A true crime mystery continues to unfold in Mobile County, Alabama, after a family of three vanished on Jan. 31 and an illegal alien gangbanger from El Salvador has been arrested for kidnapping.
Prosecutors are continuing to build their case against Hector Gamaliel Argueta-Guerra, 27, who has been tied to the family’s home via cell phone data and other evidence.
The perplexing case is another example of various immigration enforcement and policy failures that exploded under the Biden administration and other loopholes that prevent illegal immigrants from being removed from the country.
The suspect used an alias and was originally identified as Juan Carlos Argueta Guerra. He’s also a documented member of the Sureños, or Sur 13, a street gang with roots in Central America.
Argueta-Guerra was arrested last month in connection to the Jan. 31 disappearance of the Choc family in Theodore, Ala., about 15 miles southwest of Mobile, Ala. He pleaded not guilty to three first-degree kidnapping charges through a court translator.
In addition, several of the individuals involved are illegal immigrants—the missing family had a deportation order—and painters for various construction companies.
“We don’t really know a reason but everyone involved is involved in the painting industry,” Mobile County Sheriff Paul Birch said during a recent press conference. “They all knew one another through that occupation and pretty much all were here illegally.”
According to the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office, Argueta-Guerra was charged with three counts of kidnapping involving the disappearance of 40-year-old Aurelia Choc Cac, 17-year-old Niurka Zuleta Choc, and 2-year-old Anthony Choc from their home. Neighbors last saw the family on Jan. 31.
A judge in Mobile County, Ala., ruled on Monday, March 2, that there is sufficient evidence to present kidnapping charges against Argueta-Guerra to a grand jury, FOX 10 News reported.
The FBI also has an online tipline and issued a reward of up to $15,000 for information leading to the location and/or recovery of three members of the Choc family.
Argueta-Guerra had a criminal history in El Salvador and the United States and two previous immigration holds, but he was released and never deported.
Similar to the saga with “Maryland dad” and alleged MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who could not be deported back to El Salvador, a Temporary Protected Status order blocked Argueta-Guerra’s removal from the United States back to El Salvador.
“I’ll say what the federal partners can’t say,” Burch said at a Feb. 24 press conference, when they announced his real identity. “Biden’s policies are the reason this guy is on the street, plain and simple. That was his policy to make that a protected status and to release all of these people who had final orders of deportation and that’s why we’ve had these violent criminals all around the country killing U.S. citizens.”
During an initial press conference, Sheriff Burch said investigators believe they were taken against their will and could be in danger.
Federal investigators with the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations joined Burch at the Feb. 24 press conference, where they revealed details about his ties to the Sureños, a violent street gang with roots in Central America.
“Looks like El Salvador has a temp status order — no removals in 2021,” PJ Lavoie with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said at the press conference. “That’s why he was released after being ordered deported from the U.S. We don’t know if he was going back and forth. They could have long-term cases just like we have long-term cases where he was charged much later in a conspiracy, which times we have him here.”
In 2015, Argueta-Guerra was involved in an attempted aggravated homicide investigation as a juvenile in El Salvador. He also faces active warrants in El Salvador for terrorism and organized crime from 2016, 2018 and 2024.
“He’s clearly a much more dangerous individual than what we originally thought,” Burch said. “We’re still very much digging into his past and this is still very much an active investigation.”
Investigators found signs of a struggle and blood was discovered in the family’s home. Cac’s mattress and laundry hamper were missing, but cell phones were left behind, News 9 reported.
During the March 2 preliminary hearing, a major crimes detective testified about DNA results, surveillance footage and cell phone data. Investigators said blood found inside the home was confirmed to belong to the daughter, Nuirka, who turned 18 years old since disappearing.
The detective said blood was found on a couch, on white shoes in the living room, on a bed, on a white trash bag in a bedroom, and on the master bathroom floor. Investigators have not released DNA results from a confiscated van.
Several local outlets have been following the case’s many twists and turns, including his true identity and previous criminal history.
