Austin PD win again!
Posted by yabastablog on July 10, 2009
Austin Police Dept. is the only local law enforcement agency in Texas that has investigated and convicted a human trafficking case. It seems as if they may do it again. Their trafficking unit is extremely effective and is quite interwoven into the community efforts to combat slavery. Their human trafficking unit is a member of the Central Texas Coalition Against Human Trafficking, and they understand a victim centered approach.
Read more about their latest case:
WATCH: APD busts human trafficking ring
06:17 PM CDT on Wednesday, July 8, 200
By JIM BERGAMO / KVUE News
Austin police say they have busted a human trafficking ring. Police say the ring consisted of three men. Two are in custody, and investigators are still looking for third man.
Ismael Alvarez, 43, has been arrested and faces three counts of aggravated kidnapping. Luis Adrian Lopez-Alegria, 23, was already in custody, but police say he too faces three counts of aggravated kidnapping.
Police say the two men were part of a human trafficking ring. Investigators first learned of the ring in September 2008. Three men who thought they were being taken from Mexico to Houston ended up in an apartment in Austin.
According to the arrest affidavit, the three victims claim a day after they arrived in the apartment, their captors demanded immediate payment or else they would be killed. When they couldn’t produce the money, the victims claim they were beaten, kicked, choked, stabbed, had their heads held under water in toilets and then, presumably empty handguns were put to their heads with the captors pulling the trigger several times.
The victims told investigators the next day they were taken out of the apartment individually, stripped of their clothing and driven to a point where they were abandoned. About a month later, one of the victims thought he recognized Alvarez walking out of this grocery store on East Riverside Drive. The victim told police he saw Alvarez get into a gray 2001 Jeep Cherokee. By tracking the license plate and using information from a similar case, investigators were able to make what they say are significant arrests.
“You stop three of the main guys, eventually this ring will stop operating here — maybe it will break apart completely — but think of all the victims that are not going to be victimized because of these people being locked up and perhaps other people leaving the trade or moving elsewhere instead of victimizing people here in Austin,” said APD Lt. Jerry Gonzalez.
The second case that helped police crack the human trafficking ring involved a man who broke his ankle while jumping out of a second story window in order to make his escape.
When police compared his story to that of the three earlier victims, they say they realized the same people were behind both human smuggling cases.
Watch the news report here: http://www.kvue.com/news/local/stories/070809kvue_human_trafficking-cb.1f9d5ed6.html
