Immigration Indictment Issued in Abduction of Nevada Boy
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}
A man named by authorities as a figure in the drug ring kidnapping of a 6-year-old Nevada boy was indicted on an immigration charge Wednesday by a federal grand jury, the U.S. attorney's office said.
Jose Luis Lopez-Buelna, 48, was charged with being a deported alien found unlawfully in the United States, said Natalie Collins, spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Gregory Brower. No arraignment date was immediately set.
The charge keeps Lopez-Buelna in federal custody following his release from state custody last week. He spent more than a week in the Clark County jail following his Oct. 17 arrest by police investigating the Oct. 15 abduction of first-grader Cole Puffinburger.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}
Click here for photos.
The boy became the focus of Nevada's longest Amber Alert and an intensive search in neighboring states before he was found unharmed late Oct. 18 on a Las Vegas street.
Las Vegas police characterized the abduction as a message from "Mexican nationals" and methamphetamine traffickers to the boy's grandfather, Clemens Fred Tinnemeyer.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}
Tinnemeyer, 51, and his girlfriend, Terri Lynn Leavy, 42, were arrested last month in Southern California and are being held by federal authorities in Las Vegas pending a preliminary hearing this month on federal racketeering charges.
Federal prosecutors allege Tinnemeyer stole millions of dollars in drug money from a U.S.-Mexico smuggling operation using a hidden compartment in a recreational vehicle.
Lopez-Buelna is named in the complaint against Tinnemeyer and Leavy as one of two men from whom Tinnemeyer and Leavy allegedly stole $300,000 to $400,000 in drug money.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}
Police have identified Lopez-Buelna as an illegal immigrant and convicted drug trafficker who was deported to Mexico in 2003.
No one has been charged in the abduction, and a police representative said Wednesday that a fourth "person of interest" was still being sought. He has been identified as Jesus Gastelum, 35, a Mexican citizen who also used the name Ferdinand Gastelum.