They Came Looking For Andres

Some people called him ​“Andrea.” Some called him ​“Andres.”

The kidnappers knew him as Andres. They knew where to find him.

Or so they thought.

There’s a story behind how Andres/Andrea came to be known by two names. It’s a modern-day version of the Ellis Island story familiar to earlier generations of American immigrants.

And there’s a story behind how he became a kidnapping target. That story is familiar to many people who have done business in modern-day Venezuela. And it is a critical part of the story of how he came to launch New Haven’s Whole G Bakery and G Cafe, one of the city’s thriving — and most delicious — new enterprises.

Andrea — aka Andres — Corazzini revealed those stories during an episode of WNHH radio’s ​“Dateline New Haven” and ​“Open for Business.”

He brought along some Valentine’s pastries and loaves of sumptuous oatmeal-rye bread. The goodies came from Whole G Bakery, where, in a factory building breathing new life into the desiccated industrial stretch of Wooster Square by Hamilton and Ives streets, 22 employees turn out close to 30 different kinds of hearty German breads and 15 to 20 variations of pastries. (“Whole G” refers to German and to whole grains.) Those baked goods are then delivered to 62 restaurants and gourmet shops from Greenwich up to Chester; clients also include Yale University. Corizzini opened the factory in 2011. Workers there take up to two and a half days to prepare the German-style breads, which rely more on a sourdough base rather than yeast to rise.

Corazzini, who is 50 and lives in the East Rock neighborhood, employs another dozen people at G Cafe bakery-restaurants he opened in Branford in 2012, in New Haven’s Pitkin Plaza in 2014, then in New Haven’s Dixwell neighborhood in 2015.

The road that led to Whole G and New Haven originally took Corazzini across Europe and Latin America (but not Germany). He grew up in Spain and in Italy; at 20 years old he dropped out of St. Louis University here in the U.S., where he was studying to become an aeronautical engineer, to purchase a spinning mill in San Cristobal, Venezuela. A family friend from Italy owned the mill and was ​“practically giving it away.” Corazzini took a shot, learned the business, then spent 20 years running a successful yarn enterprise.

Ten years ago, the business climate worsened under then-Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. Corazzini had tired of textiles. He was looking for a new entrepreneurial muse when, on a friend’s recommendation, he stumbled into a 600-square-foot bakery next door to his then-Caracas home.

It was love at first bite.

Mischbrot

He hadn’t known about German breads — hearty, fermented loaves that rely on sourdough starters and can incorporate a wide variety of grains. He sampled rye and wheat mischbrot. His ​“heart beat faster.”

Corazzini also was taken with the ​“human dimension,” the cozy personal touch of the people who ran the bakery, which was called Pan Aleman.

He brought an armful of loaves home. He proceeded to talk his way into becoming a partner with the German couple who ran it. Within seven months, the couple had retired and moved back to Germany. Corazzini and a partner named Tomas took over running the place, and expanded it.

“I decided,” he said, ​“I was going to dive into bread baking,” and eventually leave textiles behind. He became an expert at the craft, producing bread, he said, that is a ​“food itself,” not just ​“an additional thing you put in your mouth to fill it” or slap on either end of a cold cut to make a sandwich.

The bread business went well for Corazzini. The business of trying do business in Venezuela didn’t. Increasingly, gangs with reputed ties to law enforcement were kidnapping business owners. And, it turned out, Corazzini’s name was on one Caracas gang’s list.

Tinted Windows

Unlike other business owners, Corazzini didn’t hire bodyguards or drive an armored car. He didn’t want to live that way.

He had moved the bakery into a three-story building, where he also consolidated some of the yarn business.

A week before the kidnappers came there, in 2008, Corazzini bought a new car. His partner Tomas inherited his old Toyota four-wheel-drive. The kidnappers looked out for that car when they came for Corazzini.

The Toyota was ​“not too fancy,” Corazzini said. ​“Being fancy or not fancy, having a lot of money or less money, doesn’t make you more electable for kidnapping. Once it becomes an industry, there’s no [too] small [a] customer.”

Business owners were of two minds about how to avoid being kidnapped in their cars in Venezuela.

One school holds that tinted windows were a mistake, according to Corazzini: With clear windows, ​“nobody is going to get into your car and point a gun at you because … everybody will see it.” Corazzini held to that school. He kept clear windows on the Toyota.

The other school holds that tinted windows would keep you safer, because ​“whoever wants to kidnap you will not know if you have a gun.” Tomas subscribed to that school. So when he bought the Toyota, he put in tinted windows.

