U.S., Mexican authorities rescue child kidnapping victim held for ransom at border

U.S. and Mexican authorities have secured the release of a 9-year-old Honduran boy held by a transnational criminal organization.

The organization reportedly sought to ransom the boy by extorting money from his relatives in the U.S.

The rescue occurred Friday near the border town south of El Paso, Texas, according to a Department of Homeland Security press release.

U.S. Border Patrol and Homeland Security Investigations uncovered information about the boy's kidnapping, which the agencies shared with Fiscalia General del Estado – the state anti-kidnapping unit in Ciudad Juarez, a Mexican city on the U.S.–Mexico border.

Based on the U.S. agencies' information, FGE was able to locate and rescue the child.

"The child’s mother had been separated from her son at a stash house in Ciudad Juarez while waiting to be smuggled into the United States through El Paso," according to Homeland Security.

The mother illegally entered the U.S. on July 27. U.S. Border Patrol detained her, and the boy’s kidnappers began demanding money from the boy’s relatives in Kansas City, Kansas.

After FGE "interviewed one of the beneficiaries of the money wires being sent from Kansas to Ciudad Juarez" on August 1, "the kidnappers abandoned the boy at a Ciudad Juarez municipal police station."

Homeland Security reports no arrests as of Thursday.