Thread: OMG Kidnapping insurance!!!

http://www.insightmag.com/Media/MediaMa ... ance_0.htm

Kidnap insurance booming in south Texas
Special to Insight by Maxim Kniazkov


Miguel Angel Olguin, a successful building contractor from Rio Bravo, Texas, was the victim of a cruel swindle when word of his son's 2004 kidnapping leaked out. (Photo by Maxim Kniazkov)


LAREDO, Texas — Don’t waste your time looking it up on the Internet. It is advertised here exclusively by word of mouth. And even though it is not cheap, it is now selling like hot cakes.



Kidnap insurance traditionally associated with the lawless coca groves of Colombia or the tribal wetlands of Nigeria is now conquering south Texas.



Faced with a wave of crime, major U.S. insurance companies are quietly selling abduction coverage here to address the needs of businessmen on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border.



“Yes sir, you can call it that. It’s ransom money,” nodded Glen Jackson, a local insurance executive, whose company Inscorp has been serving as a broker for New York’s AIG and the New Jersey-based Chubb Corporation that are pioneering the service on U.S. soil.



The federal government may call ransom payments counterproductive and swear it will never make or encourage them. But few in this region ravaged by a turf war between leading Mexican drug cartels are listening.



Sales of kidnap insurance in Laredo and its surroundings more than doubled from 2004 to 2005, reaching a total of about 125 outstanding policies costing between $1,800 and $7,500 a year, Mr. Jackson said.



They are usually offered to “people of substantial wealth” and provide coverage of $1 million and more, plus the services of professional hostage negotiators.



This year, the sales figures are expected to be off the charts again.



Twenty-six cases of abduction of American citizens are currently pending in the Laredo-Nuevo Laredo region. That is down from 35 reported between May 2004 and May 2005, law enforcement officials said, because several abductees have been released and two are now confirmed dead. But don’t exhale just yet. The numbers likely represent “only a fraction” of the actual number of kidnapped U.S. citizens, one of the officials pointed out, because many families believe reporting the abductions would do more harm than good.



An estimated more than 400 Mexicans are said to be suffering a similar fate.



By comparison, the number of American civilians missing or kidnapped in Iraq since the beginning of the war is 23 as of last September, the latest figure the State Department would release.



“In my opinion, there is no law in northern Mexico anymore,” said one local businessman, who wished to remain anonymous.



The local rumor mill is rife with tales of people being snatched off the Nuevo Laredo sidewalks in broad daylight, held in windowless basements, and executed and cremated in empty oil-drums if payments fail to materialize.



It’s no longer a secret that between 25 and 50 prominent business families from Nuevo Laredo have already sought refuge across the Rio Grande in Texas, local businessmen said.



Among the most recent arrivals, they pointed out, are the owners of El Manana newspaper, one of two published in Nuevo Laredo.



Roberto Garcia, the paper’s editor, was stabbed to death in March 2004, and in early February, unidentified gunmen raided and shot up its newsroom, wounding two reporters.



It’s a harrowing game, where one wrong move, or even a perception of one, could make the difference between life and death, and where leaks of information could be devastating, even after the abduction.



Miguel Angel Olguin, a successful Mexican-American building contractor from nearby Rio Bravo, learned it first hand.



About six months after his 27-year-old son went missing in Nuevo Laredo in December 2004, he received a phone call with a demand of $50,000 dollars in ransom. He says he paid $14,000 in exchange for an opportunity to speak to his son by phone.



“What I heard was not my son’s voice,” he threw up his hands in anger. “They did not have him. It was just a swindle by somebody who had just gotten wind of my situation.”



Going to the police may signal to the abductors that further negotiations would be futile. Paying ransom may indicate to rival gangs that there is more to be had.



That’s why almost everything surrounding kidnap insurance is a closely guarded secret—in order not to tip off potential hostage takers.



Both AIG and Chubb were reluctant to discuss the service other than to confirm its existence. Mark Schussel, a spokesman for Chubb, added that Mexico is now “an area of concern.”



Surprisingly, the majority of kidnappings here are not blamed on the warring Gulf and Sinaloa drug cartels.



Rather, locals say, they have spread as a byproduct of the general breakdown in law and order, gradually evolving into a cottage industry in its own right.



“They have really customized this business to adjust it to the fact that it’s difficult for most people to come up with large sums of money quickly,” said Trent Kimball, owner of Texas Armoring Corporation, which is selling armored cars.



The market for such vehicles, he noted, grew in northern Mexico about 1,000 percent since 2003 and is expected to expand even more.



“They now have what they call express kidnappings,” Mr. Kimball continued. “They last usually no more than 36 hours, with ransom demands ranging from $5,000 to $10,000.”



The abductors, he argued, usually “do their homework” and target people whose families are able to pay. But nobody is guaranteed from mistakes, and when they occur, hostages usually pay with their lives.



The windshield of a Hummer SUV standing in his shop is thick like a Webster’s dictionary, one has to pull with both hands to open its armor-plated doors, wheels have an inner cushion of solid rubber in case the tires get shot up, and the gas tank is wrapped into an extra sheet of shrapnel-proof steel.



“It will survive if a hand grenade is rolled underneath this car,” Mr. Kimball assures. “Our standard is to meet the challenge of the AK-47. Our tests indicate the windshield will crack but will withstand its close-range fire long enough to allow time to escape.”



Between eight and 10 such fortresses on wheels roll out of his shop in the eastern industrial outskirts of San Antonio every month to be delivered to clients in various unstable parts of the world, increasingly often in the U.S.-Mexico border region.



The upgrades are not cheap, particularly in light of the war in Iraq, which at one point doubled the price of armor.



They boost the market price of a car by $60,000 to $70,000, which means an up-armored Suburban-type SUV will cost on average $115,000.



A little steep. But given the prospect of ending up in an oil-drum, locals say, it may not be that unreasonable.



“If you are being kidnapped, such a car could be your only chance. It becomes your weapon,” counseled Mr. Kimball. “Put the pedal to the metal and drive—no matter how many people with guns are in front of you.”



- Maxim Kniazkov is a Washington-based journalist

















Copyright © 2006 News World Communications

There was a real good movie about that. They kidnap rich kids and hold them hostage. I know someone on the board has heard of this movie. Its done in Mexico and Other South American Countries. Their crime is going to be a normal everyday occurance if they get to stay here. The movie was called Fire somthing maybe., Anyone know??

This is a shame! Everyone should be forwarding this stuff to their representatives. We have to stop this nonsense at the border!

Absolutely unreal