Cartel suspected in missing family case
The New Orleans Police Department reported this week that a family of four—forced from their home by a Honduran drug cartel—boarded a Greyhound in New Orleans two months ago and vanished before reaching their destination.
On November 30, 2023, an elderly New Orleans man left his granddaughter, Steysi, with her husband and two daughters at the New Orleans bus station at 1001 Loyola Avenue. The family had four tickets to Houston, Texas.
On December 1, the man received a text from Steysi’s phone, saying, “Papi, we’re here! Going to eat. Talk to you later.”
“Papi” never heard from his granddaughter again. That evening, he called his son-in-law in Houston. Steysi’s dad told Papi that Steysi and her family never got off the bus.
“All the police could tell us was to watch the news,” Stephanie David, Steysi’s sister, told reporters, “But the family hasn’t given up hope.”
Stephanie said her sister’s family lived a year in Mexico, working to immigrate to the United States legally. According to Stephanie, the couple grew desperate when Steysi became pregnant with their second daughter.
Out of options, the couple crossed the US-Mexican border with their three-year-old daughter, Jazzlyn, and surrendered to border patrol.
“They had bought into the American dream,” Stephanie said.
But there may have been more to their story.
When Steysi married Ramon in 2018, he was a prominent businessman in Sitramedhys Satuye, a suburb of La Ceiba, a major Caribbean port city near the capital of Honduras. Ramon owned a barbershop there.
That year, thousands of corner stores and shops closed in La Ceiba as organized crime cartels extorted residents for protection money, pushing many residents to flee, a stark example of the economic impact rackets can have on business owners and the economy.
According to authorities from the Honduras Consumers Association, over fifty percent of all small businesses, popularly known as “pulperías,” closed between 2017 and 2021. They estimate over 90% pay gangs for “protection” today.
For most Honduran street gangs — including the infamous MS13 and Barrio 18 cartels — controlling territory through extortion is the bedrock of their criminal enterprises. In 2016, authorities estimated one gang’s annual earnings from extortion exceeded $2.5 million.
In 2016 and again in 2022, Honduran authorities organized anti-extortion operations to combat the social and economic impacts extortion rackets had on their society. However, those operations failed.
In 2023, Honduran President Xiomara Castro said, “Extortion remains the main cause of insecurity, migration, displacement, loss of freedom, violent deaths, and the closure of our small and medium-sized businesses.”
The average monthly cost of living in Honduras ($844) is 65% less expensive than in the United States ($2434). Honduras ranked 99th compared to 6th for the United States on the list of the most costly places to live worldwide.
According to The Columbia Herald, cartel members in Honduras typically extort store owners for between 200 and 600 lempiras (between $8.50 and $25) per month. However, the charges can be much higher.
A small corner store owner identified only as “Maria” was forced to relocate after criminals demanded she pay 50,000 lempiras (around $2,100) with one day’s notice to pay.
“That moment for me was like a death sentence,” she told The Herald. “With notes made of cut-out newspaper letters, the criminals demanded me to pay the first installment the next day. All I thought about was leaving with my kids before the gangs killed them.”
On December 27, 2021, Ramon Ruiz Crisanto, 31, closed his barbershop and fled Honduras with his pregnant wife, Steysi, and their three-year-old daughter.
Two years later, Ramon, now with a family of four, including Steysi Yanira David-Funez, 27, Jazzlyn Esther Ruiz David, 4, and one-year-old Dara Ismeray Ruiz David, went missing from a Greyhound bus somewhere between New Orleans and a place they planned to buy lunch in Houston, Texas.
The New Orleans Police Department requests information from the public to help find the missing family. If you can help, please call the Sixth District detectives at (504) 658-6060.