A California teen is back at home after kidnappers held him hostage for four days, threatening to cut off body parts if his family didn't pay a $500,000 ransom.
The 17-year-old San Bernardino County resident was found in a Santa Maria motel room on Friday, which is when his three abductors were taken into custody, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
The teen had been missing since last Monday, when he was abducted following a fender-bender on a local street, the Attorney's Office said.
"Few things can be as terrorizing to a parent as having your child kidnapped and held for ransom under threat of physical harm," U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said in a statement.
The three kidnappers -- Fidel Jesús Patino Jaimes, 22, Jair Tomás Ramos Domínguez, 26, and Ezequiel Felix López, 27 -- have been charged with kidnapping, a federal crime. They each face life in prison if convicted.
According to an affidavit, the ordeal started on Sept. 18, when the three men allegedly caused a traffic accident in which the teen crashed into their silver-colored Jeep Grand Cherokee. When the victim exited his vehicle, the men allegedly grabbed him and forced him into their Jeep.
Later that day, the victim's mother received a telephone call from a Mexican phone number. According to court documents, the caller demanded the delivery of $500,000 to an unspecified location in Nogales, Mexico for the victim, and said that the abduction was the fault of the victim's father.
"Shortly thereafter, a different Mexican telephone number was used to send a WhatsApp video to the victim’s mother's cellphone. The video showed the victim in the backseat of the Jeep Grand Cherokee and reading from a script, saying that the abduction was his father's fault for an incident that occurred in New York, and saying you know what you stole," the Attorney's Office said.
For days, the mother continued to receive multiple phone calls from different Mexican telephone numbers in which the speaker demanded payment and threatened to cut off the teen's body parts if payment wasn't made, the Attorney's Office said, adding that the ransom demand, which went unpaid, was eventually reduced to $100,000.
On Sept. 22, law enforcement ultimately tracked the group down to a motel in Santa Maria, "in part by identifying the vehicle used during the kidnapping in a Facebook Marketplace posting and by reviewing Ring door camera footage of the kidnapping," authorities said.
"Together with the FBI and our local law enforcement partners, we have acted swiftly to rescue the victim and bring the abductors to justice. I commend the agents and officers for their heroic efforts to free the victim and prevent a devastating tragedy from occurring," said Estrada.
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