Mexico’s Insecurity : Recent Kidnapings Threaten Its Image, Foreign Investments

MEXICO CITY —  Angel Losada was riding to work at his family’s supermarket chain one recent morning when three cars boxed in his black Cadillac at a busy intersection in the fashionable Polanco neighborhood.

Eight men brandishing machine guns and pistols forced Losada, another passenger and the chauffeur into a white Topaz and sped off as witnesses watched in shock. Five days later, a caller claiming to represent the kidnapers telephoned the Losada family, demanding $50 million in ransom.

The audacious daylight kidnaping has fueled indignation about the lack of public safety in a nation still reeling from the unsolved abduction of its top banker and the assassination of its leading presidential candidate.

The kidnapings, emblematic of a rising tide of violence in recent months, also threaten Mexico’s image as a stable country and, therefore, the foreign investment that is crucial to financing its development.

The Mexican Stock Exchange index has plunged with each new kidnaping. And recession-strapped Mexican businesses are suddenly having to dole out cash for armored cars and security experts.

“Many companies underestimated the importance of security and decided not to invest much in that area. Now they are trying to improve security measures in a hurry,” said the director of security at a major Mexican conglomerate.

“Companies are calling and asking: ‘What should we be doing? Should we be increasing our security?’ ” said Michael Guidry, president of Guidry Group, a security consulting firm in Houston.

The problem for companies trying to put together a security system on short notice is that much of the latest technology is not available in Mexico.

Armored cars--which both recent kidnap victims own but weren’t driving when they were abducted--must be imported, and some firms may have to wait months because of the increased demand from Mexico, according to business sources.

Despite a severe recession that has hurt most Mexican businesses, many companies have begun to extend protection to family members of top executives, corporate sources said.

A banking source told Reuters News Service that Alfredo Harp Helu, chairman of Banco Nacional de Mexico, was warned repeatedly by colleagues that his security arrangements were lax. Harp, one of Mexico’s wealthiest men, was seized two months ago while setting out for his office accompanied only by his chauffeur. In a recent letter sent to news organizations, Harp’s kidnapers threatened to kill him unless the banking group pays the ransom, which they described as “less than $100 million.”

At the other extreme are individuals such as Emilio Azcarraga, head of media conglomerate Televisa. He is ranked by Forbes magazine as the 19th-richest man in the world, with a fortune estimated at $5.1 billion. Azcarraga is said to take turns sleeping in several houses scattered throughout the capital and to travel to most of his meetings by helicopter, according to a Reuters report. Government officials promised action after a rash of kidnapings two years ago, but little has changed since then. International security experts say Mexico is a country ripe for the constant kidnapings that plague nations such as Colombia and Brazil.

“This is going to be a massive problem of immediate concern in Mexico,” predicted Paul Chamberlain, president of Chamberlain Associates, a Los Angeles investigation and insurance firm that specializes in solving kidnapings.

Mexico is vulnerable in part because it has been such a safe country, despite the huge disparities in income between rich and poor. Wealthy people here tend to hire bodyguards more for their driving skills--expecting them to double as chauffeurs--than for their security experience.

Accustomed to moving about freely, the Mexican elite have resisted the corps of armed bodyguards that is common in many developing countries. Security personnel is considered too ostentatious, even in circles where people proudly display their cellular telephones on the tables of stylish restaurants.

That is changing as people feel less secure. Chamberlain has received about 100 inquiries from Mexico in the last six months, compared to a negligible number in previous years, he said. Advertisements for armored cars are appearing in financial newspapers here.

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At the San Jeronimo shopping center in a wealthy neighborhood in the south of the city, customers now routinely arrive in convoys. Autos bearing security agents with walkie-talkies lead and follow the client’s car. Bodyguards accompany the shopper into stores.

But increased protection for the super-rich is merely a stop-gap measure, security experts say. If they cannot nab the chairman, they predict, kidnapers will soon start to target other executives, expecting companies to pay the ransom.

Abductions will continue as long as criminals believe law enforcement is weak and disjointed, security experts say.

Indeed, neither the Losadas nor the Harp family have reported the crimes to authorities.

Further, speculation about suspects has centered on police and former police who were dismissed during recent corruption cleanups.

To improve coordination of police and national security efforts across the country, President Carlos Salinas de Gortari recently created a National Public Safety Commission. In a statement announcing the move, Salinas said: “Current conditions in the country make it necessary for the public safety corps to be coordinated nationally in order to be more effective in both prevention and prosecution of crimes. Society is demanding that the government redouble its efforts against impunity and violations of human rights.”

Those demands have come from such venerable business organizations as the Entrepreneurial Coordinating Council, the Mexican Employers Federation and the National Manufacturing Industry Chamber.

“We must have order,” said Antonio Sanchez Diaz de Rivera, chairman of the employers federation. “Without it, there can be no development.”

However, government critics fear the commission is aimed more at the oppression of political opponents than improved police work. Salinas’ choice of a chairman was puzzling: Arsenio Farell, the 72-year-old longtime labor minister, who has no previous law enforcement experience.

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“Rather than a thoughtful, legal and institutional answer,” said Cecilia Romero, assistant chairman of the National Action Party, which is closely aligned with business interests, “this is a political reply to society’s demands for public safety.”

In public statements, business people and politicians tend to attribute the abductions to “dark forces” attempting to destabilize the country. That version has gained credence because both Losada and Harp were mentioned on a list of potential abduction targets found last year in a bombed building in Managua.

Both are shareholders in companies the government recently sold to private investors, including Telefonos de Mexico, the national telephone company, and the bank Harp heads.

However, law enforcement sources said they believe the kidnapers are more likely to be former police out for ransom money, similar to the gangs that held computer printer maker Jorge Espinosa Mireles and pay television operator Joaquin Vargas two years ago. Both men were released unharmed and no arrests were made.

At that time, scores of kidnapings surfaced in other parts of the country, increasing pressure for government action. The pressure subsided until this latest round of high-profile abductions.

The kidnapers appear to have studied their victims’ movements carefully. Both Harp and Losada were abducted on the one weekday they could not drive their armored cars because of air pollution regulations, according to the news weekly Proceso.

“If a group of individuals wants to kidnap you and they research you, they probably can,” Chamberlain said. Still, abductors can be discouraged, he said, through common sense and sometimes expensive measures.