Affluenting Mexicans Implanting GPS chips due to kidnapping fears

Crazyjeeper

Crazyjeeper

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I think this is the correct section for this.

QUERETARO, Mexico (Reuters) - Affluent Mexicans, terrified of soaring kidnapping rates, are spending thousands of dollars to implant tiny transmitters under their skin so satellites can help find them tied up in a safe house or stuffed in the trunk of a car.

Kidnapping jumped almost 40 percent between 2004 and 2007 in Mexico, according to official statistics. Mexico ranks with conflict zones like Iraq and Colombia as among the worst countries for abductions.

The recent kidnapping and murder of Fernando Marti, 14, the son of a well-known businessman, sparked an outcry in a country already hardened to crime.

More people, including a growing number of middle-class Mexicans, are seeking out the tiny chip designed by Xega, a Mexican security firm whose sales jumped 13 percent this year. The company said it had more than 2,000 clients.

Detractors say the chip is little more than a gadget that serves no real security purpose.

The company injects the crystal-encased chip, the size and shape of a grain of rice, into clients' bodies with a syringe. A transmitter in the chip then sends radio signals to a larger device carried by the client with a global positioning system in it, Xega says. A satellite can then pinpoint the location of a person in distress.

Cristina, 28, who did not want to give her last name, was implanted along with seven other members of her family last year as a "preventive measure."

"It's not like we are wealthy people, but they'll kidnap you for a watch. ... Everyone is living in fear," she said.

The chips cost $4,000 plus an annual fee of $2,200.

Most kidnappings in Mexico go unreported, many of them cases of "express kidnapping" where the victim is grabbed and forced to withdraw money from automatic cash machines.

GROWTH INDUSTRY

Official statistics show 751 kidnappings in Mexico last year, but the independent crime research institute ICESI says the number could have exceeded 7,000.

Xega, based in the central Mexican city of Quererato, designed global positioning systems to track stolen vehicles until a company owner was kidnapped in broad daylight in 2001. Frustrated by his powerlessness to call for help, the company adapted the technology to track stolen people.

Most people get the chips injected into their arms between the skin and muscle where they cannot be seen. Customers who fear they are being kidnapped press a panic button on an external device to alert Xega, which then calls the police.

"Before, they only kidnapped key, well-known economically successful people like industrialists and landowners. Now they are kidnapping people from the middle class," said Sergio Galvan, Xega's commercial director.

Katherine Albrecht, a U.S. consumer privacy activist, says the chip is a flashy, overpriced gadget that only identifies a person and cannot locate someone without another, bigger GPS device that kidnappers can easily find and destroy.

She said fear of kidnapping was driving well-off Mexicans to buy a technology that had yet to prove useful.

"They are a prime target because they've got money and they've got a worry and you can combine those two and offer them a false sense of security which is exactly what this is," she said.

President Felipe Calderon has come under heavy pressure to stamp out violent crime. He hosted a meeting on Thursday of security chiefs and state governors.

Outside of Mexico, U.S. company VeriChip Corp uses similar radio-wave technology to identify patients in critical condition at hospitals or find elderly people who wander away from their homes.

Xega sees kidnapping as a growth industry and is planning to expand its services next year to Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela.
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Source

Call me paranoid, but GPS/RF microchips scare the everliving shit out of me.
 
If only we had legalized drugs here in the US... then the Mexicans wouldn't have the drug cartels and they wouldn't be having any problems! God, we are such assholes!

:tumbleweed:

But really, microimplants creep me out too.
 
whats wrong with microimplants? it's the first step in becoming a complete cyborg :p
 
So as soon as the criminals figure out how to detect and triangulate the signals, kidnappings end up going UP. Brilliant.
 
Hello! Long time reader, first time poster.

I will give you a little insight. I moved to USA from Mexico about 12 years ago. I have pretty much re established my life here. I got married, and have a daughter.

In Mexico, I was a show producer on top of owning several investment properties (that I still own). I had a very comfortable life, a downtown condo that I loved (just 1 block away from the men's club).

I moved here because I got absolutely tired of my car being stolen, I was carjacked twice, the father of my ex wife got kidnapped once, they broke in my house once, and to my apartment twice. And I could go on, and on and on.

I feel part of the lucky ones, because:

1) I had the resources to get the hell out
2) I was never physically harmed

Here in America, I don't have that glamorous life I was able to afford back in Mexico, with my own cook and maid (here is impossibly expensive). Here I have a nice, middle class life that I wouldn't trade for my much more comfortable lifestyle in Mexico.

This is because in Mexico you live with fear of being killed everyday just because you go to get some money from the ATM or had drinks with my friends.

I was not a rich guy back there. I was doing well thanks to some good early life decisions and some luck. I had a nice car, a nice place to live and this is enough to be in the cross hairs of every damn crook and corrupt cop out there.

If I decided to live in Mexico... I would get one of those GPS. Yea... I know, the bad guys could find me too... But the truth is they already know where you are...

I rather have some private guy find me and possible save my life...

But that not being the case..

The only way I would ever go back to Mexico is if they carbon copied the Texas castle law and they allowed the citizens to carry just like here in Texas.

Guys? truly, defend with nails and teeth your second amendment (as you have).

If Mexico had something even slightly similar, Mexico wouldn?t have a rubbish government, terrible police and a national crime industry.
 
Blind_Io loves you.
 
Well, I can't see how anything could possibly go wrong with this... [/sarcasm]
 
When you remove the guns from citizens, then only the law and the criminals have them. Simple as that. All good if you have strong institutions and a government you can trust.

But when you don't, then as a citizen you are out in the woods, at night, full of wolves and with pork sausage cologne all over you with a stick to defend yourself... because like in Mexico... even carrying a small knife is illegal.

This is a website for a kidnapped 18 year old girl that was kidnapped a year ago. She is (or likely was) the daughter of a Mexican 60s Olympic medalist. He used his fame to build a swimming training center empire (I actually trained in one of his pools for 6 years).

http://www.silviavargas.com.mx/
The picture says:
Please return me my daughter
Silvia
You will be rewarded
Telephone and email.

Just today, the family offered 2 million dollars to whoever either returns her or helps the family find her.
http://www.el-universal.com.mx/notas/532926.html

If you go to the second link which is a website for a big city newspaper, there is a video, but you can see the magnitude of the billboard that is on a main street and there are several around the city.

And this is not the only one, there are two other for two other different people.

Just weeks ago, the decomposed body of a 14 year old boy was found in the trunk of a vehicle. The son of a prominent Gym/Sports store owner.

And this is not happening in some far away nation, in the middle east of an undeveloped country.

This is happening merely miles away from USA border.

It is both sad, and surreal for me.
 
cvrefugee said:
All they need to do is clone multiple copies of Denzel Washington to protect them.
Click to expand...

More like an entire army of them commanded by Chuck Norris.

But I know why you said that... great movie by the way.;)
 
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