Thread: Mexico Will Track Western Union Money Transfers to Catch Kid

Mexico Will Track Western Union Money Transfers to Catch Kidnappers

Published February 24, 2011

Mexico's independent National Human Rights Commission said Wednesday that it has begun to track the use of Western Union money transfers to pay ransoms for migrants abducted in that county en route to the United States.

"We are documenting all these cases in a very detailed manner," the commission's Fernando Bautista told MVS radio.

He said the commission plans to turn the data over to the Mexican Attorney General's Office in the hope that prosecutors can work with Western Union to make it more difficult for the firm's services to be exploited by criminals.

At least 11,333 migrants, the majority of them from Central America, were waylaid in Mexican territory between April and September 2010, according to the "Special Report on the Kidnapping of Migrants in Mexico," released Tuesday by the rights commission.

The Rev. Alejandro Solalinde, who runs the Hermanos del Camino migrants shelter in the southern state of Oaxaca, faulted the report for not mentioning the role of Western Union in processing money transfers of what amount to ransom payments.

Several migrants interviewed by the rights commission said their families had to use Western Union to send money to the abductors.

The kidnappings would be "impossible ... without the complicity of Western Union," Solalinde said.

The priest's comments "put a fundamental issue on the table," according to Bautista, who said Interpol is aware of the use of Western Union by kidnappers and extortionists.

Bautista stressed, however, that the aim of the commission's report - which includes 28 recommendations to federal and state officials for dealing with the problem of migrant kidnappings - was not meant to single out any individual or entity.

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And the U.S. should trace Western Union transfers to collect taxes on remittances.