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 News from Around the Americas | August 2007 
Victim: Kidnappers Unafraid to Commit Mexican-Style Crime in U.S.
 Associated Press
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San Diego, CA - A Mexican businessman testified that his Mexican captors boasted they were unafraid to kidnap people in the United States as they tortured him in a suburban home.
Eduardo Gonzalez Tostado, 32, on Tuesday haltingly recounted his captors' threats and demands for money in the first hours after a woman lured him to a home in a quiet cul-de-sac the night of June 8 with the promise of sex. Instead, he was jumped, beaten and shot with a stun gun by at least four men who blindfolded and bound him.
The leader of the group, a Mexican man, said they would free him for $2 million and warned him to take the demand seriously.
"He said it's not the first time, he did it before, he has the balls to do it over here in the U.S., not in Mexico, the kidnapping," Gonzalez said during the second day of preliminary hearings in San Diego Superior Court.
Six men pleaded not guilty to charges of kidnap for ransom after Gonzalez was rescued in a federal raid on June 16 from a home in Chula Vista, a suburb just north of the U.S.-Mexico border.
The defendants — four Mexican citizens, one Cuban and one U.S. citizen — could face life in prison without the possibility parole if convicted.
The men are believed to be members of a kidnapping and murder organization called Los Palillos — or, The Toothpicks — that is suspected of involvement in several unsolved murders in San Diego County over the past several years. Prosecutors say the group may have targeted members of the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix drug cartel.
Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, has witnessed a spate of kidnappings in recent years, often linked to drug violence.
Defense attorney Guadalupe Valencia, who represents one of the alleged kidnappers, questioned Gonzalez about his ties to members of the Arellano Felix cartel.
Gonzalez said he recognized the men at off-road races in his hometown of Ensenada and bought a race-car from a company owned by a suspected cartel associate, but asserted that he did not personally know any of them and had never been involved in laundering money for the group.
"I've seen them at the races, that's all," said Gonzalez, who owns two car dealerships and a cross-border logistics business in California. "You cannot talk to people like that."
Prosecutors have said they do not know why Gonzalez was targeted, other than his wealth and prominence as a champion off-road racer and owner of a seafood restaurant in Tijuana.
Gonzalez testified Monday that he knew he was being targeted as early as May, when a man called to ask for $50,000 in exchange for the names of kidnappers.
"Why didn't you go to the police?" Valencia asked during cross-examination Tuesday. "Is it because you didn't want them to investigate you?"
"That's not the case," said Gonzalez. "I didn't have all the information, and they weren't going to do anything. It was hard to get the FBI involved too."
He said he told his wife to call the agency if he went missing and hired a private investigator.
Weeks later, Gonzalez said, a friend who is among the men charged in the abduction introduced him to a beautiful woman called Nancy, who invited him for drinks at the salmon-and-turquoise stucco house as a ruse.
He said his kidnappers refused to believe him when he initially told them he couldn't raise the $2 million.
"I said it was difficult, that I didn't have money like that," Gonzalez testified. "He didn't believe me, he told me so, because I dress good, I have good cars."
Gonzalez said the day after his abduction, he called home and told his pregnant wife to sell their house and raise money from friends. At the time, his wife refused to believe he was being held hostage and hung up the phone after accusing him of partying all night.
Gonzalez said he offered his captors Rolex watches.
Gonzalez was rescued by the FBI SWAT team after eight days in captivity. His wife and cousin gave the abductors $193,900 using a briefcase with an FBI homing device hidden inside, according to investigators. An FBI airplane tracked the car back to the house where Gonzalez was being held. |
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