Ties to Mexican Crime Ring Probed in Kidnapping Case

Los Angeles detectives are investigating whether suspects who abducted a man from a downtown restaurant are linked to crime gangs in northern Mexico and were involved in similar incidents here.

Two of the suspects were killed Wednesday in a shootout with police at a Florence intersection, where they were told to collect a ransom left by the restaurant owner, described as a close personal friend of the kidnap victim, said Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Cmdr. Tim McBride.

The dead men were identified Thursday as Ramon Calderon, 33, and Hector Garcia, 42.

At the same time that police surrounded the van in which Calderon and Garcia were riding, other officers stormed an apartment in the 7400 block of South Main Street where Pablo Reyes Vasquez, 29, had been held since he was abducted from El Troquero restaurant on East 7th Street at 10 p.m. Sunday, McBride said.

There, they arrested Felipe Casarez Lopez, 20, Jose Casarez Beltran, 29, Elber Baldovinos, 23, and Faviola Zepeda, 39.

McBride said a number of the suspects, and possibly the victim, are from Sinaloa, and detectives were tracking tips that they might be linked to notorious drug-smuggling gangs that operate in that northern Mexico state. He added that it was “very probable” they could have been involved in other crimes in the Los Angeles area.

The alleged kidnappers apparently assumed that the restaurant owner, Antonia Rendon, had enough money from her restaurant business to pay $300,000 for Vasquez’s return. They apparently were mistaken, and the ransom was negotiated down to an undisclosed sum, McBride said.

The money, along with the victim’s car, were picked up from a parking lot at Compton Avenue and Gage Boulevard about 11 a.m. Wednesday, police said. Three hours later, two suspects returned to the same lot to retrieve a prearranged second ransom and car, police said. Police surrounded the vehicle and the shootout ensued.