Post by Scumhunter on Jan 3, 2018 4:02:26 GMT -5
(Above photo credit: City of Vancouver government website)
Fugitive Profile as of 1/3/2018: (Based on city of Vancouver most wanted listing)
Name: VAZQUEZ-SALAMANCA, Benjamin
Date of birth: March 31, 1980
Race: Hispanic
Height: 5' 5"
Weight: 180
Hair color: Brown
Eyes: Brown
Last known address:
Details: Murder I
Case number: V07-25422
Contact: Sgt. Jeff Kipp at jeff.kipp@cityofvancouver.us
Date of entry: December 26, 2007
(Admin edit: Some agencies have variations on this suspect's name- some articles have referred to him as Benjamin Salamanca-Vasquez and/or spell one of his two last names either Vazquez or Vasquez)
From oregonlive.com:
Five days before Christmas in 2007, 26-year-old Jorge Pacheco invited four friends to his sparsely furnished rental home in Vancouver in a modest neighborhood just west of Interstate 205.
The men drank beer and played dominoes at the kitchen table, scratching scores on a slip of paper, according to a police report.
About midnight, three other men arrived. They were invited in and offered beers before they pulled guns and marched Pacheco and his friends to a rear bedroom.
They ordered all five to lie facedown on the floor, then shot each in the back of the head.
Pacheco died on the spot, and two others died at a hospital. Two survived grazing wounds, one leaving a bloody handprint near the front door as he staggered outside, according to police files.
The killers, one dropping a pistol in the street out front, jumped into a van with a waiting driver.
Veteran Detective Wally Stefan of the Vancouver Police Department then pieced together a disturbing case.
Stefan quickly suspected the men were killed over drug money. When he died, Pacheco was the target of drug investigations in Oregon and California. He once told a police informant that he led a network that distributed meth, heroin and marijuana in those states and Washington. Police in San Mateo, Calif., pegged him as a major heroin supplier with connections reaching to Chicago.
An FBI-led task force in Portland tracked him through wiretaps and surveillance, including a transmitter they placed on his black BMW. They identified him as the supplier for organizations in Beaverton and Clackamas before losing track of him when the transmitter's battery died.
The survivors and getaway driver, who was caught, wouldn't say much. But Stefan learned the killers may have been dispatched by California traffickers affiliated with Mexican cartels.
Detectives ultimately identified Benjamin Vasquez-Salamanca, a 27-year-old fugitive wanted on Oregon drug charges, as the leader of the execution team.
Clark County prosecutors indicted Vasquez-Salamanca. Leland Rakoz, a deputy U.S. marshal in Vancouver and a renowned tracker of wanted men, set out to find him, questioning friends and relatives in several states. He kept getting the same story: After the Vancouver hit, Vasquez-Salamanca was killed in Mexico by the Los Zetas cartel.
The story makes sense, Rakoz said. Vasquez-Salamanca, who stayed in touch with his family even when on the run, had gone silent. Rakoz could find no trace of him.
The other two killers returned to Mexico, according to police reports.
Stefan and Rakoz are keeping their files open.
www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2013/06/drug_cartels_in_oregon_three_h.html
www.cityofvancouver.us/police/page/vancouvers-most-wanted
Thoughts? For those confused by the two wanted states, Vancouver, Washington is also a suburb of Portland, Oregon. Additionally, as of 1/3/2018, Vasquez-Salamanca (or however you want to spell or arrange his last names) is still wanted according to Multnomah County case status search: mcda.us/index.php/case-information/case-status/?caseId=&last_name=vasquez-salamanca&court_nbr=
Obviously, he may be dead, but he is still technically a wanted fugitive which is why I'm posting the case.
Admin Note: If you have any news-related updates on this case, please contact us here: amwfans.com/thread/1662/website-contact-form