A US kidnapping consultant was seized by armed men in northern Mexico amid the country’s spate of abductions, his employer said Monday.
Felix Batista (55), a hostage negotiator who offers seminars on handling abductions, disappeared last Wednesday in the border state of Coahuila, said Charlie LeBlanc, president of ASI Global, a Houston-based security company.
Mr LeBlanc said Mr Batista was in Saltillo, the state capital, on personal business and not on assignment for the company.
Mr Batista was at a restaurant when, according to witnesses, “armed men came out of an SUV and threw him into the SUV and left”, Mr LeBlanc said.
He declined to say whether a ransom demand had been made.
US embassy officials in Mexico City had no immediate comment to make.
Coahuila’s public safety secretary Fausto Destenave Kuri was quoted in Vanguardia, a Saltillo newspaper, as saying that Mr Batista had disappeared but that there were no signs of violence.
Saltillo is not known as a kidnapping hot spot, although Coahuila’s state legislature has joined nationwide calls for changing the Mexican Constitution to allow the death penalty for kidnappers when the victims are killed.
Mr Batista has been quoted by US media outlets as a kidnapping expert. He reportedly has taken part in hostage negotiations in Colombia and elsewhere in Latin America.
Mr LeBlanc said Mr Batista has worked for ASI Global on a contract basis for 18 months and is familiar with Mexico.
“We just want to get him back safe and sound,” he said.
A PowerPoint presentation on kidnapping that Mr Batista prepared for a March conference offered practical tips, such as getting proof that the kidnap victim is alive early during negotiations.
The presentation, posted online, suggested survival tactics for captives, including establishing a daily routine.
Persistent kidnappings in Mexico have stoked public anger toward Mexican police, who in some cases have been accomplices, and toward the nation’s leaders.
Official statistics indicate that two people are kidnapped every day in Mexico, but the actual rate is probably much higher because many people refuse to report the crime. – (LA Times-Washington Post service)