An anticrime group says the abduction rate is second only to Colombia's. There is disagreement on victim numbers.
 

  TESSIE BORDEN
  Republic Mexico City Bureau

  MEXICO CITY - The numbers are disputed, but one thing is certain: You are more likely to be abducted
  in Mexico than almost anywhere else in the world.

  A report by an anti-crime group says Mexico's kidnap rate is second only to Colombia's. And the news
  gets worse.

  Take into account that most of Colombia's kidnappings are committed by politically motivated terrorist
  groups. Mexico moves to the top of the list in kidnappings that have no other motive than illicit profit,
  a Mexico City security consultant says.

  Experts and government officials disagree on the exact number of   kidnappings in the country, but they
  agree that the problem won't go away unless families stop allowing themselves to be scared into silence
  and continue paying ransoms.

  There were 422 kidnappings reported in Mexico in 2003, according to the Citizens' Council for Public
  Security and Penal Justice, a business-based group. Though that figure is down from 437 in 2002, the
  problem isn't getting any better, spokesman Jose Antonio Ortega said.

  Ortega said that for every reported kidnapping in Mexico, two go unregistered, an assessment some
  consider conservative.

  "In reality, the figure should be multiplied not by three but by four," said Ernesto Mendieta, president
  of Aquesta Terra, a security consulting firm.

  The Mexican Attorney General's Office, known as the PGR by its Spanish initials, disputes the figures,
  saying it registered 362 kidnappings and solved 346 of them in 2003 and that since 2001 it has
  arrested 250 suspected kidnappers.

  Mendieta, who is familiar with the PGR's efforts and with the Citizens' Council, said the difference in
  the figures is a matter of methodology and that the group starts with the PGR's figures and adds
  other cases that it hears about informally.

  No matter whose numbers are to be believed, they still aren't enough to jar U.S. officials.

  Authorities at the U.S. Embassy and at Arizona's trade office in Guadalajara are not stepping up
  warnings, at least not beyond the embassy's regular travel advisory that gives visitors to Mexico
  common-sense advice on avoiding crime, such as using ATMs only in busy malls and taking taxis only
  from a taxi stand.

  Steve Sullivan of the Arizona Trade Office in Guadalajara regularly organizes tours in Mexico City for
  business people interested in expanding into Mexico. Part of each tour is a briefing on crime.

  "We cover security and talk about safe taxis, things like that," Sullivan said. "It's a big city, and like
  any other big city, it has problems."

  The embassy's current travel advisory says four Americans were kidnapped in Nuevo Laredo on the
  U.S. border in 2002.

  Big business

  In years past, kidnappings, especially those where the victims are rich, famous or powerful, became
  big business in Mexico. They even spawned variations such as the "express" kidnapping, where
  robbers carjacked the victim, held him for hours or days and took him around the city, forcing him to
  withdraw money from ATMs.

  But recently kidnapping became something for everyone to fear, from the high-placed executive to
  the primary-school teacher. Less-experienced bands of kidnappers now go after anything they can
  squeeze out of the victim's family for a ransom, Mendieta says, and sometimes it's a paltry sum.

  Part of the problem, Ortega admitted, is that Mexico's persistent official corruption problem feeds
  widespread mistrust of police among the public, so crime goes unreported.

  Ortega and other members of the Citizens' Council last month met with members of the Mexican
  Congress to give them recommendations on how to reduce kidnappings in Mexico. Among the
  suggestions was the completion of a database on kidnappings that would help authorities put
  together profiles of the criminals.

  "This is not just a problem of cops and criminals," Ortega said at the meeting. "There has to be an
  integrated approach, a state policy."

  On the day of Ortega's meeting, the legislature in the state of Veracruz approved a law that would
  allow police to freeze the assets of the families of kidnapping victims, thus preventing them from
  paying ransom.

  Ortega said the law is counterproductive and would be hard to enforce because the families of
  kidnapping victims want first and foremost to see their loved ones back home safe. Taking away their
  means of achieving that quickly will likely lead to tragedy.

  Instead, Ortega exhorts victims and families to arm themselves with courage and report the crimes,
  so that police can build their database and more effectively go after the criminals.

  "The victims' families, their loved ones, are at a big disadvantage compared with kidnapping bands
  that are perfectly organized and work under an organized-crime scheme," he said. "They have to go
  to the authorities.

  They have to go to the first level. This Citizens' Council opens the doors for all kidnapping victims in
  our country so that ... they can go to the first level and make their case."

  Horror story

  José Newman, a psychiatrist who has served in various government posts including ambassador to
  Warsaw, Poland, had his own harrowing date with kidnappers in 1998. It began one night with an
  apparently innocuous traffic stop by what looked like a police patrol car.

  It wasn't.

  Newman said a man in an officer's uniform walked up to his car, put a gun to his forehead, forced him
  out of his car, put a hood on him and shoved him onto the floorboards of another car. With the help
  of at least three others, the gunman carried on what he terms a police-style interrogation to learn
  about Newman's house, his family and the likely ransom they might claim.

  While the kidnappers drove Newman around town for more than 30 hours, their accomplices called his
  wife and forced his son to put together a ransom that included watches, trinkets and silver trays.
  After picking up the valuables, the men left Newman in the trunk of a car in a narrow, seldom-traveled
  street. His son, who had been directed to the spot, freed him.

  A fearful Newman says his kidnappers told him they would not go after him again if he did not make a
  report. He agreed to stay quiet and is not about to break his promise. He believes his abductors were
  police, so it would take little time for them to see the report - and to exact their revenge on him or his
  family.

  "I made a deal with them," he said. "If I don't hold up my end, they don't have to hold up theirs."