Gulf Cartel members sentenced for botched 2011 kidnapping

McALLEN — A group of Gulf Cartel members who participated in the botched 2011 kidnapping of a man they mistakenly thought had stolen drugs from a plaza boss learned their fate in McAllen federal court on Friday.

All four men — Orlando Hernandez, Jose Guadalupe Garza Ochoa, Roel Garza and Hector Gabriel Barrios Hernandez — were sentenced to time served after having spent years in federal custody pending the resolution of their case, which began in 2013.

They, along with two other men, were charged with kidnapping a man they thought had stolen cocaine from a Gulf Cartel plaza boss named Miguel Villarreal Jr.

“The kidnappings were intended as retaliation for the theft of a significant amount of (Miguel) Villarreal Jr.’s cocaine in the Alton/Mission, Texas area,” reads a copy of the criminal complaint against the men.

But the kidnapping turned out to be a case of mistaken identity, as the defendants — some of whom had posed as law enforcement officers during the crime — wound up kidnapping the wrong man.

The victim, Ovidio Olivarez Guerrero, had nothing to do with drug trafficking or with ripping off drug stash houses, law enforcement would later learn.

Instead, Guerrero and his wife had just been at the wrong place at the wrong time.

And the whole story came to light when the leader of the kidnapping crew, Gerardo Villarreal, was arrested just days after the kidnapping on unrelated drug charges by Mission police.

Once in custody, Villarreal told a tale that not only detailed Guerrero’s kidnapping, but would wind up sending ripples into the future in the prosecution and sentencing of dozens of people across the state.

THE KIDNAPPING

Guerrero’s kidnapping happened on a fateful day — May 28, 2011 — when he and his wife, Veronica, decided to visit the Mission home of his cousin, Gerardo Olivarez, also known as Lin.

According to the criminal complaint, Gerardo Villarreal told investigators that Lin was one of several kidnapping targets identified by a man he knew only as “Pecueka,” who claimed to work for Miguel Villarreal, the plaza boss, in Mexico.

Law enforcement later identified Pecueka as Alan Alpizar Cordoba, a Mexican “sicario” or assassin who also went by “Fiscal,” which means “prosecutor.”

Alpizar and Gerardo Villarreal met with the rest of the kidnappers at a ranch house off Trosper Road in Alton. The house was owned by Miguel Villarreal, the plaza boss, and was known to the defendants as a drug stash house.

There, they made plans to kidnap Lin, whom they thought had stolen more than 100 kilograms of cocaine.

But when they got to Lin’s home, they instead met with Guerrero.

Guerrero identified himself to Gerardo Villarreal, who was dressed as a law enforcement officer, complete with badge and gun.

“G. Villarreal further stated that during the kidnapping, while dressed as a police officer, he used a handgun … (and) described the weapon as a Pietro Beretta 9mm pistol with brown grips,” the complaint stated.

Investigators later recovered the pistol, which had been purchased just a few weeks earlier by an uncle of Orlando Hernandez, one of the four men who was sentenced on Friday.

“G. Villarreal further stated that in order to be more convincing as a police officer, he obtained a note pad to use during the kidnapping,” and had a police badge that may have been a “toy,” according to another co-defendant.

Gerardo Villarreal, along with another man later identified as Jose Lorenzo Davila, used the police officer ruse to tell Guerrero that he had outstanding fines and needed to be taken into custody.

Guerrero’s wife, who witnessed the entire event, believed her husband had been arrested by local law enforcement. She followed the men as they drove away in a truck, but quickly lost sight of them.

When she reached out to local police departments and the sheriff’s office to determine which agency had custody of her husband, she learned none of them had arrested Guerrero.

Meanwhile, Guerrero was taken back to the plaza boss’ Alton stash house, where he was blindfolded, gagged and bound with duct tape.

A man identified only as “Chiapas” beat Guerrero, at one point striking him so hard that he fell. With his hands bound, Guerrero was unable to break his fall, which caused him to bleed, the defendants told investigators.

It wasn’t long before the kidnappers realized they had taken the wrong man. But by then, Guerrero’s fate was sealed.

“Alpizar acknowledged that they had taken the wrong person and that the victim would probably be killed in Mexico, but indicated that the victim had seen his face, so he would not be released,” the complaint stated.

Guerrero was taken into Mexico anyway, where he “has not been heard from or seen since this event,” the complaint concluded.

THE PROSECUTION

Gerardo Villarreal was charged separately from his co-defendants.

Just over a year after the kidnapping — on Aug. 31, 2012 — Gerardo Villarreal pleaded guilty to the crime.

In May 2018, he was sentenced to 27 years in federal prison. However, in April, that sentence was reduced to time served, plus three years of court supervision.

The reasons for Villarreal’s sentence reduction remain under seal.

In all, Gerardo Villarreal, who had been in either state or federal custody since his June 2011 arrest, spent about a dozen years in jail.

As for the hitman known as “the prosecutor,” Alan Alpizar-Cordoba was killed by Mexican Federal Police, according to a motion to dismiss filed by federal prosecutors in a related case out of Houston.

Alpizar was killed sometime before February 2018.

Alpizar had been named as the lead defendant in the local kidnapping case, along with several other men who were charged with only conspiracy to distribute narcotics.

Among those charged for the drug offenses was Gerardo Olivarez, the man known as Lin, whom Alpizar and Gerardo Villarreal had initially intended to kidnap.

COOPERATING WITNESSES

The other men who participated in Guerrero’s kidnapping were also kept in custody since their arrests.

That was a large part of the reason why U.S. District Judge Ricardo H. Hinojosa sentenced them to time served on Friday.

But so, too, was the fact they helped investigators and federal prosecutors nail down other cases from as far afield as Houston and San Antonio.

Hector Gabriel Barrios-Hernandez provided “critical” testimony in a San Antonio case, his defense attorney, Crispin “C.J.” Quintanilla said.

Roel Garza assisted prosecutors with two other cases, his attorney said. And Jose Guadalupe Garza-Ochoa testified in at least one Houston case.

Orlando Hernandez, known as “Gordo,” was also sentenced to time served during a separate hearing on Friday.

Both he and Alpizar were part of a 52-defendant drug trafficking and money laundering case in Houston.

Hernandez pleaded guilty in that case and in 2018 was sentenced to five years in federal prison.

Barrios-Hernandez was contrite as he learned his fate in the kidnapping case Friday.

“I participated in a situation that has made me ashamed,” Barrios-Hernandez said in Spanish.

“I know whatever I say to the family won’t alleviate the pain I caused them… If they could forgive me someday, I would be very grateful,” he said.

Garza was also apologetic.

“I just wanna say that I’m really sorry for everything that happened,” Garza said, adding that he hopes Guerrero’s family will “forgive me one day.”

In the gallery, Ovidio Guerrero’s parents sat silently. They declined to make a victim impact statement.

Jose Guadalupe Garza Ochoa offered his apologies, as well, but stumbled over his words when prompted by the judge if he had anything else to add.

“I’m very nervous,” Garza Ochoa said in Spanish.

“You should have been nervous when all this was being done,” Hinojosa said.