Four men were arrested on August 14, for their alleged roles in abducting a man from a Camden street, beating him and then holding him captive while trying to extort $100,000 from the victim’s family, Acting U.S. Attorney Rachael A. Honig announced.
According to Acting U.S. Attorney Honig, Melvin Severino, 25, of Scranton, Pennsylvania; Welber Antonio Jesus, 24, and Yoandry Rodriguez, 21, both of Camden and Cesar Alexander Batista Alcantara, 23, of Yonkers, New York, were each charged by complaint with kidnapping.
According to documents filed in this case:
The victim was walking down a street in Camden on the night of August 12, when at least two individuals approached him from behind, covered his head, bound him with plastic restraints, assaulted him and put him into a vehicle.
The assailants drove the victim to a Camden residence where they continued to beat him with a hard object the victim could not see.
After several hours, the kidnappers removed the head covering and took photographs and video footage of the bloodied and beaten victim with the victim’s cell phone.
The kidnappers sent those images to the victim’s family and threatened to kill the victim if family members did not pay them over $100,000.
In the early morning hours of August 14, the FBI, working in partnership with local law enforcement in New Jersey and New York, located the victim and all four defendants in a Camden residence.
The FBI apprehended the defendants and took the victim to Cooper University Hospital for medical treatment.