A man convicted in a 2024 kidnapping-for-ransom plot that held four people captive inside a southeast Houston home has been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. Elloy Figueroa Pedraza is the second of eight people indicted in the case to be sentenced, following co-defendant Jesus Salgado, who received 15 years last month for his role.
Two Sentences Down, Six Defendants to Go
The update came from FBI Houston
, which confirmed Pedraza's 20-year sentence and noted that Salgado was sentenced to 15 years for his role in the case in September. The bureau's post described the case as stemming from a March 2024 kidnapping for ransom in southeast Houston that involved several victims and eight indicted individuals overall.
The case traces back to a home in the 4300 block of Harby Street, where four people were held hostage for ransom, according to FOX 26 Houston. The station reported that the suspected kidnappers demanded $15,000 for the safe return of victim Manriquez and three other immigrants, and threatened to kill them if the money wasn't paid.
How the Rescue Unfolded
Investigators traced one of the kidnapping-related phone calls to the rental property at 4309 Harby Street on April 1, 2024, according to court documents cited by KPRC 2 / Click2Houston. Two days later, the FBI Hostage Rescue Team executed a search warrant at the home around 2:18 a.m., and Manriquez was found inside along with three other people confirmed to be kidnapping victims, the station reported.
The four suspects taken into custody in connection with the raid were identified as Luis Enrique Duran Montilla, Gerson Adony Chicas Alfaro, Keven Armando Marcano and Elloy M. Figueroa Pedraza, per the same account. Pedraza's sentencing this week marks the first public confirmation of a prison term for any of those four men named at the time of the raid.
Part of a Broader Pattern in the Houston Area
Kidnapping-for-ransom schemes involving threats or violence against victims have surfaced repeatedly in the Houston region in recent years. In a separate 2023 case out of Brookshire, suspects allegedly held kidnapping victims hostage at two Houston-area hotels and recorded the victims being beaten, according to ABC13 Houston. Federal officials said that scheme involved the violent kidnapping of three people in Brookshire in March 2023, and eight additional suspects tied to it were arrested that August, with one suspect killed during a hostage-rescue raid and two others identified as juveniles.
Two fugitives connected to that Brookshire case, Lorie Lin Flowers and Santiago Hernandez Jr., were later arrested in Michoacan, Mexico, ABC13 reported. The U.S. Department of Justice, Southern District of Texas, has said that in a related scheme, kidnappers released two hostages after their families paid ransom, while law enforcement carried out an operation to rescue the remaining victim.
It remains unclear whether all details tying these cases together refer to the same charging instrument, and the identities and case statuses of the other six people indicted alongside Pedraza and Salgado have not been disclosed. For now, federal authorities have confirmed only that two of the eight defendants in the Harby Street case have been sentenced, leaving the remaining prosecutions still pending.
