The Los Angeles Times today uses the details of an anonymous businessman’s two-month kidnapping ordeal to demonstrate how, it says, Tijuana has become one of the kidnapping capitals of the world.
Tijuana may now have the most kidnappings in the world outside of the Middle East, said Thomas Clayton, chairman of Clayton Consultants Inc., a global private security firm. “Tijuana is going crazy,” Clayton said.
The article notes that American tourists are rarely targets, but offers some grim stats and anecdotes. It notes that many families have moved to San Diego to escape the violence plague – part of a two-year crime wave – but even that hasn’t left them safe. The newspaper reports gangs have snatched people in San Diego in at least two cases in the last year.
Now rarely a day passes without a brazen kidnapping or murder making headlines. On major thoroughfares, billboards show photos of kidnap victims and plead for help finding them. In a recent newspaper survey, nearly one-third of respondents said a friend or relative had been kidnapped. Tijuana Mayor Jorge Hank Rhon recently said 10 friends of his have been kidnapped. Residents keep track of the toll the way like Southern Californians watch wildfires burn toward their homes.
It’s worth a read. You can check it out here.
Last week, Rhon came to San Diego to downplay the city’s violence.