In Mexico, the chances of being kidnapped are as great for the poorer classes as for the rich. A ransom demand for $500 can be as difficult to raise for a poor family as $500 million is for a rich one. But both are being targeted as Mexico’s drug wars rage and the traffickers use any way they can to raise money.
The chances of recovering the kidnap victim are about 50-50, even if the ransom is paid.
Two cases illustrate the problems faced by kidnapped victims’ families.
Mexico fitness club magnate Alejandro Martí paid more than $2 million for the return of his 14-year-old son who had been taken when his armored car was stopped at an AFI (Mexico’s Federal Agency of Investigations) “checkpoint.” A bodyguard who lived through the incident said the kidnappers wore AFI uniforms and insignia. The driver was not so lucky; to show they were serious, kidnappers sent his body to the family soon after the kidnapping. After paying the money, the family heard nothing further, until about a month after his disappearance, the boy’s decomposed body was found inside the trunk of a parked car in Mexico City. Beside his asphyxiated body was a note reading, “For not paying, yours truly La Familia.”
What’s unusual in this case is that arrests have been made. What is usual is that the culprits are active-duty policemen.
Because of law enforcement corruption, few depend on officials to solve kidnappings. Because of this, it is not possible to determine the exact number of kidnappings, as some simply do not report the crime. Others have turned to their own resources to bring kidnappers to justice.
Like Maria Isabel Miranda. When the former teacher received no help from Mexican law enforcement after her son Hugo was kidnapped in July 2005, she went after the criminals herself. Her then-36-year-old son, owner of a fumigation company, had disappeared after a blind date and was never heard from again.
Her courageous and dogged determination has led to the capture and arrest of four of the alleged kidnappers, but not to the remains of her son.
Her odyssey bedan when she tracked down her son’s last whereabouts through his cellphone company. She and her family scoured the area, finding his car and the house where he was initially taken. She received a ransom demand for $950,000, which she took to the police. When she received a letter scolding her for reporting the crime, she knew the kidnapping was an inside job and abandoned any hope of help from the police.
As she and her brother, a lawyer, gathered information, she found names, phone numbers and addresses of the alleged kidnappers, even leading police to the woman he dated when he disappeared. She confessed to seeing him killed, but could not tell where his remains were. One conspirator pulled a gun on her when she tracked him down, but her brother tackled him and held him for police, who arrested him. She put others’ photos on billboards, which led to two more arrests.
Other billboards, with an image of her son, read, “Just tell me where is my son. I will stop. If you have information, make an anonymous call.” (See accompanying photo.)
Just last year, she helped nab suspect Brenda Quevedo in a Louisville, Kentucky bar in the United States. She had received an email from a man who had seen her on YouTube and recognized her as a bartender he knew. Miranda confirmed Quevedo’s identity shortly after entering the restaurant.
Quevedo, believed to be in her late 20s, was detained by the FBI and U.S. immigration agents and is in a Chicago jail awaiting a deportation hearing.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon has asked Congress to pass a bill that would sentence kidnappers to life imprisonment without parole. Current sentences for kidnapping vary depending on the state where the abduction takes place, but maximum terms can be as many as 40 years.
"We can not allow fear and terror caused by organized crime to take control of our nation," Calderon told reporters.
He faces an uphill battle in a country where police corruption is such a way of life. Worse, since 99% of the cases go unsolved, there is only a 1% chance of being caught, and even then, probably remaining free, because the local prosecutors are also corrupt. Sources monitoring the situation say dozens of families are negotiating for the return of kidnapped loved ones. More and more, because of government corruption, surviving victims, families of victims, and community members are becoming determined to take matters into their hands.
To make even a dent in the problem, they will have to come up with more creative solutions that the ones they have depended on to date: emigrate, buy smaller houses, live less ostentatiously, or invest in more private security.
Leave Your Comments