A professional dog walker is approached in a park in Mexico City by a criminal who pulls a gun, steals a dog — English and American bulldogs are favorite targets — and uses the pet's identity tag to contact the owner and demand a ransom.
With more than 100 dognappings reported to police in Mexico annually, it's a crime that is symptomatic of the changing nature of the security threat in Latin America. Attracted by the opportunity to make money more quickly and with less risk, criminal gangs have started to move away from traditional longer term kidnaps to short term crimes such as express and virtual kidnappings, extortions, threats and dognapping.
Express kidnaps proliferate
Traditional kidnap cases, where the victim is held for weeks or months, are increasingly now more likely to be confined to Latin America's rural areas or in smaller towns/cities; places where criminals can more easily hold and hide their victims. In the big cities however, criminal gangs are showing a preference for express kidnappings where they might take a victim to an ATM for a quick payout.
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