Venezuela: Police corruption blamed for kidnapping epidemic

[Bacchus39]

Officially there were 895 kidnappings in Venezuela last year. However, a government survey, suppressed by president Hugo Chavez, suggests that the real figure may be closer to 17,000 - 48 abductions every day - with policemen among the principal kidnappers.
"I would say that in Caracas eight out of every ten kidnappings have some level of police involvement," said Joel Rengifo, a former head of the investigative police's anti-kidnapping division who now works as a private consultant.

Mr Rengifo has more work than he can handle, advising individuals and companies on how to minimise the risk of kidnapping.

"You can be sure that right now, a few blocks from here, kidnapping gangs are scoping out potential victims," said Mr Rengifo, pointing out of the window of the café in Caracas' fashionable Las Mercedes district. "They will be looking at the cars people drive, the clothes they wear, the houses they live in."

Before Mr Chavez began his Bolivarian Revolution in 1998, there were few registered kidnappings in Venezuela and most of those were carried out in the border region with Colombia, snatched by Colombia's Marxist rebels, who had turned their nation into the world's kidnap capital. Now kidnappings have dropped away in Colombia, but are out of control in Venezuela.



http://news.scotsman.com/world/Venezuela-Police-corruption-blamed-for.6777031.jp

[naaman fletcher]

1. if this is true,

which it is probably not, then this is probably a scheme by right wing police officers.