A California teen was rescued from a ransom kidnapping. The incident started on September 18th in San Bernardino County in Highland. Three men allegedly caused an intentional accident, when the 17-year-old teen hit their Jeep Grand Cherokee. After he got out of his car, they forced him into their car and fled the area.
According to USA Today: “The DOJ identified Fidel Jesús Patino Jaimes, 22, Jair Tomás Ramos Domínguez, 26, and Ezequiel Felix López, 27, as the suspects.”
The suspects were arrested on Friday.
The teen’s mother got a phone call later from a phone number that was from Mexico and demanded $500,000 for her son’s safe return. Then the mother received a video showing the victim in the car. They were blaming his father for some past incident and made threats to cut off body parts unless she paid the ransom. They reduced it to $100,000 but was never delivered.
Three men are facing life sentences for allegedly kidnapping a 17-year-old from California and threatening his mother to pay a $500,000 ransom for his safety, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
The defendants were arrested Friday morning and are charged in a federal criminal complaint alleging they kidnapped the boy from Highland, California and held him for ransom nearly 200 miles away in Santa Maria, California.
The DOJ identified Fidel Jesús Patino Jaimes, 22, Jair Tomás Ramos Domínguez, 26, and Ezequiel Felix López, 27, as the suspects. All three told law enforcement they were from Santa Maria.
On the morning of Sept. 18, the three defendants allegedly caused a car collision in San Bernardino County where the victim crashed into their silver-colored Jeep Grand Cherokee, according to an affidavit filed with the complaint. The 17-year-old then exited his vehicle where the alleged captors took him and forced him into their Jeep, the DOJ stated.
Later that day, the victim’s mother received a call from a Mexican phone number and the caller demanded she deliver $500,000 to an unspecified location in Nogales, Mexico for the safety of her son. The caller blamed the abduction on the victim’s father, according to authorities.
Law enforcement eventually found the three kidnappers and the teen victim in Santa Maria, California, which was about 200 miles from the location of the abduction. How they found them was the interesting part. Enter social media, which gave their location away. They were able to identify the jeep from a post on Facebook Marketplace. They also had been aided by a Ring camera and had coordinated with Santa Maria Police and the FBI.
The victim was on the floor of the motel when the police had found and rescued him. The accused are looking at a life sentence.
In his post on X (Twitter), Charlie Kirk had brought up a point that these kind of kidnappings are common south of the border in countries like Mexico and Venezuela. Kirk: “Kidnapping people for ransom money is routine in countries like Mexico and Venezuela. How long until it’s routine here too, thanks to Biden’s suicidal border policies?”
Three men in California intentionally caused a car crash with a teenage driver, then kidnapped him, called his mother from a Mexican phone number and demanded $500,000 for his return.
Kidnapping people for ransom money is routine in countries like Mexico and Venezuela. How long…
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) September 26, 2023
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