Thread: Mex. Federal Agents' Efforts Slash Ransom Demands In Mexico

April 11, 2007, 12:24AM
Federal agents' efforts slash ransom demands in Mexico


By DANE SCHILLER

MEXICO CITY — A team of federal officers helped reduce ransom demands to only about 5 percent of the nearly $104 million demanded by kidnappers in the cases they worked on last year, a top law enforcement official here said.

Specially trained agents help mediate between victims' families and kidnappers who have unrealistic ideas about how much the families are able to pay, said Facundo Rosas, head of the intelligence division of Mexico's federal police force.

"It is not just taking on the kidnappers head on, it is about assisting families in a crisis," he said in a rare interview to discuss the results of a government analysis of kidnapping trends. "Why? To avoid economic damage, physical damage to the victim and psychological damage to the victim as well as the family."


Notorious reputation
Mexico is wrestling with a reputation as the kidnapping capital of Latin America, and the crime is so common that people can call the federal teams on a toll-free number.

Officers of the federal police agency known by the acronym AFI, roughly the equivalent of FBI agents, are dispatched to set up command posts in private homes, where they do everything from coaching families on ransom negotiations to conducting rescue operations, Rosas said.

From 2001 to date, federal agents rescued 879 people and arrested 657 kidnappers, Rosas said.

Less than 2 percent of the victims in cases managed by federal agents end up being murdered, said Rosas, who declined to give specific numbers of those killed.

It is widely believed that many kidnapping victims and their families do not contact authorities out of fear they could be corrupt or make matters worse. It is not uncommon for people to panic, attempting to sell their homes and belongings or seeking loans and donations from friends and relatives to meet ransom demands.

Some citizen anti-crime groups give Rosas and federal police high marks for reducing ransoms but said far more needs to be done, such as combating the roots of crime and overhauling the justice system.

"What they need to dedicate themselves to more is stopping people from being kidnappers to begin with," said María Elena Morera, president of Mexico United Against Crime.

Morera repeatedly speaks out on the need for better public education and more employment opportunities for the nation's poor.

She experienced the wrath of kidnappers firsthand in 2001, when her husband was abducted and tortured by a gang, but ultimately rescued by agents of the federal anti-kidnapping squad.


An unresolved case
The men who took and held her husband, including a surgeon who amputated four of his fingers to pressure a ransom payment, have been in prison for six years, but have yet to be sentenced.

The AFI is not perfect but is gaining public respect, said Ricardo Ainslie, a University of Texas at Austin pyschology professor who grew up in Mexico City and recently made a documentary film on kidnapping.

Ainslie's documentary, Ya Basta (Enough Already), includes chilling interviews with kidnappers and people who have been kidnapped.

Victims tell of being blindfolded, beaten and humiliated.

"The first thing you do is cry and beg for your life," said one man, a Mexico City kidnapping victim who was interviewed for the film.

dschiller@express-news.net



http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/hea ... 03982.html

Another reason we have to stop the NAU. Why would we want to merge with such a corrupt country?!