3 Apparently Held Hostage by Alien Smugglers

Two women and a 6-year-old boy were apparently robbed and held hostage Sunday by smugglers who brought them across the Mexican border, a spokesman for the U. S. Border Patrol said. One woman escaped and the others were released unharmed.

The trio was picked up by the smugglers early Sunday and taken to Los Angeles, as they had been promised, Border Patrol spokesman Michael Gregg said. But when the women failed to come up with $1,500 required as payment, the smugglers drove them back to San Diego County and held them captive in a house in San Ysidro, he said.

Border agents learned of the apparent kidnaping shortly after noon, when the mother of the 6-year-old boy escaped from the house and ran to the Border Patrol station, Gregg said.

When agents converged on the house in the 1800 block of Isla del Campanero, they found the other woman and the boy outside, Gregg said. The woman, whose name was not released by authorities, told the agents that the smugglers had let them go after they discovered the other woman had escaped.

Gregg said that inside the house, the agents found five undocumented Mexicans. Two men were arrested on suspicion of smuggling: a resident alien who claimed to own the house, and another man who was identified by the women as the driver who took the trio to Los Angeles and back.

San Diego police are investigating whether charges of kidnaping, false imprisonment or robbery should be filed.

The women and child, who were not identified, were being held as material witnesses to a crime, Gregg said.

The names of the suspects were not released.