Quevedo on the popular video-sharing site YouTube and recognized her as a bartender at a Louisville restaurant he frequented.

Miranda confirmed Quevedo's identity shortly after entering the Mojito Tapas Restaurant and immediately called the Mexican attorney general's office, which has a warrant pending for the woman's arrest. Mexican authorities then contacted the FBI, she said.

"I showed them photos of her, I told them where she was and they went and took her in," Miranda said in a telephone interview.

Quevedo, 27, was detained by the FBI and U.S. immigration agents the same day and transferred to the McHenry County Jail just outside Chicago, where she is awaiting a deportation hearing, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, confirmed Tuesday in a statement.

She is being held on illegal immigration charges, ICE said, adding that the agency "is aware that this individual may be wanted in Mexico for crimes committed there and will cooperate fully with authorities."

David Beyer, an FBI spokesman in Louisville, confirmed that agency's involvement but did not release any other information.

The Mexican attorney general's office, or PGR as it is known by its Spanish acronym, said in a separate statement that Quevedo is wanted in connection with the July 2005 kidnapping and suspected homicide of Miranda's son, then-36-year-old Hugo Alberto Wallace Miranda. At the time of the kidnapping, Miranda received a note demanding nearly $1 million for her son's release, according to the PGR. His body has never been found.

The PGR confirmed that Quevedo worked at the Mojito Tapas Restaurant under the name Nadia Vazquez and said she has filed an appeal to stop her deportation.

Neither agency released information about how Quevedo was located and captured. But this would not be the first time that Miranda took the lead in solving her son's case.

Having no luck with the authorities immediately after the abduction in 2005, Miranda set off on her own investigation. She tracked down at least one of the suspects by herself and later put up giant billboards with the suspects' faces asking for help in capturing them.

As a result of her tireless efforts, four suspects are now in custody in Mexico. Miranda also has put up billboards asking for help in capturing still-at-large suspect Jacobo Tagle Dobin and has offered a reward for information leading to his capture.

Miranda no longer has any hope that her son is alive, especially after one of the suspects confessed to his murder. But she is hoping that Quevedo will provide the one piece of missing information that others have refused to divulge: the whereabouts of Hugo's body.

"This is the most important thing for me; it is the motive for everything I'm doing," she said.
http://www.kentucky.com/471/story/249577.html