Thread: TX-Authorities charge 2 in immigrant drop house case

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Authorities charge 2 in immigrant drop house case

July 9, 2009, 4:58PM

BASTROP, Texas — Authorities have arrested two men accused of holding more than two dozen immigrants hostage in a rural Central Texas drop house.

Bastrop County Sheriff's officials say 29-year-old Juan Carlos Sanchez-Camacho and 20-year-old Nabor Rodriguez-Guillen (GEE'-yen) were being held in jail Thursday. They're charged with aggravated kidnapping after six people from Honduras and El Salvador were found in the mobile home Wednesday night.

Sheriff's officials say someone escaped from the house and notified them that three men were holding up to 25 people near the community of Bateman.

The tipster said the captives were without food or water for three days and three women had been sexually assaulted. Their captors were demanding more money from family members for their release.

Bond is set at $700,000 each. There's no information on whether they have attorneys.



http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6521976.html

Did these "immigrants" pay these guys to smuggle them into the US? They should be charged with human smuggling and deported!

2 men accused of holding up to 25 illegal immigrants captive in trailer
SWAT team rescues 6 of the immigrants.
By Patrick George




Friday, July 10, 2009

DALE — Two men have been arrested and charged with aggravated kidnapping after they held as many as 25 illegal immigrants against their will in a single-wide trailer in rural Bastrop County, officials say.

A SWAT team raid on the mobile home behind a house at 380 FM 672 near Dale on Wednesday resulted in the arrests of Juan Carlos Sanchez-Camacho, 29, and Nabor Rodriguez-Guillen, 20, according to an arrest affidavit for the men. They are accused of keeping the illegal immigrants in the trailer near the Bastrop-Caldwell county line for at least four days, beating and starving them, and repeatedly sexually assaulting three female captives.

Bastrop County Sheriff Terry Pickering said the men and women were being held while their kidnappers demanded money from their families in Central America.

Six men were rescued during the raid and are now at an undisclosed shelter in Austin, Pickering said.

Before authorities arrived, the women and several other victims were loaded into a van by the kidnappers and taken to another location, he said.

"We're obviously very concerned for these folks' well-being and safety," Pickering said. "At this point, we don't even know who they are."

Both suspects are in the Bastrop County Jail with bail set at $700,000. A third suspect remains at large.

Officials said Sanchez-Camacho is an illegal immigrant and said they were not aware of Rodriguez-Guillen's status.

The owners of the home, who declined to identify themselves, would say only that they had no knowledge of what was going on in the trailer, which was rented to the suspects. The owners are being questioned by investigators, Pickering said.

On Tuesday night, a man escaped from the trailer by sneaking through holes in the floor, Pickering said.

That man spent the night in a nearby car and the car's owner alerted the authorities after finding him there Wednesday morning.

The escaped man, who is also now in an Austin shelter, told sheriff's deputies that three men with assault rifles and handguns had been holding the people without food and water for several days, and kept them stripped down to their underwear in the trailer, Pickering said.

Three female hostages were reportedly sexually assaulted, he said.

Pickering said officials are searching for others who were in the trailer.

The immigrants' families paid the suspects to smuggle the immigrants into the United States, Pickering said. But when they arrived, the group held them for ransom, demanding more money from their families in El Salvador and Honduras, he said.

In Austin, Ismael Alvarez , 43, and Luis Adrian Lopez-Alegria, 23, were charged with aggravated kidnapping this week after holding hostage and torturing three immigrants who had recently crossed the border. Police are looking for a third suspect in that case.

Pickering said he has "no reason to believe" that those cases are related.

"It's just a coincidence, I guess," he said.

Pickering, a longtime law enforcement officer, said that this is the first case of its kind in Bastrop County, and that such crimes are more common in South Texas.

Nina Pruneda, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said cases in which illegal immigrants are held hostage are infrequent but did not have data on whether they were increasing in Central Texas.

In August 2008, Gov. Rick Perry and the governors of Southwestern border states agreed to collaborate on ways to combat human trafficking. Perry had earlier announced a program with the U.S. Border Patrol and other agencies designed to reduce trafficking of people, drug and weapons on the border.

pgeorge@statesman.com


http://www.statesman.com/news/content/n ... 7&cxcat=52