2 Held, 2 Sought in Kidnapping

An illegal immigrant who was kidnapped by two smugglers when her husband wouldn’t pay the fee they demanded was held three days in a North Hills apartment before fleeing--with a captor on her heels--to a gas station where an attendant called police, authorities said Saturday.

Police said the dramatic escape occurred at about 5:45 p.m. Friday, just as the woman was being brought out to meet her husband, who had been summoned to pay her ransom to a woman who had bought her from the smugglers.

The husband had been told to bring $1,500, and “if he didn’t have the money, they would take the wife far away and he would never see her again,” said Lt. Bob Tumas of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Devonshire Division.

But instead of the scheduled exchange taking place, the wife ran east on Nordhoff Street from the apartment where she had been held, chased by one of the kidnappers, a male, who “yelled at her to stop or it would be worse,” Tumas said.

She crossed six lanes of a busy intersection to a gas station, and, according to an employee there, calmly walked in and said in Spanish that she wanted someone to call police. A Spanish-speaking employee did so, the worker said.

Three minutes after that call, Tumas said, police received another call from a pay phone a short distance away on Sepulveda Boulevard. That call appeared to be from the woman’s husband, who told police he could direct them to the kidnappers.

Los Angeles police reunited the woman with her husband and arrested North Hills resident Sara Zaragoza, 36, and her 14-year-old son on suspicion of kidnapping and false imprisonment at the apartment building where the woman was held.

The pair, who allegedly bought the victim from the two smugglers, were held briefly, then turned over to Bell Gardens police, who were called in to investigate the kidnapping, Tumas said.

The victim, a Mexican immigrant whose identity has not been released, was later handed over to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Bell Gardens police said.

Zaragoza, who is also an illegal immigrant, was also later turned over to the INS, said Sgt. Bruce Dow of Bell Gardens police. Her son was booked as a juvenile on suspicion of participating in kidnapping and false imprisonment, and was taken to juvenile hall.

The INS is seeking two men who allegedly smuggled the victim across the border.

Bell Gardens police said the INS took the case over because of Zaragosa’s undocumented status and because the crime involves transport of an illegal immigrant across the border, Dow said. Police say the woman was brought over the border from Mexico by smugglers--or “coyotes”--on Monday and taken to her husband in Bell Gardens, who apparently had made arrangements to pay for her transport.

When the coyotes arrived at the husband’s door with the wife in tow, “they demanded additional money,” said Dow. Although they left the woman with her husband that night, they vowed to return for more cash.

The next day, true to their word, they kidnapped the wife from in front of the Bell Gardens home, took her to an L.A. parking lot, and “sold their interest in her” to Zaragoza for an undisclosed price, Dow said.

Zaragoza kept her in the apartment under 24-hour guard until the scheduled exchange was to occur, police said.

Neighbors at the 56-unit complex on Nordhoff Street said Saturday that Zaragoza had long been known to have a stream of strangers coming and going at odd hours at her second-floor apartment.

One neighbor, Alicia Nagy, said she heard a woman cry out and then saw her slip out of a van. Several police cars arrived soon after. The victim’s husband and three small children were with police officers, Nagy said.

“I’d see them at 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning, people with suitcases, and young guys with them,” said neighbor Randy Jarvis, who said Zaragoza had lived there many years.

Other tenants in the complex said a woman had come to the apartment several months ago, alleging that her teenage daughter was being held there against her will, but nothing came of her queries.

Visitors to Zaragoza’s apartment would come in a white Dodge Voyager, said Mike Grossman, a former manager of the complex and still a tenant. “They stayed there a while, then they were gone,” Grossman said.