ROSENBERG – Two people have been arrested and accused of kidnapping a 21-year-old man from Honduras, according to the Rosenberg Police Department.
Ricardo Mejia, 35, and Amy Regalado, 40, were both arrested and charged with aggravated kidnapping and aggravated assault.
On Thursday, Rosenberg police responded to a possible kidnapping call. When officers arrived, they said a woman was attempting to purchase her nephew from human smugglers in the parking lot of the Brazos Town Center.
The woman told officers when she and the human smugglers couldn’t agree on a purchasing price, they sped off with her nephew and hit her car.
On Friday, Victoria County Sheriff deputies responded to a regional notification from Rosenberg PD and were able to locate the suspect’s vehicle on US-59. After stopping the vehicle, officers were able to locate the two suspects, Mejia and Regalado, along with the 21-year-old kidnapping victim.
Rosenberg PD said during their investigation, they learned the 21-year-old man had purchased passage from Honduras and was sold between a group of smugglers.
After being smuggled across the United States border, the man was moved between a network of stash houses, according to investigators. Officials said the man was later dumped in an uninhabited area in south Texas.
According to police, the man wandered for days before walking to a gas station where he approached a random person and asked for help. Police said the individual reportedly contacted another group of smugglers.
Authorities said the smugglers took the victim again and began negotiating with other members of his family on a price for his release.
“Local law enforcement agencies did an outstanding job putting a stop to a criminal episode that spanned continents. It is shameful in this day and age, in a country that leads the free world, to have people bought and sold like animals. The most significant aspect of this tragedy is that this young man escaped, reached out for help, and was returned to captivity. This is the definition of evil,” Rosenberg PD said in a release.