LOS ANGELES -- Six people were charged Tuesday with running a Mexico-based kidnapping ring that took nine people hostage and demanded ransom from their U.S. relatives but killed six of them, including some after the money was paid, officials said.
This scares me to no end and they killed even after ransom was paid? I'm concerned now about my upcoming visits... Any thoughts?
going to countries like these just for the sake of getting your balls emptied out is just not worth it. yes i'm sure mongers that arrived back home will say, "well nothing happened to me." well then yeah they should consider themselves very, very fortunate. but if any of them should appear through the crosshairs then no amount of self awareness that got them up to a certain point is going to do them any good. once it passes that point consider surviving that moment more than just a blessing.
The kidnapping concerns I have heard of, involving banking colleagues who had thought of spending time in Mexico City were enough to keep me from traveling there.
In many cases, security is considered a cost of doing business in Mexico. As kidnapping appears to also be almost an accepted form of business.
I understand that most times, they think it’s a simple way to make money. But, when your ass is blindfolded and you are defenseless in a shit hole third world country, you might not be thinking ‘These guys just want money. I’ll be back at my hotel once my bank pays up.’ As you sit in an insect infested hovel - with no running water - and the water they give you makes you shart your shorts.
I have no idea about TJ. But rattdog makes an excellent point. Why take the risk? The stuff that makes the news is only a small portion of what actually occurs in TJ. With a corrupt government - corrupt police force - and gangs having significant control - its not worth it for a discount fuck.
When I go to TJ, I make myself look like I'm not worth a dime. I always wear old clothes when crossing the border and the only luggage I have is an old duffle bag. No expensive watches or jewelry. I probably don't shave until I get to the hotel.
Why would the policia torture & kill them thugs?
@HornyAsianBro99
I will play along and comment on your discussion.
First to answer your question/comment:
Q: This scares me to no end and they killed even after ransom was paid? I'm concerned now about my upcoming visits
A: you are scared, concerned for no reason, the story says the men were lured to be kidnaped, from bars/clubs.
You have already visited the Happiest Place on Earth, with no problem.
I am sure you don’t fit the profile these gangs are targeting, they usually look for upperclass looking people, like businessman or tourist that appear to have money, that in most cases, in their eyes, are white looking.
You should know that there are a lot of Mexicans that look like Asians because of the migration long time ago, an multiple migrations in the history of LatinAmerica.
If you just do what you have done in previous visits you will be safe, don’t go out at night to areas you are not familiar with, of go out with people you just meet, use common sense and you will be safe.
Like many have pointed out the police and the criminals work together in Mexico just like the American Mafia and the police in USA.
To answer @TJ Walker’s question
Q: Why would the policia torture & kill them thugs?
A: Because if the police were working with them, they have to eliminate witnesses/accomplices that made mistakes and were captured and can incriminate them.
If the gangs were not working with the police, it sends the message that any criminal gangs have to work with the police andpay their fair share.
There’s a good movie about kidnappers called El Clan. en.m.wikipedia.org …based on a true story about a family in the “hospitality” business in Argentina in the 70s. The ringleader’s big takeaway was that you always kill the hostage after receiving the ransom. This is because the hostage will tell you anything you want to hear when they are in captivity including promises of silence, but then will still go straight to the police after they are set free. He saw this as his own personal struggle with weakness in the form of his desire to let the captive live vs his responsibility to support his family with ransom money. Sick shit, but I guess it makes sense if you’re a career kidnapper.
Oh baby! This is what I don’t want to hear. I want to find someone to guide me on my first trip to TJ.
Back in the 70's my best friend and I converted a '55 VW into a dune buggy. We started out from Long Beach CA and drove down the Baja before the road was built. Took us 29 driving hours to get to La Paz. We slept out in sleeping bags 2 nights. We then took the ferry to Mazatlán and then drove done to Acapulco. Then we drove back north on the mainland side crossing the border at San Luis Rio Colorado. Along the way we stopped at all of the red light districts. We were gone for 2 weeks. We never had any problems with police or thugs.
