Men kidnapped 4-year-old, threatened to hurt him if dad didn’t pay, Texas officials say
The last of several men accused of orchestrating a kidnapping to extort money from a father has been sent to prison.
Gilbert John Montez, 24, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit hostage taking in April.
Montez was an organizer of a kidnapping of a 4-year-old boy, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Texas.
In March 2022, the boy was with his mother at a house in Mission, Texas, that was holding migrants who had been smuggled into the United States, authorities said. That’s when a man took the boy and gave the boy to two women, officials said.
The women transported the boy past a border patrol checkpoint, then handed him off to another man, according to officials. Then the boy was given to a man named Jonathan Orlando Ortiz-De Leon, officials said.
Montez and Ortiz-De Leon contacted the boy’s father, who was in Tennessee, and told him he would have to pay $4,500 to get the boy back, officials said.
Officials said Montez hired another man, Carlos Oyervides, to help Ortiz-De Leon get the ransom payment and take the boy to his father.
McClatchy News reached out to the attorneys listed for Montez, Oyervides and Ortiz-De Leon but did not immediately hear back.
“Human smugglers have a bad habit of becoming human kidnappers. Montez targeted a vulnerable family and leveraged a young child’s safety and a parents’ love to extort as much money as possible,” U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani said.
After the boy’s father was contacted, he reached out to authorities, according to a criminal complaint. A special agent posed as the boy’s uncle and began to negotiate with the men.
When the undercover agent spoke with the men, they threatened to harm the child if the money wasn’t paid, court documents said.
“He did not care that this child was passed from stranger to stranger, each time increasing the risk the child would be harmed. Instead, Montez put profit before people and only cared about making more money,” Hamdani said.
Authorities tried to arrange a meeting for the release of the boy but failed, officials said. They then tracked the men to an apartment and took the men into custody and found the boy, authorities said.
Montez was sentenced to 16 years in prison.
Man kidnapped pregnant woman, locked her in garage for 4-5 years, Texas police say
Man kidnaps woman again, ties her to car’s gear shift and drives out of state, feds say
Man forced migrants to work on farms and raped 16-year-old he kidnapped twice, feds say
