Will Tomlinson has fled Mexico after his trainer was threatened. Source: News Limited
MELBOURNE boxer Will Tomlinson has fled Mexico after being caught up in a bizarre extortion plot on the new trainer directing his career.
“Wild Will” and his girlfriend, Jess Dorward, also from Melbourne, locked themselves in a hotel room in the border town of Tijuana for six hours after criminals told trainer Manny Robles his family and his fighters were in danger.
In events resembling a movie plot, Robles never saw his tormentors, but was threatened by phone for half a day.
“It was pretty crazy, pretty scary, pretty full-on,” Tomlinson said.
Tomlinson is the International Boxing Organisation’s super featherweight world champion, unbeaten in 22 Australian fights.
He moved to Los Angeles several weeks ago in search of opportunities and linked up with Robles.
They were in Tijuana last week so Robles could work with another young fighter named Adan Mares who is not allowed into the US.
Tomlinson was being paid to spar with him.
The nightmare began when Robles took a pre-dawn phone call telling him he was suspected of working for a rival gang and his hotel - where Tomlinson and Dorward were sleeping - was surrounded.
He was told to wake his fighters and leave the hotel with them, but then told to leave alone, collect a prepaid mobile phone, and check into another hotel.
There, he was interrogated by phone for hours and his family was contacted and given a $150,000 ransom demand.
Two hours into this ordeal, Robles phoned Tomlinson and told him not to leave the room.
Eventually another call from Robles told him Mares and another boxing associate would drive them to the border.
Meanwhile, Robles also got a message to his family on Facebook and his wife contacted the FBI, who alerted Mexican police.
Back in LA, Tomlinson was interviewed by the FBI.
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