U.S. Customs and Border Patrol
Arrests have been made in the Houston stash house case where 97 illegal immigrants were found. Five people were taken into custody and charged with federal crimes related to the discovery of a stash house used by human traffickers Friday. A criminal complaint was filed on Saturday. All five people charged in this case are illegal immigrants themselves.
A Houston Police Department (HPD) SWAT team raided the house Friday after a woman in Dallas called HPD to report that her brother had been kidnapped. Francis Martinez told HPD that she paid smugglers $11,000 in February to bring her brother, Santos Vaquedano, from Honduras to the United States. Thursday Martinez received a call from the human traffickers who instructed her to drive to Houston and meet them at a Walgreens parking lot. She was also told she would have to pay them another $6,300 for her brother’s release. As she drove to Houston, a woman called and put her brother on the phone. Martinez