14ymedio, Havana, 13 November 2020 — A court in Mexico sentenced Cuban Maikel Antonio Reyes Echavarría to 75 years in prison for kidnapping citizens of the island who arrived in that country with the aim of continuing to the United States. As an accomplice, the Mexican Mónica Susana del Castillo Díaz received 50 years in prison.
In a statement issued this Wednesday, the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) of Mexico reports that both were arrested on January 16 of last year, in a police operation that managed to free five victims being held in a home in Mérida, Yucatán. The five Cubans were found to be “in poor health.”
The investigation began a few days before, when relatives of one of the victims, residents of Las Vegas, Nevada, reported having received an extortion call: the kidnapper demanded a large sum of money in exchange for the release of the kidnapped person, who had left Cuba on January 4.
With the participation of 19 witnesses, the FGR details, the criminal process was carried out, which resulted not only in the prison sentence but also in a fine of 960,200 pesos (almost $ 47,000) for Reyes and 644,800 pesos (about $ 31,000) for Del Castillo.
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