Calderón admits faking Border Patrol kidnapping scheme in Central Valley

Federal prosecutors in the Central District of California announced on Monday that Yuriana Julia Pelaez Calderón has entered a guilty plea in connection with a staged kidnapping.

Calderón, 43, who resides in South Los Angeles, fabricated her disappearance in mid-2025 to generate media attention and support a lawsuit against U.S. Border Patrol. According to the Office of First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bilal A. Essayli, she orchestrated the deception between June and July 2025 by claiming federal agents or their surrogates had abducted her.

The scheme began on June 25, 2025, when Calderón told an acquaintance that immigration officials were taking her into custody near a fast-food restaurant. She claimed agents threatened to break her window. Two days later, she used caller ID blocking to contact a tenants' rights advocate, alleging that authorities had transported her to San Ysidro and forced her to sign deportation documents. On that same day, she informed another individual that she was being held in an unknown warehouse with other detainees.

While hiding in Bakersfield, Calderón allowed her false narrative to spread to local media and law enforcement. Officials stated that masked men in unmarked vehicles were described as her captors, prompting community organizers to demand her release. On July 3, 2025, she contacted another individual via a blocked number to claim that media coverage was securing her imminent release. That day, she traveled from Bakersfield to Tulare County to stage her release and sought a witness for her case.

To enhance the credibility of her story, Calderón altered her physical appearance to suggest she had been mistreated in custody. A co-conspirator photographed these changes. For the following two days, she turned off her phones and ignored incoming calls while law enforcement searched for her.

Calderón pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to impede, obstruct, impair, and defeat the lawful function of Homeland Security Investigations within federal jurisdiction. She faces a statutory maximum sentence of five years in federal prison.

Her sentencing hearing is scheduled for February 8, 2027.