According to the Citizens Council for Public Security and Penal Justice, the incidence of kidnapping has not decreased under Enrique Peña Nieto’s government. On the contrary, it has increased 35 percent in the first eight months of 2013, in comparison to the same period in 2012. If the situation persists, they predict, Mexico will be the country with the most kidnappings in the world.
In a press conference, the civil organization indicated that
“between January and August of 2013, 1,130 kidnappings were reported compared to 837 in the same period of 2012.”
José Antonio Ortega Sánchez and Eduardo Gallo, members of social organizations against kidnapping, stated that the figures come from a formal request for information, and that the data provided indicate that in the first half of 2013 there were not only the 832 kidnappings registered by the system, but the actual total is 1,802.
The creation of that body
“This figure comes from adding to the 832 the 512 registered by PGR (the Attorney General), the 334 people rescued by the Secretary of National Defense, and the 124 people rescued by the Secretary of the Navy,” they stated.Meanwhile, officials who participat in the Security Cabinet recall that, in February of 1998, the then-Attorney General Jorge Madrazo Cuéllar created the anti-kidnapping unit, believed at the time to be the first and best group of its kind in the country, composed of 31 members.
The creation of that body
“was a reaction to the alarming increase of criminal indices registering illegal deprivation of liberty through kidnapping.”On various occasions the National Conference for Justice has supported the creation of anti-kidnapping groups with police specifically trained for such missions. In some places these groups have been functioning for more than five years, while in others there are no indications of even the first trainings, successful or not.
...Despite the formation of the national anti-kidnapping body, it took until last August for it to become a reality in Mexico’s states, when these specialized units began to operate with certified members. However, there is the problem that no record exists about the personnel who have left those groups, ccording to information from the National Council of Public Security,.
Facing the increase of the kidnapping scourge, Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam ordered the strengthening of the specialized sub-unit.
Edgar Cortez, researcher from the Mexican Institute of Human Rights and Democracy, believed that the creation of anti-kidnapping groups, consisting of elite military and naval parties, indicates the “weakening” of civil institutions in this area and constitutes a “risk.”
He said that this transition shows the “deformation” of public administration in that security functions are increasingly transferred to the military, even though these military powers have been associated with human rights violations previously. Spanish original