4 Mexican alien smugglers in Texas sentenced to federal prison

MCALLEN, Texas — Four Mexican nationals, who kidnapped a group of illegal aliens who had been smuggled into the U.S. by another smuggling group, were sentenced in federal court Monday to lengthy prison terms.

These sentences resulted from an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) with the assistance of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Office of Border Patrol.

The following defendants from Mexico received individual sentences that included hostage taking:

• Andres Perez-Moshan, 37, 264 months in prison,
• Humberto Alvarez-Cheo, 25, 120 months in prison,
• Roberto Salinas-Martinez, 29, 120 months in prison and
• Euclides Moreno-Dominguez, 34, 204 months in prison

Because all four are in the country illegally they are all expected to face deportation proceedings following their release from prison. On Feb. 18, 2011, all four plead guilty to one count of hostage taking in addition to the human smuggling charges.

According to court records, on Nov. 24, 2008, the four defendants entered a stash house at an unknown location near Mission, Texas and kidnapped 21 foreign nationals – all of whom were illegally in the United States. The defendants forcibly took them by gunpoint to a mobile home north of Edinburg, Texas where they were all later arrested by CBP the next day. At the time of arrest, agents seized three handguns.

While at the Edinburg stash house, the four had forced the foreign nationals to strip, took all of their possessions, held them against their will and forced them to contact family members in the United States or abroad to extort a ransom for their release. The foreign nationals were threatened with the loss of their lives if they did not comply or if the ransom money was not received. Additionally, three of the female foreign nationals reported that Perez-Moshan and Moreno-Dominguez had sexually assaulted them.

All four defendants have been in custody since their arrest where they will remain pending transfer to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility to be determined in the near future.

The sentencing of these four defendants is part of Operation Coyote, which is a part of HSI's ongoing surge operation and human smuggling initiative focused on identifying, disrupting and dismantling human smuggling and the criminal infrastructure that supports it, as well as associated criminal organizations along the southern border.