Five charged in US migrant kidnapping, families ordered to pay ransom

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Four men have been arrested and charged with kidnapping migrants who had been smuggled into the United States and demanding ransom for their release from their relatives, officials said Monday.

The men pleaded not guilty after being charged on a misdemeanor count, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles said. A fifth man has been charged in the case but remains at large, prosecutors said in a statement.

Prosecutors say the suspects took the four migrants from a gas station in Arizona last year and later held them hostage in a California home.

Three of the hostages were later taken to a motel, where one of them escaped through a second-floor bathroom window and ran to a nearby store, the affidavit said. One of the suspects followed him and beat him, attempting to kidnap him again, the affidavit said.

Migrants seeking to enter the United States are often kidnapped by gangs and drug cartels in Mexico, and are also known to be vulnerable to kidnappings in the United States.