Mexico drug gang likely behind U.S. kidnapping
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By Robin Emmott
An American anti-kidnapping expert who was himself abducted last week in northern Mexico was likely snatched by drug traffickers seeking to protect their turf, police said on Tuesday.
Gunmen hauled Felix Batista into a white SUV outside a restaurant last week in the relatively safe industrial city of Saltillo in Coahuila state, where he was giving seminars on security to police and business people.
Batista, a Cuban-American from Miami who is credited with negotiating the release of people abducted by Colombian rebels, was snatched when he stepped outside the restaurant after answering a cell phone call, Coahuila state attorney general's office said.
No ransom has been demanded, police said.
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The local attorney general's office said Batista had been invited by state police to give talks on security amid Mexico's gruesome drug war, which has killed more than 5,300 people this year, double the 2007 level.
"We don't believe this was a normal kidnapping, more like the work of drug gangs wanting to show their power," said an official at the state attorney general's office. "Batista was giving seminars, he wasn't negotiating anyone's release."
Batista's Houston-based employer, security consultancy ASI Global, said he was on private business in Coahuila.
"In light of the rampant corruption among law enforcement in Mexico, the involvement of police agencies in organizing Batista's visit could well mean that his kidnappers received information about his schedule from corrupt police officers," U.S. security consultancy Stratfor said in a report.
Hundreds of people are kidnapped in Mexico every year and the number of victims has increased sharply as drug gangs, under pressure from President Felipe Calderon's army-backed crackdown, seek new revenues to fund their operations.
"This is a case that shows the size of the challenge we face in dealing with this phenomenon," Carlos Rico, deputy foreign minister for North America, told a news conference.
He said Mexico had not yet been contacted by the U.S. embassy for any specific help in finding Batista.
Mexican drug gangs in league with corrupt cops are warring over smuggling routes into the United States, clashing with some 40,000 state security forces seeking to crush their operations and control escalating violence.
(Additional reporting by Miguel Angel Gutierrez in Mexico City, editing by Jackie Frank)
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