I saw this in our newspaper but couldn't find it so I took it from Tampa paper

Raiza Cueto-Alvarez first spotted the baby boy Friday night at a Super Wal-Mart in Arcadia.

His mother, Teresa Hernandez, 21, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, had brought him shopping.

In just a few hours, Cueto-Alvarez would convince Hernandez she was a federal immigration agent, drive her to St. Petersburg, force the mother out of the car and then speed away with the baby boy.

That's the account given by De Soto County sheriff's deputies. Charlotte County officials found the infant unharmed at a Punta Gorda home later that night.

Cueto-Alvarez, 42, of Port Charlotte was arrested there Saturday night.

The bizarre kidnapping had authorities baffled.

"It's nothing that we've experienced before," said Lt. Curt Mays of the De Soto County Sheriff's Office.

Cueto-Alvarez, whose aliases include Cueto-Conde, was released May 10 from the Broward Correctional Institution, where she served one year for grand theft, according to the state Department of Corrections.

Around 7 p.m. Friday, Hernandez noticed that Cueto-Alvarez seemed to be trailing her as she shopped at the Wal-Mart with her 2-month-old son and 3-year-old daughter, authorities said.

But she didn't give it much thought. After shopping, Hernandez drove back with her children to their home on N Arcadia Avenue.

Cueto-Alvarez followed, authorities said.

At the home, Cueto-Alvarez approached Hernandez and told her in Spanish she was an immigration agent, authorities said.

Cueto-Alvarez said Hernandez's husband was in custody and was being deported, then demanded that Hernandez accompany her to the deportation proceedings in Orlando, authorities said.

So a frightened Hernandez, who authorities said speaks no English, and her two children climbed into Cueto-Alvarez's two-door, silver car.

"I have never heard of anything being done in this almost organized format," said Carlos Felipez, the St. Petersburg patrol officer who interviewed Hernandez on Friday night.

Rather than heading to Orlando, Cueto-Alvarez drove about 70 miles north, to St. Petersburg.

Somewhere along the way, her car was stopped for speeding by De Soto County sheriff's Deputy Luis Barajas. Hernandez did not indicate that she was in trouble, Mays said.

Cueto-Alvarez presented valid identification under one of her aliases, Raiza Arsenia Cueto-Conde.

In St. Petersburg, Cueto-Alvarez ordered Hernandez and her daughter out of her car. She then drove off with the baby, authorities said.

A person driving by Williams Park reported being flagged down by "a hysterical Hispanic woman" at 9:30 p.m., police said.

Patrol Officer Felipez tried to calm Hernandez down as he translated her story.

"She was very upset, she was crying, then trying to pull it together because she had her daughter and she was trying to be strong," said St. Petersburg patrol Sgt. Tom Baitinger.

Baitinger used the four correct license plate characters out of six that Hernandez provided to track down Cueto-Alvarez's car.

"It was amazing that in an unfamiliar city, without the language and with one child missing, she had the frame of mind and the common sense to write down what was ultimately the key investigative element," he said.

Baitinger alerted the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office to the incident around 10:20 p.m.

Sheriff's deputies found the baby at a Punta Gorda home. The address and residents' names were not released Saturday.

A man at the house said Cueto-Alvarez was his aunt and had brought the baby to the home, but fled before deputies arrived.

Hernandez and her husband, who was contacted by St. Petersburg police, were reunited with their baby late Friday night.

"To call it a relief is a complete understatement," Baitinger said. "She just kind of melted."

Sgt. Ed Collins and Cpl. Sean Griffin of the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office began searching for Cueto-Alvarez at 11 a.m. Saturday. They arrested her at her mother's house in Port Charlotte at 7:30 p.m., said Randy Horner, the watch commander.

"There was no resistance, she very cooperative," he said.

The deputies were still interviewing Cueto-Alvarez late Saturday, Horner said.


Arcadia is a large migrant worker community in Charlotte county.

http://www.sptimes.com/2006/05/28/Tampa ... home.shtml