Thread: As drugs reach Phoenix, the kidnappings follow

Los Angeles Times
February 15, 2009
1 2 next Phoenix - In broad daylight one January afternoon, on a street of ranch-style houses with kidney-shaped swimming pools, Juan Francisco Perez-Torres was kidnapped in front of his wife, daughter and three neighbors.

Two men with a gun grabbed the 34-year-old from his van and dragged him 50 yards to a waiting SUV. His wife threw rocks at the car, then gave chase in her own SUV. Neighbors in northwest Phoenix called police. Yet when police found her later, she at first denied there was a problem.

On the phone later, as detectives listened in, kidnappers said he'd stolen someone's marijuana.

But police were used to conflicting story lines by now. More ransom kidnappings happen here than in any other town in America, according to local and federal law enforcement authorities. Many victims and suspects are connected to the drug-smuggling world, usually tracing back to the western Mexican state of Sinaloa, Phoenix police report. Arizona has become the new drug gateway into the United States. Roughly half of all marijuana seized along the U.S.-Mexico border was taken on Arizona's 370-mile border with Mexico.



One result is an epidemic of kidnapping that many residents are barely aware of. Indeed, nearly every other crime here is down. But police received 366 kidnapping-for-ransom reports last year, 359 in 2007. Police estimate twice that number go unreported.

In September, police spun off a separate detective unit to handle only these smuggling-related kidnappings and home-invasion robberies. Its detectives are now considered among the country's most expert in those crimes.

That afternoon last month, Perez-Torres' abduction fell to the unit's two most seasoned detectives, Gina Garcia and Arnulfo "Sal" Salgado, as they were about to leave work. Over the next 42 hours, the kidnapping would consume their every waking moment.

About seven hours after Perez-Torres was abducted, the kidnapper sounded drunk over the phone.

"Get moving," he told Andres, a partner with Perez-Torres in a small-scale auto sales business, who pretended to be the victim's brother. "Start selling things." He demanded $150,000.

Standing with Andres in the department's "kidnap room," Garcia mouthed responses. "Tell him you want to talk to the victim," she said. "Don't agree to anything."

Her job is to steady the nerves of victims' relatives as they take calls from kidnappers, who often torture their victims while talking to the families. Sometimes she steps in and, in a bit of life-or-death theater, pretends to be the victim's cousin or friend.

Andres, who asked his surname not be used for this article, pleaded well - not too whiny, not too insistent.

"Put yourself in my place. I want to know how my brother is. I want to hear his voice," he said. "Why don't you put him on the phone for a bit?" The kidnapper refused, said he'd call the next morning. The conversation ended.

In Phoenix, kidnappers apparently don't call after midnight; usually, they're sleeping or high. So Garcia and the other detectives went home.

Phoenix has long been a destination for Mexican immigrants, and for Sinaloans in particular. Today, Phoenix detectives say, only the rare kidnapper is not from Sinaloa. They often come from the same Sinaloan towns: Los Mochis, Leyva, Guasave.

Like construction or restaurant work, kidnapping in Phoenix relies on cheap Mexican laborers. The grunt work, like guarding the victim, is often done by young, unemployed illegal immigrants, desperate for work, who sign on for between $50 and $200 a day, Garcia said.

The day Perez-Torres was kidnapped, police raided a south Phoenix tire shop and found shotguns, ammunition and ballistic vests.

The business belonged to Manuel Torres, who they believed was setting up a kidnapping and home-invasion empire. Torres allegedly recruited illegal immigrants, provided them with criminal work and a place to live at the shop, then would order them around like a small-town baron.

At 7 p.m. Friday, after several phone calls, the kidnappers ordered money be taken to an intersection in west Phoenix.

Perez-Torres' family had come in that afternoon with $12,000, which they said was from selling cars.

So detectives lied.

"We told the suspect we do have the 150K," said Sgt. Phil Roberts, a unit supervisor. "We're going to tell him whatever he wants." The case now passed to Sal Salgado, who went under cover, accompanying Andres (posing as Perez-Torres' brother), into west Phoenix.

Few west Phoenix residents perceived the ballet of two unwitting suspects and dozens of officers that silently swept back and forth through their neighborhood.

Kidnappers called to tell Salgado and Andres to drive around with their windows down. They ordered them to stop at a gas station, then to get out and raise their shirts. Other officers watched from the shadows, giving them a wide berth.



For more than an hour kidnappers ordered Salgado and Andres through maneuvers, looking for signs of cops, apparently unaware of the undercover officers silently cruising the area looking for the kidnappers.

Then things happened fast. Officers were following a suspicious bronze Chevy truck, when the driver bolted down a residential street and into a driveway. Two men jumped out and ran. One dropped a gun.

Officers grabbed them after a short chase and before they could call their accomplices. If anything happened to Perez-Torres, officers said, they'd be charged with murder. The two men caved. He was being held, they said, in a house in Mesa, a half-hour away.

A caravan of cops now sped for Mesa. They got there as three men were pushing Perez-Torres into a brown truck as a black Chrysler idled nearby. Both sped off, but didn't get far. Police arrested three more men.

By 9:30 that Friday night, Juan Perez-Torres was safe, and five of his alleged kidnappers were about to be questioned.

They told detectives a bleak border tale.

Max Portillo, 24, said he'd been havingtrouble with a drug smuggler in Nogales, Mexico known as El Chueco - Twisted. El Chueco said Perez-Torres owed him for a load of marijuana. El Chueco wanted someone to kidnap Perez-Torres.

Portillo said he recruited the others at bars. Another suspect, Abel Mosqueda, said he met Portillo at the Gran Mercado. Mosqueda told detectives he was out of work and needed money. Between the five of them, they had one gun: a black .45. They said they'd never kidnapped before.

How much of it was true? "That voice," said Garcia, "I'm sure he's done this before from the way he conducted the negotiation." But detectives hadn't time for the case's murky motives. They had the kidnappers' confessions and other evidence. Prosecutors had been getting plea bargains of 12 years in prison for less. In a few months, they'd have trouble remembering the case.

Detectives now check victims for warrants and have dogs sniff ransom money for drugs, under the theory that today's victims are tomorrow's suspects. They've seized property valued at close to $1 million.

Phoenix police say they have never lost a victim during any rescue attempt. But detectives wondered how long their record would hold, and how long they can stave off the violence that has left more than 8,000 people dead in Mexico in the past two years.




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http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation ... 0938.story

With all the attention this plague is getting one can only wonder why the reality of just ENFORCING the immigration laws is a NECESSITY hasn't set in yet.

JD Hayworth was on Fox and Friends this morning with Alison Camarota (sp?) discussing this issue. He made a point of scolding the MSM for ignoring the issue. It was a good segment. JD is great!