Thread: Officials say border kidnappings rarely random

http://www.theeagle.com/stories/010607/ ... 106017.php

Updated 7:44 AM on Saturday, January 6, 2007
Officials say border kidnappings rarely random

By ALICIA A. CALDWELL
Associated Press


EL PASO - A 29-year-old father of three disappears and turns up dead two weeks later. A prominent Laredo businessman and four others, including his son, are kidnapped and his hunting ranch cleaned out.

These incidents three years apart offered examples of why Texas border residents might fear the worst, but retired federal agents who spent much of their careers investigating Mexican drug cartels said those behind such attacks are rarely interested in random acts and that Americans are seldom accidental victims.

"I don't think anything is random with these people," said Terry Nelson, who worked for Customs. "They are professionals, they know their business. If they pick you up or stop your car, they know who you are and how much you can pay."

Janet Padilla disagrees.

Her husband, Luis, was killed three years ago in a crime linked to the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes drug cartel. He never returned from work, and a friend called Janet Padilla to say he might have been shoved in the back of a police car in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso.

Two weeks later, she was asked to identify one of about a dozen bodies buried in the yard of a house in Juarez.

Most victims of cartel violence have some connection, if only by association, to the cartel, said Nelson and fellow retired Customs agent Lee Morgan. But Janet Padilla said her husband was not involved in anything illegal.

She argued in a wrongful death lawsuit filed against several federal agents about 10 months after the killing that her husband was in Mexico with a man who had apparently crossed the cartel, but she now says cartel hit men mistook him for someone else.

"We didn't know any of the other victims," Janet Padilla said.

The ending was much happier for wealthy businessman Librado Pina Jr. and his family in Laredo. The 49-year-old, his son, Librado Pina III, 25, and three other men have returned home safely after their November abduction from his ranch across the border in violence-plagued Nuevo Laredo.

It's unclear whether Pina Jr.'s group was taken by drug cartel members or professional kidnappers. Either way, Nelson said, it's likely they were selected for ransom. Authorities have not said if the Pinas paid one.

During the kidnapping, masked assailants took food, wine, furniture and several vehicles from Pina Jr.'s ranch house.

"They are going to [do] research before they grab you. They are going to do their homework," Morgan said.

Accidental kidnappings or killings can be costly and draw unwanted attention without any benefit, the retired agents said. Cartel leaders stress the importance of getting the right person and call mistakes "bad business," particularly when U.S. citizens are involved, Morgan said informants have told him.

Though Nelson said cartel members and leaders aren't shy about violence, he estimates that only about 2 percent of cartel-linked killings and kidnappings are random.

Cases involving Americans are rare, too.

FBI spokesman Erik Vasys in San Antonio, whose office covers the Laredo area, said about 60 kidnappings have been reported since a cartel power struggle erupted in Nuevo Laredo in mid-2004. About half of those cases have been solved, with only one known fatality, Vasys said.

In the Rio Grande Valley, 79 kidnappings have been reported to Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Trevino. About a quarter of those turned out to be unfounded and the others were a mix of parental kidnappings and drug-related crimes, he said. None are thought to have involved drug cartels, Trevino said.

It's unclear exactly how many Americans have vanished or been killed in Mexico because many disappearances are never reported, Vasys said.

Luis Padilla was reported missing to Mexican authorities.

Although Americans have been victims of violence in some of Mexico's border cities, Nelson and Morgan said most of the trouble is on the south side of the border.

"They still have a little respect for our law enforcement, federal law enforcement and the State Department," Morgan said of cartel leaders. "They are working under the protection of ... a lot of corrupt cops in Mexico. It's a lot easier to do your business in Mexico."

Cold comfort here - all of us seem like Croesus to these folks.