LOS ANGELES – The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has offered a $40,000 reward for information about a 29-year-old Hispanic woman from Northern California who was kidnapped in Mexico last year.
Mónica de León Barba was kidnapped on November 29, 2022 while walking home with her dog in Tepatitlán, Jalisco state, Mexico, according to information shared by the FBI.
De Leon lived in San Mateo County for years before moving to Mexico last summer for work.
Robert Tripp, in charge at the San Francisco FBI office, told ABC-7 television that the kidnappers have been negotiating with the Hispanic’s family.
De León is a US citizen and has only been in Mexico since June 2022.
He is 5 feet 7 inches (173 centimeters) tall and weighs 240 pounds (108 kilograms) with brown hair and brown eyes, the FBI explained.
Gustavo De León, brother of the victim, created a Facebook page to draw attention to this case.
“I am asking you to help me contact Ken Salazar (US Ambassador to Mexico) and demand the full cooperation and support of Mexican state leaders until my sister returns safely,” she wrote.
De León is not the only Hispanic from California kidnapped in Mexico.
The FBI set a reward of $20,000 to find María del Carmen López, 63, who was kidnapped from a house in Pueblo Nuevo, in the Mexican state of Colima, on February 9.
López, who was born in Mexico and is a naturalized American, resides for seasons in Los Angeles and Riverside County, where she has family, and in Colima (Mexico).
The FBI is also looking for the sisters Maritza Trinidad Pérez Ríos, 47, and Marina Pérez Ríos, 48, and their friend, Dora Alicia Cervantes Sáenz, 53, who disappeared in Mexico in February after crossing the border to sell clothes.
According to data collected by the FBI, the Hispanic women, who reside in the border town of Peñitas (Texas), on the outskirts of McAllen, traveled in a vehicle to Mexico on February 24 to sell at a market in the Mexican state of Nuevo Lion.
The cases gained notoriety after four Americans were kidnapped in early March in northern Mexico.
Two were found dead and the other two alive after enormous pressure exerted by Washington for the Mexican government to resolve the case.