High-profile kidnapping stuns Mexico

MEXICO CITY — Fernando Marti was supposedly safe. The 14-year-old son of one of Mexico's most successful businessmen, he had a private driver to whisk him to school through the streets of Mexico's chaotic capital.

A bulky bodyguard was always along, too, scanning the cityscape for anything amiss.

But the veil of protection failed him one morning in June, when the family's bulletproof sedan came upon a checkpoint run by armed men dressed as federal police officers.

The boy and his two guardians were ordered out of the vehicle and rushed away. The driver would be tortured — with all of his teeth pulled out, according to news accounts — and later killed. The bodyguard was choked and left for dead. As for Fernando, he was kept alive long enough for the kidnappers to call his parents, put him briefly on the line and demand a huge ransom.

The boy's father, Alejandro Marti, who founded a chain of sporting-goods stores and health clubs, hired a private security consultant to negotiate with the kidnappers and got out his checkbook.

There are fewer kidnappings in Mexico today than at the height of the kidnapping wave of the 1990s. But they are rising again, and the biggest increase, officials say, appears to be in the kidnapping of children, with 15 Mexico City youngsters grabbed last year and 22 so far in 2008.

In all, 438 abductions were reported across Mexico in 2007, 35 percent more than in 2006, federal officials report. Mexico City said that it had reports of 119 kidnappings in 2007 and 86 so far this year, a definite spike.

But those are only the ones that are known. The authorities acknowledge that most kidnapping cases are never reported and are handled instead, as the hostagetakers always demand, privately. That is what the Martis did, to no avail.

An entire industry, much of it unregulated, has grown up around kidnapping, with consultants to negotiate the ransom, insurance policies to cover any ransom losses and an array of safety measures, available to those who can pay, from bodyguards with military backgrounds to bulletproofing on cars and clothing.

The Martis reportedly paid the kidnappers millions of dollars, but Fernando, their youngest boy, who loved soccer and singing and attended the prestigious British American School, was still not returned.

After keeping the matter quiet for weeks, the Martis became alarmed and changed strategies. They went public, taking out newspaper advertisements offering even more ransom if Fernando was turned over unharmed.

"We have been waiting two months for our son," they said. "We have 2 million reasons for him to be returned to us. Communicate with us."

The waiting continued until Aug. 1, when residents of the Coyoacan neighborhood noticed a foul smell coming from a car parked on their street. The police found Fernando's body stuffed in the trunk. He had been dead at least a month, officials said.

Public loses trust in cops

Since the discovery of the body, each new day has brought another shocking development.

The bodyguard, Cristian Salmones, who was initially reported to be dead, managed to recover and is now a key witness, providing investigators with an inside look at the crime.

Three suspects have been detained, two of them police officers. Other officers are also under investigation.

A yellow flower found next to Fernando's body, as well as that of the murdered driver, the authorities say, indicates a kidnapping gang known as "The Flower" was responsible. They are grizzled and unpredictable kidnapping veterans, the police say. Next to Fernando's body was a scrawled note that said "for not paying."

The Martis did pay, the authorities say, sending an employee out with a duffel bag full of cash, which he left in a parked car, as instructed. But perhaps the kidnappers thought the Martis negotiated too much over the amount. There is no way of telling.

Alejandro Marti has since defended his decision to initially keep the kidnapping quiet. "Those who grabbed him were police officers, and the last thing we wanted was for the police to be involved," he told a local newspaper this week, justifying his decision to initially cut out the authorities.

The case has traumatized the city, prompting citizens to organize anti-crime marches and politicians to propose a flurry of anti-kidnapping measures, including President Felipe Calderón's call for life in prison for some kidnappers instead of the current maximum sentence of 70 years.

"We must purge police agencies to get rid of those infiltrated by crime," Calderon said. "We must put an end to the conspiracy between criminals and the authorities."

Drastic action urged

Some citizen activists are advocating even more drastic action, such as the return of the death penalty or the legalization of firearms. Doubts about the effectiveness of the police, always high, seem to be growing by the day.

But some wonder now that Fernando has been buried in an elaborate funeral how long the urgency will last.

"Yet again, we see the implication of police officers in abductions and other atrocious crimes, repugnant excuses and lies from ministry officials and prosecutors and the fake consternation and empty promises of governors and politicians," scoffed Joel Antonio Ortega, president of a group called Ya Basta, which means what many Mexicans feel these days: "Enough is enough."