Cuban man kidnapped in Mexico tells of the terrifying moments he experienced

A young Cuban man who was kidnapped in Mexico shortly before arriving for his appointment cbp one Described the terrifying moments he experienced at the American border and at the hands of his captors.

In a statement to journalist Javier Diaz, the 25-year-old migrant named Orlando says he spent five months in Mexico City and when his appointment came through the app cbp one He left for the border of Ciudad Juarez.

However, upon reaching that dangerous city in northern Mexico he felt “a noise” and when he turned his head “there was a gun to his forehead.”

“They didn’t let us take luggage, clothes, anything, they took us barefoot,” he said.

He says he was kidnapped along with two other Cubans and that his captors smoked marijuana and gave him one bean burrito a day that they had to split in half.

Then he asked for five thousand dollars from relatives in the United States leave them alive,

They threatened to cut off his fingers, the Cuban said.

After the family did not receive the money and made a public complaint on social networks, three migrants from the island were released.

Orlando asks people who are traveling to take care of themselves Do not trust anyone,

Similarly, he recalled the birth of his son in Mexico and assured that he would work so that the child and his wife could grow up in the United States.

Dozens of people have been kidnapped while traveling to the US border in the context of an immigration crisis that has erupted over two years About five million Cubans on migration routes Central American.

The United States this week sentenced a member of the so-called “Cuban Mafia in Quintana Roo” to eight years in prison, accused of kidnapping and extorting dozens of Cuban migrants and their relatives in Miami.

The Prosecutor’s Office for the Southern District of Florida sentenced a Miami Beach man named Javier Hernandez, 50, to 95 months in federal prison for his role in a violent international organized crime group, a Justice Department note said. In Cuba, Mexico, Spain and South Florida since 2009.

Immigrant extortion rings required victims to provide contact information of a family member, from whom they would later demand $10,000 in ransom.

“The men would contact the victims’ relatives, some of whom were in Miami, and threaten to torture, starve, and murder the victims if the relatives refused to pay. If the victim’s relative could pay the ransom , the organization released him and sent him by bus to the border between the United States and Mexico with instructions to request political asylum,” it emerged.

“Victims whose relatives could not pay the fees were beaten, threatened with knives and guns, and electrocuted with anesthetic weapons, until they were eventually rescued by Mexican authorities. Members of the organization also tried to profit from drug trafficking schemes and fraud,” the complaint details.