So the morning the kidnappers waited outside the electric gate to the bakery parking lot, they couldn’t see through the windows of the Toyota as Tomas drove up.

They surrounded the car, pointing semiautomatic weapons. Tomas opened the door. The kidnappers got inside, put him in the back seat, drove off.

And then realized their mistake.

“This is not” Corazzini one of the kidnappers noted.

Tomas told them he was an employee of Corazzini. He didn’t say he was a partner in the business.

“He’s got a big family,” one of the kidnappers said. ​“Let’s take him anyway.”

“I Think You’re Dead Today”

By mid-morning, Tomas’s wife and Corazzini grew worried. A call from the kidnappers confirmed their fears.

“‘We have your employee,’” Corazzini recalled the kidnapper saying.

“They said they’d wanted me. They knew everything about me, my wife, my house … They said, ​‘Keep your phone open. We’re going to be calling you for a ransom. If we see anything goes wrong, we will kill him.’ And they will.”

Through the course of the day, Corazzini bargained with the kidnappers while racing around town trying to amass enough local currency.

Tomas was kept blindfolded. His fears increased as the kidnappers smoked marijuana, pointed the gun to his head, and then, during one point in the negotiations, told him: ​“I don’t think this guy’s going to pay for you. I think you’re dead today.”

By night, an agreement was reached. The ransom price, which had started at the equivalent of around $100,000 in U.S. currency, was down to about a quarter of that. Corazzini stuffed it into five bags, then followed directions to drive on a highway, then made his way to an open field, where he left the money.

Four hours later, Tomas was released, safe.

“When they abandoned [Tomas] in the highway, he said, ​‘Can you give me some money? I don’t have anything.’ One of the guys gave him the equivalent of a ten-dollar bill. The other guy said, ​‘What’s he going to do with a ten-dollar bill? Give him a hundred!’ They gave him a hundred.

“The next day I’m washing my car. We’re all thinking the story is over. And I realize that one bag full of money was still in my car. I really, really got scared, thinking these people were counting the money and thinking I didn’t give them the complete money. It was a really scary moment. I had to call Tomas and say, ​‘We have to be careful now.’”

A Female Name

The kidnappers didn’t come back. At least not yet.

Who knew when they might? A ​“month of complete paranoia,” ​“complete psychosis,” ensued. Corazzini continually wondered who might be following him. When he drove to work or home, he circled the block before parking, to check for a tail.

Then he decided, ​“I’m out.” He and his family decided to leave the country.

Corazzini’s wife, a ceramist named Kiara Matos (you can see her work displayed in G Cafe), suggested moving to New Haven. She had spent a year in the city when she was a 17-year-old foreign exchange student. She lived with a couple named Elizabeth Magenheimer and Jerry Coffey. They were like family.

Within a year Corazzini obtained an E‑2 investment visa. The family settled in the East Rock neighborhood, and Corazzini began planning to open Whole G.

Here in the U.S. Corazzini reverted to his former first name: Andrea.

His parents gave him that name when he was born in Madrid. He grew up with that name in Spain and in Italy.

When he arrived in Venezuela at 20 years old to buy the yarn business, ​“I go to an office. They receive all my Italian documents. They think among themselves, ​‘This has got to be a mistake. Andrea is a female name.’”

“In Italian Andrea is a male name. In Spanish Andrea is a female name. So they thought, ​‘Let’s make this guy a favor and change his name.’ And they issue every document under ​‘Andres.’

“I kept it. I never complained about it.”

For the next 20 years, he was Andres. In the U.S., he said, he ​“came with my Italian nationality” and decided to return to Andrea.

Under either name, Corazzini has dived into the bread business again, this time without keeping an eye out for ransom-seeker. New Haven is reaping the benefits.

Click on or download the above sound file to hear the full ​“Dateline New Haven” interview with Corazzini. (The discussion about the kidnapping begins at 29:00.) Subscribe to WNHH’s new podcast ​“Dateline New Haven,” where episodes of the show will be delivered directly to your phone or smart device. (Click here for details on how to subscribe.)

Monday’s episode of ​“Dateline New Haven” was made possible in partnership with Gateway Community College.

This interview is part of WNHH-LP’s ​“Open For Business” series on immigrant business owners and leaders in the nonprofit community. To listen to the whole episode, click on or download the audio above, or subscribe to WNHH’s new podcast ​“Elm City Lowdown” to have the episodes delivered directly to your phone. ​“Open for Business is sponsored by Frontier Communications. Frontier is proud to be Connecticut’s hometown provider of TV and internet for your home and business. Their phone number is 1.888.Frontier and their website is Frontier.com.