We even hit the zona roja in Culiacan the drug capital of Mexico. We were the only gringos in the place. While I took a puta to her room my buddy took a couple of guys out for a short ride in the dune buggy. When I came back from the girl's room my buddy told me he thought it would be a good idea for us to leave. Seems the guys he took for a ride were so impressed with the dune buggy that they wanted to buy it from us. They were offering $500 in cash and $500 worth of marijuana. He was afraid that they might get upset if we turned them down. So we called it a night.
Good times. You just have to understand the culture.
"In one case, two people from the U.S. and Mexico were abducted after meeting one of the kidnappers at a Tijuana nightclub and being invited to a home, according to the indictment."
Yeah, right, I'm going to leave Hong Kong Gentlemen's Club to go to a stranger's home. No, nuh-uh.
EastCoaster - that’s likely one of many mistakes that guy made on his final night alive.
I wonder if he was a few kidneys lighter after they finished him off?
This is one of the major concerns that has kept me from experiencing TJ for myself. I'm so European Caucasian, I would stand out like a sore thumb. There's no way I'd go alone and without at least one of our group being plainly Mexican.
I agree with the plan of crossing the border looking like half a bum, but how would you wander around the zona looking good enough to catch the finer BGs?
@TJ because, if they don't, the thugs will get bolder. They'll start grabbing people out of their rides between the ZN and the border crossing. In both the US and Mexico, career criminals expect to die young or spend a lot of time in prison. They are not that scared of prison, but are scared of torture and death. I'm sure the ZN is a big source of mordidas for the cops, so I'd assume it's a priority for them to protect it. I am not praising how they handle things. But it's easy for us to judge, everyone's in a tougher situation in Mexico.
@shadow Mexico was relatively flush in the 70s it still had excess oil to export then. Over the years, the US has gotten better at stopping drugs coming in in small planes, boats and sub. So drugs started coming in through the Mexican border. The US pressured Mexico to stop turning a blind eye to the drug gangs, and that's mostly why Mexico is so dangerous now.
It seems like the powers that be in the ZN have solid understandings with both the cops and the drug lords. As long as that's the case, your chances of being caught up in a ZN 2AMer are no worse (maybe less) than a US 2AMer.
Youre paranoid of hookers ripping you off and of being kidnapped. But think it's okay to low ball hookers when you're third world aex tourists 🤡
I knew somebody in Mexico who's brother got kidnapped. It was not fun but he was not injured in any way. It was fairly clear the police green-lighted his kidnapping and took a cut of the ransom. Mexicans with money are at risk of this, because they don't have good options for leaving Mexico. But people in TJ are not stupid, they know foreign sex tourists are not going to come if they fear being robbed or kidnapped.
I agree with Gammanu95.
He makes a valid point about the ease for some to spot an obvious American in TJ. Once an obvious Caucasian American is spotted in ZN, I’d think they’d know exactly why he’s there. They’d also likely assume he has a decent quantity of American dollars either on him - or in his bag.
Taking that logic a step further, they likely would think someone back home would be willing to send more money if that Caucasian sex tourist disappeared.
Those folks in America (who care about the sex tourist) wouldn’t want it to get out that Joe White got picked up by kidnappers in a Mexican brothel either…
@HornyAsianBro99 & g3ne01
A few “bad apples” make things bad for the red of people in both sides of the border...
“FEB. 12, 2021
A United States citizen was arrested in Tijuana on Wednesday night for allegedly killing a 19-year-old employee of the Adelita’s night club on Coahuila street in the city’s Zona Norte.
Tijuana police say Logan Matthew Kelley, 26, is being held on suspicion of murder...
In a graphic video circulated on social networks, Kelley appears to be wearing a coronavirus mask as he walks behind Montoya and puts his arm around her neck, stabs her, and then throws her to the floor. Kelley then runs away with a security guard chasing behind him while the victim appears to be struggling on the floor.”
The majority of people in both sides of the border are regular normal people, all you have to do is use common sense and be aware of your surroundings in any place you are, an you will be fine.
There is no need to be scared or concern, just be prepared for the worst and hope for the best and enjoy what the Happiest Place on Earth has to offer. (according to Krusty)
Just enjoy the journey and be careful out there.
I think this is mostly sensationalism – thru the years on TUSCL it seems the guys w/ the greatest fear of TJ are the ones that have never been there.
If a foreigner viewed American news talking about the crime in Chicago; Philadelphia; New York; Baltimore; Detroit; Atlanta; etc; they too would think “OMG if I go to these places I will be killed – there’s no way I’d ever go to those places”.
