Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Gizmodo
Kidnappings in Mexico have worsened in the last 5 years, sky-rocketing by 371%. So too have the demand for those RFID implants that were said to allow authorities find the victims. Except for one thing: they don't work.
The main problem is that the technology, for a number of reasons, couldn't have worked in the first place. For one, the implants are much too small for a satellite to pick up. And that's without taking into account the barriers the implant's signal would have to overcome—that is, metal, concrete, and the water of the human body. For another, the implants can't be trusted to broadcast a signal without losing its teeny tiny charge.
And even if the police did manage to pick up the signal, there'd be no time to mount a raid to save you. All told, you're probably only about 1% less screwed...[Full Article]
Labels: kidnapping, Mexico, RFID
Monday, June 13, 2011
Cartels have taken cruelty up a notch, says one drug trafficker: kidnapping bus passengers for gladiatorlike fights to the death
The elderly are killed. Young women are raped. And able-bodied men are given hammers, machetes and sticks and forced to fight to the death.
In one of the most chilling revelations yet about the violence in Mexico, a drug cartel-connected trafficker claims fellow gangsters have kidnapped highway bus passengers and forced them into gladiatorlike fights to groom fresh assassins.
In an in-person interview arranged by intermediaries on the condition that neither his name nor the location of his Texas visit be published, the trafficker also admitted to helping push cocaine worth $5 million to $10 million a month into the United States.
Law enforcement sources confirm he is a cartel operative but not a fugitive from pending charges.
His words are not those of a federal agent or drawn from a news conference or court papers.
Instead, he offers a voice from inside Mexico's mayhem — a mafioso who mingles among crime bosses and foot soldiers in a protracted war between drug cartels as well as against the government.
If what he says is true, gangsters who make commonplace beheadings, hangings and quartering bodies have managed an even crueler twist to their barbarity.
Members of the Zetas cartel, he says, have pushed passengers into an ancient Rome-like blood sport with a modern Mexico twist that they call, "Who is going to be the next hit man?"...[Full Article]
Labels: drug cartel, drug traffickers, hit man, kidnapping, Mexico
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Gunmen stormed into a church in the middle of a wedding ceremony in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Friday, kidnapping the groom and three others, and killing one before fleeing, state prosecutors told CNN Saturday.
"It's unclear if this was gang or drug related," Chihuahua State Attorney
General's Office spokesman Carlos Gonzalez said, adding the incident is still
under investigation.
The shooting victim, described as a male in his early 20s, was shot in the back in the church parking lot, Gonzalez said.
Local reports say he was fleeing from the scene when he was shot. The groom, his uncle, brother and best man were kidnapped.
Ciudad Juarez is the most violent city in Mexico, with more than 2,600 drug-related deaths in 2009.
At least 870 people have been killed in Juarez this year, according to local reports.
A report released in April by the Mexican government said Chihuahua state is the country's hardest-hit state by drug violence, with 6,757 people killed since the start of the drug war at the end of 2006.
Labels: Ciudad Juarez, Juarez, kidnapping, Mexico
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]