Two Riverside County men were accused of participating in an international ransom ring on July 30.
Miguel “Fredo” Angel Avila of Hemet and Jose “Pablo” Jaime Garcia were two of five men charged in the scheme.
The indictment accuses Avila of telling co-defendant Jose Moreno Gonzalez to kidnap migrants at a gas station in Chandler, Arizona, on March 21, 2023. Avila, Garcia and co-defendant Gabriel “Steven” Becerra then held the migrants in a Burbank house, and called their families for ransom payments, the indictment claims.
On March 22, 2023, the men moved the hostages to a motel room, where one of the four men escaped through a second-story
