Kidnap expert seized in Mexico

A U.S. kidnapping consultant was seized by armed men in northern Mexico amid the country’s wave of abductions, his employer said Monday.

Felix Batista, 55, a hostage negotiator who offers seminars on handling abductions, disappeared Wednesday in the border state of Coahuila, said Charlie LeBlanc, president of ASI Global, a Houston-based security firm.

LeBlanc said Batista was in Saltillo, the state capital, on personal business and not on assignment for the company. Batista was at a restaurant when, according to witnesses, “armed men came out of an SUV and threw him into the SUV and left,” LeBlanc said by telephone.

He declined to say whether there was a ransom demand. U.S. Embassy officials in Mexico City had no immediate comment.

Coahuila’s public safety secretary, Fausto Destenave Kuri, was quoted in Vanguardia, a Saltillo newspaper, as saying that Batista had disappeared but that there were no signs of violence.

Saltillo is not known as a kidnapping hot spot, though Coahuila’s state legislature has joined nationwide calls for changing the Mexican Constitution to allow the death penalty for kidnappers when the victims are killed. Coahuila borders Texas.

Batista has been quoted by U.S. media outlets as a kidnapping expert. He reportedly has taken part in hostage negotiations in Colombia and elsewhere in Latin America.

LeBlanc said Batista has worked for ASI Global on a contract basis for 18 months and is familiar with Mexico. “We just want to get him back safe and sound,” he said.

A PowerPoint presentation on kidnapping that Batista prepared for a March conference offered practical tips, such as getting proof that the victim is alive early during negotiations. The presentation, posted online, suggested survival tactics for captives, including establishing a daily routine.

Persistent kidnappings in Mexico have stoked broad public anger toward Mexican police, who in some cases have been accomplices, and toward the nation’s leaders. Official statistics indicate that two people are kidnapped daily, but many people refuse to report the crime. The nation’s human rights ombudsman said Monday that the average daily number of kidnappings is seven.

Outrage flared again last week after authorities confirmed they had found the body of the kidnapped daughter of Mexico’s former sports minister.

The victim, Silvia Vargas, was 18 when she disappeared in September 2007. Her mother went public during the summer by pleading with kidnappers to resume negotiations.

The victim’s father, Nelson Vargas, who formerly headed Mexico’s sports commission, accused authorities of bungling the investigation by ignoring his suggestion soon after the disappearance that they focus on a former family driver.

Vargas said he later discovered and informed investigators that the driver, Oscar Ortiz Gonzalez, was the brother of a suspected kidnapper who allegedly belonged to a ring known as the Reds.

Ortiz was arrested Nov. 5 in the southern state of Guerrero. His brother has been at large since fleeing a hospital while in federal police custody Sept. 28.

Police said a tip from a prisoner led them to the buried remains at a home in southern Mexico City.

In August, hundreds of thousands of Mexicans protested rising crime and violence after a 14-year-old kidnapping victim turned up dead in Mexico City. The victim, Fernando Marti, was the son of a wealthy Mexico City couple.

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ken.ellingwood@latimes.com