Among the evidence to charge him, cell phone data places him at the Choc family’s home the day they vanished, investigators said. Court documents also reveal he borrowed a black van from his employer and made three trips to the house in the early morning hours of Jan. 31.
After nine days of searching video cameras, the authorities connected the van to Argueta-Guerra, News 9 reported.
FOX 10 has continued to share the same mugshot of Argueta-Guerra, reporting court records from Texas show a criminal history in the U.S. between 2015 and 2021. The sheriff and federal investigators did not refute those arrests, despite the fact Argueta-Guerra initially used a fake name.
U.S. records show he was picked up in Texas in 2015 for being in the country illegally He spent 28 days in custody but was released.
“In 2015, under the Obama administration, there were pretty lenient policies in place at the border that resulted in people being caught and sometimes released into the country often to apply for asylum,” Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, told FOX 10 and later shared on CIS’ X account.
An illegal alien with a long criminal history has been charged with kidnapping a still missing family of three in Alabama.@JessicaV_CIS discusses how immigration policy may have helped him avoid deportation for his previous crimes. pic.twitter.com/ZV2J5ssMSF
— Center for Immigration Studies (@CIS_org) February 18, 2026
In Texas, he was also arrested for having brass knuckles but the charge was dismissed in 2017. He was convicted for fleeing/resisting arrest in 2019 in Houston, Texas, and sentenced to three years.
After being release from prison in 2022, authorities in Jackson County, Mississippi, arrested him for DUI, driving without a valid driver’s license, no insurance and driving erratically.
“Restrictions on ICE under Biden were even tighter than under the Obama administration,” Vaughan told FOX 10 News. “They were restricting ICE to the very most narrow definitions of serious offenders, the most ‘worst of the worst’ were the only ones that ICE were allowed to go after.”
Vaughan added that Texas was “very frustrated” with the lack of immigration enforcement both at the border and by ICE. State lawmakers passed state laws to allow authorities to make arrests of illegal aliens and “kick them out of the country, so it makes sense that he would have left Texas to try to escape that,” Vaughan told FOX 10.
Meanwhile, it’s still unclear what exactly happened to the Choc family.
“We don’t know if they are dead or alive at this point,” Burch told reporters at the Feb. 24 news conference.
News 9 reported that Aurelia Cac and her daughter Nuirka were in the U.S. from Guatemala illegally and had final deportation orders issued last April. The toddler is a U.S. citizen.
In addition, a second suspect, Silverio Garcia, 60, was taken into custody for illegal possession of a gun on Feb. 3, News 9 reported. Garcia is in the U.S. illegally from Guatemala, the sheriff’s office said.
Garcia was identified as Aurelia Cac’s employer and is believed to be in a relationship with her 21-year-old daughter, the sheriff’s office said initially.
The Mobile County Sheriff’s Office executed a search warrant at a home in Theodore, Ala., on Feb. 9 in an effort to arrest Argueta-Guerra but he was not there.
Argueta-Guerra was later stopped by the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office in Baldwin County. He attempted to flee on foot but was apprehended by K-9 units and taken into custody.
Following Argueta-Guerra’s arrest, the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that his sister was arrested. Gloria Estefany Argueta-Guerra, 23, was booked into the Baldwin County Jail on a charge of attempting to elude a law enforcement officer, FOX 10 reported.
Mobile County deputies said Gloria Argueta-Guerra was dating a man who loaned Juan Carlos Argueta-Guerra the van that he allegedly used in the abduction of the Choc family.
In other reports, Sheriff Burch said investigators are still analyzing Argueta-Guerra’s cellphone data and tracking his whereabouts prior to his arrest. Investigators declined to comment on any DNA evidence collected from the van Argueta-Guerra was allegedly driving the night of the abduction.
Additional persons of interest have been identified in the case, including 2-year-old Anthony’s father, who had plans to travel to Alabama to get his son but was arrested in Texas before doing so. Investigators said he has not been ruled out.
