LAS VEGAS — A man named by authorities as a figure in the drug-ring kidnapping of a 6-year-old Nevada boy was indicted on an immigration charge Wednesday by a federal grand jury, the U.S. attorney’s office said.
Jose Luis Lopez-Buelna, 48, was charged with being a deported immigrant found unlawfully in the United States, said Natalie Collins, spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Gregory Brower. No arraignment date was immediately set.
The charge keeps Lopez-Buelna in federal custody following his release from state custody last week. He spent more than a week in the Clark County jail after his Oct. 17 arrest by police investigating the Oct. 15 abduction of first-grader Cole Puffinburger.
Las Vegas police characterized the abduction as a message from “Mexican nationals” and methamphetamine traffickers to the boy’s grandfather, Clemens Fred Tinnemeyer.
Federal prosecutors allege Tinnemeyer stole millions of dollars in drug money from a U.S.-Mexico smuggling operation.
Lopez-Buelna is named in a federal complaint against Tinnemeyer, 51, and girlfriend Terri Lynn Leavy, 42, as one of two men from whom Tinnemeyer and Leavy allegedly stole $300,000 to $400,000 in drug money.
Police have identified Lopez-Buelna as an illegal immigrant and convicted drug trafficker who was deported to Mexico in 2003.
No one has been charged in the abduction.
