Cartel-Linked Texas Border City Man Sent to Prison for Kidnapping Migrants

A Texas border man with links to Mexico’s Gulf Cartel will spend 20 years in prison for kidnapping two migrants and forcing their relatives to pay a ransom.

U.S. District Judge Randy Crane sentenced Miguel Angel Castillo, 23, to 20 years in federal prison. Castillo pleaded guilty in January 2021 to the charge of hostage-taking.

According to information released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas, Castillo was previously convicted twice for human smuggling and was on federal probation at the time of the kidnapping during the summer of 2019.

Court documents revealed that Castillo picked up two migrants from Guatemala at a parking lot in Rio Grande City, Texas. He took them to his home in Donna, Texas. Rio Grande City is a known smuggling corridor used by Mexico’s Gulf Cartel to move thousands of migrants into Texas for profit.

The case was handled by U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) who worked with Donna Police to rescue the migrants and arrest Castillo and the other members of his cartel-connected group.

Castillo got the help of two underage teens to guard the migrants in his house and would threaten the migrants with a handgun as he forced them to reach out to their relatives to request money for their release. Since Castillo was on federal probation, he is unable to legally own or possess a weapon.

Court documents revealed that the migrants paid $4,000 in Mexico before they crossed into Texas. The relatives of one of the migrants sent an additional $6,100 for the migrant’s release after being told that if they didn’t the migrants would be killed.

Authorities were able to rescue the migrants on August 15, 2019, after the two teen gunmen fell asleep. That is when the migrants called 911 and told Donna police they had been kidnapped.

Luisana Moreno is a contributing writer for Breitbart Texas.

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