2 women found 2 weeks after being kidnapped

Baja police rescue real estate agents
By Sandra Dibble
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
February 1, 2008

TIJUANA – Two real estate agents kidnapped last month and held captive in a residential area were found Wednesday by Baja California state agents.

The victims, both female, were abducted Jan. 19 after showing a property in the coastal development of San Antonio del Mar in southern Tijuana, according to a statement from the Baja California Attorney General's Office.

The women, who were not named, were accosted by three assailants who initially demanded a payment of $300,000 for one victim and $50,000 for the other, the statement said. Family members informed state officials of the crime, prompting an investigation by Baja California's Organized Crime Unit.

Through telephone calls with the kidnappers, family members negotiated a payment of $27,000 and dropped off the cash Tuesday at a location in Tijuana, according to the Attorney General's Office. But the kidnappers did not release the victims Wednesday, as they had agreed, the statement said.

By tracking the vehicle used to pick up the cash, agents questioned the driver, Alejandro Cárdenas Naranja, who authorities said confessed to participating in the kidnapping. He led them to a residence where the women were being kept, in a development called Villas de Santa Fe.

At the house, agents arrested three other suspects: José Luis Pulido Contreras, 33, Gabriel Vázquez González, 26, and Erick Ramírez Abarca, 19. The agents seized weapons, ski masks, a bulletproof vest and a 1998 Ford Ranger.