EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – The leader of a citizen’s advisory board in Juarez, Mexico, worries organized criminal groups may be targeting residents for kidnapping now that the flow of migrants coming to the border has diminished.
“When we talk about kidnappings, we usually talk about floor fees (for migrants),” said Guillermo Asiain, member of Juarez’s nonprofit Mesa de Seguridad y Justicia (Justice and Safety Board). “Now, we have three cases (in one month) not involving migrants. This is a red flag in which one person lost his life […] That this is happening is not good news for the city.”
Juarez news media earlier this month reported eight civilians – a businesswoman, a doctor, a retiree, a church employee, a share-ride driver and three others whose occupation wasn’t clear – had been abducted for ransom this year in that city. A separate news report alleged a southeast Juarez businessman was kidnapped in February and shot to death after a $40,000 ransom wasn’t delivered.
“From our perspective, we read a change in attitude on the part of criminals due to (a decrease in) the migrant flow,” Asiain said. “We will see this in various crimes. We believe this will be one in which organized crime is trying to find different ways to obtain resources that before were easier to obtain due to the migration issue.”
Asiain’s comments came a day after the Chihuahua Attorney General’s Office confirmed it had freed two American citizens taken from outside a billiards and sports bar last week.
The Americans were held for three days by a group of men who also held captive migrants from Central America, southern Mexico and China. The migrants showed signs of extreme violence such as cuts to their ears, marks from attempted strangling inflicted to pressure their relatives to pay a ransom, the Attorney General’s Office said.
The Chihuahua state police freed the Americans and the injured migrants and took four young adults into custody. State authorities thanked the FBI for technical assistance with the case.
Local media reported on a possible third American kidnapped, but U.S. authorities are not aware of such development.
“Only two U.S. citizens were kidnapped. I can confirm that,” an FBI spokesperson told Border Report. A third reported kidnapping has no relation with the Americans, the source said.
International security experts in the past few years have told Border Report transnational criminal organizations purposely avoid targeting U.S. citizens so as to not attract undue attention to themselves.
A year ago, the Gulf cartel publicly apologized for the abduction of four Americans in Matamoros, Mexico. Two of the victims were killed in captivity, and the Escorpiones (Scorpions) faction of the cartel delivered to Mexican authorities five alleged kidnappers along with a letter of apology saying they had broken internal rules.
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