A Harbinger of Things to Come?

Kidnappings for ransom are relatively common in Latin America while almost unheard of in the United States. Thus, it caught my attention when I saw the New York Post reporting "Illegal immigrants in North Carolina kidnap mom, infant daughter at gunpoint after family refuses to pay $1M demand." The article relates:

    A pair of illegal immigrants and another man kidnapped a terrified mother and her infant daughter in North Carolina Monday after the family refused to pony up $1 million, authorities said.

    Paola Duran Duran, 25, her brother Miguel Angel Duran Duran, 23, and Eleodoro “Leo” Estrada-Hernandez, 37, are accused of taking the pair at gunpoint before freeing them.

    Mom and daughter later turned up at a stranger’s door looking for help. 

 * * *

    While the siblings were arrested Wednesday, the third suspect, Estrada-Hernandez, remains on the loose and the subject of a $10,000 reward for his capture.

    The two busted suspects were illegally in the United States were facing ICE holds, according to local reports. The status of the man still being sought was still not clear. 

    The harrowing abduction began Monday night when the masked trio armed with guns allegedly shouldered their way into the home of Eliuth Alejandro Martinez, demanding money, according to police.

    Police said that the victims claimed to investigators that the kidnappers wanted $1 million, but Martinez refused to pay.

    The kidnappers then allegedly wrapped him with duct tape and fled with his wife, Alondra Michelle Benitez De Jesus, 26, and the couple’s 11-month-old daughter, Grecia Salome Alejandro-Benitez, in a black Nissan Altima.

 It is perhaps not surprising that the this crime was wholly within the Latino community as that is probably how the kidnappers gained the information to pick their target. The home invasion and kidnapping is somewhat unusual as the more common crime is "express kidnapping" where the victim is picked up off the street or perhaps taken by a taxi driver in cahoots with accomplices, and driven around to different ATMs and forced to empty bank accounts using their bank cards. And one variant that picked up under Biden's open border policy was the mass kidnapping for ransom of migrants traversing Mexico to sneak into the U.S.