Border Fraud: Mexican National Pleads Guilty to Fake Kidnapping Scheme

Yuriana Julia Pelaez Calderón, 43, admitted on Monday to orchestrating a false kidnapping in 2025 to generate public pressure against federal border officials. The South Los Angeles resident, who entered the United States without permission, targeted Border Patrol agents and their surrogates in her scheme.

Federal prosecutors in the Central District of California stated that Calderón fabricated her disappearance to build a legal case and attract media attention. Office of First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bilal A. Essayli’s team noted that she used anonymous and blocked phone calls to construct a fraudulent narrative between June and July 2025.

Court documents detail a series of false claims made by Calderón. On June 25, 2025, she told an acquaintance that immigration officials were detaining her near a fast-food restaurant and had threatened to break her car window. Two days later, she contacted a tenants' rights advocate, claiming authorities had taken her to San Ysidro and forced her to sign deportation papers.

Calderón further claimed she was held in an unknown warehouse with other detainees. Officials reported that her intentional lies led media and law enforcement to believe she had been kidnapped by masked men in plain clothes driving an unmarked vehicle. The false information prompted community organizers to demand her release while Calderón remained hidden in Bakersfield.

On July 3, 2025, Calderón called another individual using a blocked number to claim she would soon be released due to media coverage. That same day, she traveled from Bakersfield to Tulare County to stage her release from "Border Patrol." She approached a potential witness for her case and altered her appearance to simulate mistreatment in custody, according to prosecutors.

A co-conspirator photographed Calderón’s altered look. For the following two days, she turned off her phones and ignored calls from law enforcement searching for her. Calderón pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to impede, obstruct, impair, and defeat the lawful function of Homeland Security Investigations.

Her sentencing hearing is scheduled for February 8, 2027. She faces a statutory maximum sentence of five years in federal prison.