Man Pleads Guilty to Faking Kidnapping to Get Immigrant Visa
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) _ A Mexican citizen has admitted to faking his own kidnapping in an attempt to get an immigrant visa.
Prosecutors say 46-year-old Alejandro Mario Cortes pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of visa fraud and one count of illegally re-entering the U.S.
According to his guilty plea, Cortes admitted that from April through August he conspired to fraudulently apply for a visa based on a false kidnapping report.
He admitted that he and a co-conspirator traveled from Chicago to Minnesota, then stayed in a storage facility for days. Cortes then asked to have his mouth and hands bound with duct tape and he was left in St. Paul, where he was found by a snowplow driver.
He has no lawful status to stay in the U.S. and had been removed previously in 2001 and in 2010.