Mexican authorities arrest suspects in migrant kidnappings

By Leslie Berestein, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Friday, April 23, 2010 at 8:28 p.m.

TECATE— The Baja California Attorney General’s Office announced Friday the arrests of six suspected migrant kidnappers, accused of preying on two men who were hoping to make it to the United States.

Authorities said the suspects, four men and two women, were involved in the April 18 kidnapping of two men, 30 and 19, from the central Mexican city of Irapuato in Guanajuato state, who arrived in Tijuana intending to cross the border illegally.

One of the suspects approached the victims at a phone booth and said he could smuggle them through Tecate. Instead, the two men were taken to an abandoned house in the Tecate area, where they were beaten and threatened that they would be killed if they did not procure ransom from their families.

Authorities were alerted by a passer-by who noticed that people in the house were tied up, the Attorney General’s Office said.

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