Man arrested in alleged migrant kidnapping scheme in Southwest Albuquerque

An Albuquerque man was arrested Wednesday in an alleged kidnapping scheme in which migrants were told their bodies would be dissolved in acid if the ransom wasn’t paid.

Francisco Galvez, 59, is charged with one count of kidnapping. He was booked into the Metropolitan Detention Center on Thursday morning.

Albuquerque police officers were dispatched to the 700 block of Old Coors SW, south of Central, Wednesday evening after a woman called 911 and said she had been kidnapped and did not know where she was, according to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court.

The woman, who only spoke Spanish, told police that her kidnappers would kill her if she did not pay them, the complaint states. Officers used GPS technology to track the phone call to a house in Southwest Albuquerque.

Upon arriving, police found several people inside the house, including the woman who called 911 and Galvez. The woman told officers she had been taken to the house and was not allowed to leave unless she paid $18,000, according to the complaint.

The woman told police the kidnappers said they would “dismember her and put her body parts in acid,” the complaint states.

“The kidnappers also demanded money from (the woman’s) family,” police wrote in the complaint. The woman told officers she was being charged $300 for every day that her family did not pay the ransom.

The woman told police she had made arrangements to be brought into the United States from Mexico, according to the complaint. Other people in the house told police they had made similar deals to be brought into the country.

Galvez told police he had gone to the house to have dinner with two friends and that he did not see anything out of the ordinary, the complaint states. He denied being involved in any kidnapping scheme.

Police asked Galvez if he had ever spoken to any of the people in the house and he told officers he had not, according to the complaint. Galvez told police that every week new people would be in the house.

Officers found a sheet of paper with names, some with the word “libre” — which translates to free — next to them, and others with a number, which police believe indicated how much the person owed, the complaint states.