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Mark · Site Admin Joined: 13 Nov 2007 Posts: 1052

Kidnap Consultant Taken in Mexico

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-...e/2008/12/15/AR2008121503147.html

Excerpt:

MEXICO CITY, Dec. 15 -- An American anti-kidnapping negotiator, whose company says he has resolved almost 100 kidnapping cases in Latin America, was abducted by gunmen last week -- while meeting with Mexican business executives and their bodyguards to discuss ways to thwart such crimes
...

Batista works as a consultant for ASI Global, a Houston-based security firm, which, according to its Web site, "provides a portfolio of crisis management, prevention and pre-incident services to private clients and families, financial institutions and major corporations worldwide" using a team of K&R response consultants who are "the very best minds in the business." Their specialties include the recovery of pirated ships and their crews; extraction from conflict areas; and winning release from airplane hijackings, kidnappings and illegal arrests.
...

The U.S. Embassy declined to comment, as is customary in kidnapping cases. The State Department has issued travel alerts for Americans visiting Mexico, urging them to take safety precautions. While U.S. business executives and Mexican Americans who live in Mexico have been targeted for kidnapping, business visitors and tourists generally have not.

In a recent article from the McClatchy News Service, Batista was quoted speaking of the growing risks of kidnapping by members of drug trafficking cartels. "The narco-kidnappers are not looking for chump change," he said. "It's a pretty darn good side business."

Mark · Site Admin Joined: 13 Nov 2007 Posts: 1052

Well then, I think I've got even better advice about how not to become a kidnapping victim:

Don't be a rich pig.

Ransoms are just one of the business expenses of being a rich pig. And no matter how much rich pigs may pay their consultants and security experts, as long as they remain rich pigs they'll have to endure the kidnappings and pay the ransoms that are associated with being a rich pig. And since their consultants and security experts are making a fortune telling them that it is possible to be a rich pig and still be safe, they'll never get honest advice. If the consultants were able to advise them as to how to be safe from kidnappings, the consultants wouldn't be able to stay in business negotiating their ransoms.

Here's a conspiracy theory for you. Just suppose that some of the rich pigs who hire these consultants and security experts had learned that the consultants and security experts had been tipping off the kidnappers so as to enhance their ransom-negotiating profits by enabling more kidnappings. Wouldn't they seek revenge by tipping off the kidnappers the next time the consultant or security expert showed up? ROFL

Hey, business is business, and it's all about the bottom line. You want honest dealings, don't deal with rich pigs or with anyone who deals with rich pigs. They didn't get rich honestly and they can't stay rich honestly. The big money guys aren't innocent victims targeted by the drug cartels--they have lots of money so they invest in drugs themselves. That's how the drug cartels know who they are, where they are, and how much money they have.

And how do the consultants and security experts know how to successfully negotiate ransoms with drug cartels? Because they are told how by the drug cartels. This one must have skimmed too much off the top of a pay-off. He probably thought that as a top kidnapping consultant, he could get away with it. Being in a protection racket is lucrative precisely because it isn't risk free.