Satellite tracking implants big business in Mexico

Daily Mail:

Middle-class families in Mexico are having tiny transmitters implanted under their skin so that satellites can track them if they are kidnapped.

Sales of the device have jumped by 13 per cent this year after kidnappings surged by almost 40 per cent in the country between 2004 and 2007.

The crystal-encased chip, which is the size and shape of a grain of rice, is injected into clients' bodies with a syringe.

A transmitter in the chip sends radio signals to a device, carried by the client, with a global positioning system in it, say makers Xega. A satellite can then pinpoint the kidnap victim's location.

Detractors say the chips, which cost £2,000 plus an annual fee of £1,100, give a false sense of security.

Mexico ranks with conflict zones such as Iraq and Colombia as among the worst countries for abductions.

One client, Cristina, 28, who did not want to give her last name, said: 'It's not like we are wealthy, but they'll kidnap you for a watch. Everyone is living in fear.'

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.

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.

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

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Americans have also been victimized by the kidnappers who are usually tied to the drug cartels and are supplementing their income. Some of the kidnappers have actually come into the US in the San Diego area to kidnap Americans.

It is a real tragedy to see the rule of law slipping away from the citizens of Mexico. We need to help Calderon wipe out the criminal insurgency that is plaguing his country before more of it comes the the US.