TJ isn’t the only place where if one goes by what’s reported in the news you’d think/feel it’s a 50/50 chance of something bad happening to you – e.g. every so often you hear things on the news downhere in Miami of something bad happening to a tourist – e.g. a couple of years ago there was a heinous crime where a young (20-something) girl was partying downhere in Miami I think over the Christmas holidays – anyway she went missing and her body was eventually found burnt in a dumpster – and similar other shit that has happened to tourists downhere in Miami – yet millions of people visit Miami and many TUSCLers have come down here to SC – similarly millions of Americans visit/cross-into TJ per year and have been doing to for the last hundred-years – not to mention all the Americans that live in Mexico; retirees; etc (according to Google about 1.5 million Americans live in Mexico).
Seems plenty of Americans go to TJ to party (not just SCs; i.e. bars; clubs; etc) – if it was that dangerous people wouldn’t go – this is not to say the danger is zero; but avoiding TJ and the good time it has to offer b/c of fear of being a victim of a crime is somewhat analogous to people who refuse to get on a plane b/c once in a while one may go down.
If TJ was so bad and scary, then it wouldn’t be so popular on TUSCL and people/TUSCLers would not keep going back – you’d think they go once and say “never again”, but it’s usually the opposite; most TUSCLers that hit TJ seems their take-away is that they can’t wait to go back – TUSCL HK reviews are over 1000 and go back close to 20-years; yet I don’t recall ever reading a review of a dangerous incident nor have I read any reviews where the reviewer says “stay away it’s too dangerous”. Again if one goes by what is reported in the news, one would not leave the fucking house.
Perfectly put by Papi_Chulo. 38,000 Americans die in car crashes EVERY YEAR - that is 100 people DYING EVERY SINGLE DAY OF THE YEAR! Do the news channels ever warn people to stop driving?
While in the Middle East last month I met a Pakistani couple that I became friends with. I found it very interesting when I expressed my fear of going to Pakistan he insisted that I would be just fine and welcome. But he actually had a fear of coming to the United States. He wanted to very badly but had heard so many horrible things about it.
I think it comes down to what was stated earlier in the stream no matter what country you’re in, as long as you keep your head down and stay out of the bad areas you will be just fine.
To expand on PuaTester's response:
Pre-Covid, TJ saw a couple of million visitors yearly. The odds are in your favor that you won't get in any trouble as long as you have just a minimum of street smarts. I'm usually more nervous about being on Broadway late at night in San Diego than on Revolucion in TJ.
As far as being in the Zona Norte is concerned, you have to be aware that strip clubs are a high-volume cash business anywhere in the world (including the US) and as such they almost always have a criminal element to them. Going to ANY titty bar involves a risk, but that criminal element wants your cash so they're going to put in a significant effort to minimize that risk because it's easier for them. If you don't feel safe there, then you won't go, and if you don't go, they don't get their easy money. If someone rocks the boat by rolling some gringos, they do something about it.
^ that's part of what I assume - I assume the TJ economy gets a massive influx of $$$ from Americans crossing the border and this is likely a big-part of their economy - businesses like HK and other successful businesses in the area likely make a lot, if not most, of their profits from the Americans - you would think these businesses have deep-pockets and thus have a good-amount of sway in TJ and they would likely use their deep-pockets and likely-influence to keep the gringos safe in the tourist-parts - even if this is the case one should still not let their guard-down and assume nothing would ever happen.
IDK the details - but I would not be surprised if the majority of the murders in TJ has to do with criminals of different factions fighting/targeting each other - similar to what happens in Chicago where the majority of the murders seem to be among rival gangbangers.
My guess about this is that those six are the lucky ones. Anyone else involved in this ring was tortured and killed by the TJ police, and their bodies were dumped in their neighborhoods, as a warning to others. (TJ murder rate might be lower when you subtract the people who got a speedy trial in the police station.) This didn't happen to the ones who were indicted in the US, because Mexicans don't like to air their dirty laundry among foreigners. Mexican police have a much freer hand than US police. The mordidas paid by people in the ZN who want you safe are probably much more $ than the people who'd want to hurt you could pay.
One lesson from this is that the club or your hotel is much safer than her place.