Mexican cartel kidnapper gets 59 years
A Mexican working for a drug cartel who kidnapped a Calhoun County man in 2014 and led the FBI on a wild manhunt in North Carolina has been sentenced to 59 years in federal prison by a judge in Columbia.
The long sentence levied by U.S. Judge Michelle Childs on Ruben Ceja-Rangel, 59, makes it unlikely that he will leave prison alive.
Ceja-Rangel’s sentence included time for kidnapping and use of a firearm in furtherance of a kidnapping, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Columbia.
To crack the case, the FBI used wiretaps, aerial surveillance, dozens of agents, members of its Hostage Rescue Team, Spanish linguists and expert negotiators, according to evidence in the case and FBI statements.
Evidence in the case showed the jury that Ceja-Rangel and two other men kidnapped the Calhoun County man at gunpoint in July 2014, then took him to North Carolina, eventually winding up near Roseboro, east of Fayetteville. Five days later, using tracking locator technology, the FBI burst in the Roseboro area house, freed the victim and nabbed Ceja-Rangel.
According to trial evidence, the victim’s father owed a drug debt to a Mexican cartel concerning 200 pounds of cartel marijuana that had gone missing. Ceja-Rangel and his accomplices were retained by the cartel to hold the victim hostage in hopes of getting a large amount of money to reimburse the cartel for the missing drugs.
Ceja-Rangel was tried in early 2015 for the kidnapping-related crimes but that trial ended in a mistrial. He was convicted last October after a two-week trial.
A co-defendant in the case, Juan Manuel Fuentes-Morales, of Monterey, Mexico, was convicted along with Ceja-Rangel but he has not yet been sentenced.
The case drew widespread attention in part because court documents filed by the FBI revealed the existence of a major Mexican drug trafficking organization that had an established a marijuana pipeline into South Carolina and North Carolina.
This story was originally published May 11, 2016 at 4:37 PM with the headline "Mexican cartel kidnapper gets 59 years."