Heriberto Mendez-Lozano, 26, received a 38-year sentence for committing hostage-taking and human smuggling, among other charges, on September 17, according to a September 18 news release from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) unit.
The case focused on events that occurred on September 29, 2022, when Mendez-Lozano, along with Lorenzo Campbell and Heriberto Aguirre, smuggled migrants from near the Rio Grande further into the United States. According to the news release, five undocumented non-citizens were taken to a location in Donna, Texas, where they were held against their will. Mendez-Lozano and Aguirre held guns to the heads and ribs of hostages, threatened them, and forced them to call family members to demand ransom for their release.
Mendez-Lozano and Campbell were arrested at an unidentified location in Donna as authorities rescued the hostages. Aguirre was arrested at a nearby motel.
Katrina W. Berger, Executive Associate Director
| Homeland Security Investigations
At the time of his arrest, Mendez-Lozano also had a pending warrant for aggravated robbery. In addition to the 360 months in federal prison for hostage-taking and human smuggling, he received 160 months for being a felon in possession of a firearm. His prison term will be followed by three years of supervised release.
Campbell, 23, was previously sentenced to 18 months in federal prison. Twenty-five-year-old Aguirre of Mission was sentenced to 240 months. Both must serve two years of supervised release.
"After illegally navigating vulnerable migrants across the Southern border, human smugglers like Mendez-Lozano tend to graduate to hostage-taking," said Alamdar Hamdani, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas. "He and others asserted control over the migrants and held them at gunpoint, subjecting them to trauma and terror over the course of several days. They used fear to force the migrants’ families to pay money for their release."
Hamdani added: "Today, some small measure of justice has been secured for these heinous acts as Mendez-Lozano goes from former hostage-taker to current federal prisoner."
Homeland Security Investigations is the investigative arm of DHS. There are more than 10,000 employees of HSI who work in 235 offices in the U.S. and 93 overseas locations. HSI was created in 2010 when the Offices of Investigations, Intelligence, and International Affairs within U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were combined into a new directorate known as Homeland Security Investigations.
