Woman pleads guilty to faking kidnapping of Border Patrol agents

Yuriana Julia Pelaez Calderón pleaded guilty on Monday to conspiring to impede federal officials. The 43-year-old resident of South Los Angeles admitted to staging a fake kidnapping in the summer of 2025. Federal prosecutors in the Central District of California announced the plea in a statement.

According to the Office of First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bilal A. Essayli, Calderón fabricated her disappearance to generate media attention. She intended to use the public outrage to support a lawsuit against Border Patrol. Officials said she went into hiding after launching the scheme.

The deception began in June and July of 2025. Calderón used anonymous and blocked phone numbers to contact various individuals. She claimed federal agents or their surrogates had abducted her. She told different people she was held at different locations, including near a fast-food restaurant and in San Ysidro.

On June 25, 2025, she told a contact that immigration officials were taking her into custody. Two days later, she called a tenants' rights advocate to say agents forced her to sign deportation papers. She also claimed to be held in an unknown warehouse with other detainees. These false reports reached media outlets and law enforcement.

While hiding in Bakersfield, Calderón continued to manage the narrative. On July 3, 2025, she called a contact to say she would soon be released due to media pressure. That same day, she traveled to Tulare County to stage her release from Border Patrol. She approached a potential witness for her case and altered her appearance to look mistreated. A co-conspirator photographed her changed look.

For two days after the staged release, Calderón turned off her phones. She refused to return calls while law enforcement searched for her. Community organizers demanded her release based on the false reports of her detention by masked men in an unmarked vehicle.

Calderón faces a statutory maximum sentence of five years in federal prison. Her sentencing hearing is scheduled for February 8, 2027. The guilty plea covers one count of conspiracy to impede, obstruct, impair, and defeat the lawful function of Homeland Security Investigations.