Chicagoan kidnapped in Juárez

El Paso Times ^ | June 18, 2003 | Louie Gilot

[FITZ]

A 48-year-old Chicago man who was in Juárez reportedly to adopt a child was abducted in broad daylight Tuesday, Chihuahua state police said.

Daniel Chaídez was stopped at a red light at Vicente Guerrero Street and Tecnológico Avenue with his wife, Evgenia Bakas, 46, and a 2-year-old boy whose identity was not released, when Chaídez was pulled out of his 2002 Ford Explorer and shoved into a white Suburban. Bakas, who does not speak Spanish, told Mexican investigators through a translator that two men took her husband away at 11:30 a.m.

Police said Chaídez, who was born in Durango, Mexico, is a U.S. citizen, but neither the FBI nor the U.S. Consulate was alerted about the case Tuesday. Bakas told police they had been in Juárez for two days.

Jaime Hervella, the founder of the Association of Relatives & Friends of Disappeared Persons, said Chaídez's profession might give a clue to why he was kidnapped. Police did not disclose that information Tuesday.

Since 1993, the disappearances of 196 men, including 32 U.S. citizens, have been reported to the authorities. More than 100 more might have unofficially disappeared in Juárez, Hervella said. Authorities suspect that the men are dead, executed by drug traffickers because of their involvement in the drug trade or because they were in the way. In 1999, nine bodies of missing men were recovered in common graves in south Juárez.

People have also been kidnapped for ransom in Mexico. On May 17, a group of men abducted a 9-year-old Juárez boy from his street and asked his parents for $150,000 before killing the boy.

Police said that the 2-year-old boy who was with Chaídez and Bakas is probably the child they were trying to adopt. Officials at the U.S. Consulate in Juárez said they had no record of the couple's applying for a visa for the child. Consulate spokeswoman Nida Emmons said that the couple does not need an appointment to get paperwork for a family-based petition to bring the child into the United States, but that the process takes more than a couple of days.

Louie Gilot may be reached at lgilot@elpasotimes.com

[Tacis]

Should be easy to fix. Just call Presidente Fox's office and find out which one of Fox's criminal sub-jefes handles kidbapping in Juarez. Call the guy, pay the ransom and the vic will be released. The beauty of calling Fox's office first is that, as I understand it, you get a 10% off coupon that the criminal sub-jefe, whether its kidnapping, drugs, illegal alien smuggling, terrrorists into the US, money laundering, pharmaceuticals, stolen US cars, and so on, will honor.

The funny part about this story is that a call to Fox's office from the US and payment to the local US criminal sub-jefe usually lets the appropraite sub-jefe south of the border simpy kidnap some Mexican kid and deliver him to the US location along with the paperwork (guaranteed to look authentic) for one basic price.

[Mike Darancette]

People should stay out of 3rd world countries.

[FITZ]

They might get him back if they pay the ransom fast enough, but these guys mean business and if the ransom isn't paid, they execute the victim so the next victims' families won't take their time.