Edgar Adrian Hernandez Lemus, Ransom Collection, California 2022

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Table of Contents

LOS ANGELES

Two Los Angeles-area men were found guilty of collecting ransom payments for a cross-border kidnapping conspiracy that targeted victims near the US-Mexico border.

Edgar Adrian Hernandez Lemus, 23, of Central-Alameda neighborhood in Los Angeles, was found guilty of conspiracy and two counts of receiving money from a ransom demand. Junior Almendarez Martinez, 23, of Watts, was found guilty of two counts of receiving money from a ransom demand.

According to evidence presented at their three-day trial, the kidnapping incidents targeted victims who were waiting or attempting to cross the border from Mexico into the United States. The kidnappers offered to assist in smuggling the victims across the border but instead held them for ransom, demanding money from the victims’ family members to release them.

From March 29 to June 1, 2021, the kidnappers used specific sections at Walmart and other stores in Southern California to meet with the family members to collect the ransom payments. However, after the payments were made, the kidnappers demanded additional money rather than releasing the victims.

Lemus and Almendarez traveled to these stores to pick up ransom payments from the family members of the kidnapped victims. During many of the ransom pickups, the family members remained on the phone with members of the conspiracy who would direct them towards Lemus, who was often on the phone during the ransom pickups. The ransom payments picked up by defendants ranged from $12,000 to $30,000 in cash.

After the ransom pickups, Lemus and Almendarez would use Uber to transport the money before eventually sending it to co-conspirators in Mexico via MoneyGram. The victims were later assaulted, drugged, and released.

United States District Judge John F. Walter has scheduled a January 10, 2022 sentencing hearing for Lemus, who faces a statutory maximum sentence of 11 years in federal prison. Almendarez will face a statutory maximum sentence of eight years in federal prison.

A co-defendant, Francisco Javier Hernandez Martinez, 21, of Central-Alameda neighborhood in Los Angeles, pleaded guilty on September 7 to one count of conspiracy and faces a statutory maximum sentence of five years in federal prison at his sentencing hearing on November 29.

The FBI investigated this matter, with substantial assistance from the South Gate Police Department and the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office. Assistant United States Attorneys Jeffrey M. Chemerinsky and Joseph D. Axelrad of the Violent and Organized Crime Section are prosecuting this case.