Kidnapping epidemic hits Latin America

Oakland Tribune, Aug 15, 2004 by Niko Price, Associated Press

MEXICO CITY -- With a broad grin beneath his black shades, Jesus Solorzano Martinez says he was stupid, though his language isn't quite that pretty. Martinez is a rarity in Latin America: a kidnapper who got caught.

His first and only kidnapping netted duffel bags full of neatly rubber-banded wads -- bank notes on the outside and cut-up newspaper on the inside. Within hours, police were at his door.

Now, at 52, a 14-year veteran of Mexico City's Northern Penitentiary, he regrets what he did. He says he should have gone for easier targets, and asked for less than the 50 billion-peso -- or $19 million -- ransom.

Just like the kids do these days.

"You go to a nice neighborhood and pick up practically anyone off the street," said Solorzano, who is serving a 35-year sentence for kidnapping a textile magnate. "You ask for 200,000 pesos, or $17,000, and they pay without complaining. If you do five of those a week, pretty soon you're rich."

Latin America is in the throes of a kidnapping epidemic -- an increasingly brutal and lucrative crime wave that is spreading terror throughout society and sending businesses fleeing to safer parts of the world.

Anti-American kidnappers in Iraq have been grabbing attention with their videotaped beheadings of hostages, but Latin America -- where kidnapping is more often a business than a political tool -- accounts for 75 percent of the world's abductions, according to London-based business risk consultancy Control Risks Group.

The insurance industry estimates more than 7,500 kidnappings a year in Latin America, but analysts say those statistics and governments' counts aren't reliable because so few kidnappings are reported -- 1 in 10 by some estimates.

"Latin America is the home of kidnapping, and it's where the great majority of kidnappings take place," said Rachel Briggs, head of international programs at Demos, a London think tank.

Oil workers in Colombia languish in remote guerrilla hideouts for years. Women in Brazil are raped after being picked from shopping malls. Businessmen in Argentina are tortured while their abductors negotiate multimillion-dollar ransoms. Children in Mexico are returned to their parents one finger at a time as kidnappers press their demands.

As the wealthy shut themselves off behind elaborate alarm systems, armored cars and beefy bodyguards -- or simply flee to Miami -- kidnappers are increasingly turning to Latin America's middle classes, choosing victims with less care and treating them with more brutality.

Criminals see kidnappers win huge ransoms and prosecutors win few convictions, and many car thieves and drug smugglers switch to what they see as a less risky and more lucrative business.

As the fear spreads, citizens are becoming frantic. Hundreds of thousands of people are taking to the streets to demand that their governments take action against the crime wave, and the fortunes of several Latin American presidents are tied to their responses.

But the bitter reality, many analysts say, is that there is little anyone can do to halt kidnappings, at least in the short term.

The booming kidnap industry nets hundreds of millions of dollars in ransom each year. And like any business, they say, it will continue to thrive until it is no longer profitable.

The threat of kidnapping has long led Latin America's upper classes to retreat into fortresses. High walls have risen around homes, and high-tech alarm systems are ubiquitous. Executives shuttle from office to home in armored cars -- and rarely venture anywhere else.

Well-dressed bodyguards wearing Secret Service-style earphones huddle at the entrances to fashionable restaurants, private schools and health clubs, their Ray-Banned eyes scanning the sidewalks for potential enemies.

Such protection doesn't come cheap. Vagner D'Angelo, head of corporate security in Brazil for the risk management group Kroll Inc., estimated that for a company's vice president, the bare- minimum security costs would run $80,000 the first year.

Some business leaders are deciding that the costs -- and lifestyles built around fear -- simply aren't worth it, and are leaving for the relative safety of Miami or Madrid. Latin American magazines offer million-dollar condominiums along the Florida coast, and U.S. realtors travel to Colombia, Venezuela and Mexico to hawk their properties firsthand.

"The real risk is that not just people go to safer places, but that companies do as well," said Frank Holder, president of Kroll's investigations, intelligence and security group in New York. "That's why so many companies are in Miami."

NBA star Manuel Ginobili said he invested in tight security for his family in July. Police in his native Argentina intercepted telephone calls indicating kidnappers were targeting his family as he negotiated a multimillion-dollar contract to continue with the San Antonio Spurs.

"There's always a car outside. Security people are following them and taking care of them," he said. "It's not easy to go visit your friends and have a guy next to you, but we have to accept the consequences, because this is not a joke."