5 Immigrant Smugglers Get Prison Terms

Five smugglers who held illegal immigrants captive at gunpoint in a local apartment and demanded money for their release were sentenced Thursday to federal prison, authorities said.

The smugglers, all Mexican nationals, were arrested in November after some of their prisoners escaped and called police.

The smugglers brought 14 illegal immigrants to an apartment in the 500 block of Hamilton Street after each had agreed to pay $400. When the armed smugglers demanded the immigrants call relatives to pay more money, six of the captives refused, police said.

After two days in captivity, one of the six was pistol-whipped and the other five were bound and blindfolded before being loaded into a stolen van, police said. The victims told police they believed they were being taken to a remote area to be abandoned or killed.

One of the prisoners gained control of the van and, after he was stabbed in the leg, drove the captives to safety at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

The ringleader of the smuggling ring, Arturo Rivera-Gallegos, 26, was sentenced Thursday to 37 months in prison by U.S. District Chief Judge W. Matthew Byrne Jr., prosecutors said. Rivera-Gallegos had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to smuggle illegal immigrants and harboring illegal immigrants.

The four others, each sentenced to two years on conspiracy charges, were Aureliano Marin-Ramirez, 22, Fernando Morales-Macedo, 20, Roberto Diaz-Delgado, 38, and Martin Gamez-Tzopitl, whose age was not available.

A juvenile arrested with the group will be deported to his native Mexico, according to Assistant U.S. Atty. David S. Lavine.