SALTILLO, MEXICO — They ordered the goat. That’s what the kitchen is famous for at the upscale La Principal restaurant in Saltillo, a prosperous manufacturing city in the high desert of northern Mexico.
And so it was only natural that Felix Batista, an American expert in corporate security, and his new friends decided to get it. But Batista never finished his meal.
Instead, after a series of quick cellphone calls and whispered conversations, Batista excused himself from the table. On his way out, he gave the well-heeled businessmen he was meeting with his laptop, shoulder bag and a contact.
“If I’m not back,” he told his companions, according to one of them, “call these numbers.” The 55-year-old Miami resident, who has successfully negotiated the release of hundreds of kidnapping victims in Latin America, then willingly got into an SUV that had pulled to the curb, according to investigators who have a security camera image capturing that moment on the evening of Dec. 10.
Batista has not been heard from since.
His is probably the highest-profile kidnapping of a U.S. citizen in Mexico in years, and it has sent tremors through the executive class of expats in Saltillo, known as “the Detroit of Mexico” for its Chrysler and General Motors assembly plants. A fellow security consultant described the abduction as “highly professional, sophisticated, very slick. The work of people who did not fear being caught, which is the most disturbing element.” Though Batista, a former Army major, has never worked in federal law enforcement, many of his colleagues are comparing his disappearance to the kidnapping of Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, a fabled undercover DEA agent snatched in broad daylight off the streets of Guadalajara in 1985. His body was found a month later. He had been tortured and beaten to death.
Batista’s disappearance is being investigated by the FBI and Mexican state authorities, who say they do not know who kidnapped him, or why. No ransom message has been delivered. But his abduction highlights how bold organized criminals have become in Mexico, which is being ravaged by a vicious drug war among cartels, police and the military that has left more than 5,300 dead this year. The case is also an embarrassment for Mexican officials, who must explain not only how such crimes are possible but also how rarely they are solved.
Independent organizations say Mexico has one of the world’s highest kidnapping rates, competing with Colombia, where kidnap crews tied to anti-government guerrillas perfected the art. About 70 abductions are officially reported each month in Mexico, although even the federal attorney general says the true number is far higher. Independent groups say about 500 people a month are abducted in Mexico. Many kidnap crews have been found to include police officers.
The U.S. State Department warns that while the risk of abduction has “diminished significantly” in Colombia, in Mexico, “kidnapping, including the kidnapping of non-Mexicans, continues at alarming rates” and has become “a lucrative business.” The Batista abduction occurred just weeks after the governor of the state of Coahuila, where Saltillo is located, made a very public plea for the reinstatement of the death penalty to allow the execution of kidnappers. Some of Batista’s colleagues said they wonder whether his disappearance was meant as a message from drug cartels or kidnapping squads that they will continue to operate with impunity.
Batista’s colleagues describe the Spanish-speaking Cuban American as an extremely savvy operator, with a deep list of sources, including police and criminals.
“He is one of the most experienced, most professional in the business, a man of many talents who has a lot of personal resources, and I am trusting and praying to God that these things save him,” said Max Morales, a Mexican kidnapping negotiator and lawyer with more than two decades of experience in the field, who has worked cases with Batista and considers him a friend. “My hope is that whoever took him realizes that Felix is worth more alive than dead.” Even in Mexico, where villain and cop are often the same, many say the Batista case is a strange one. As his friend Morales put it: “Why snatch Felix? He’s not a businessman. He’s not a wealthy industrialist with a kidnap insurance contract. He’s not a federal agent. So why him?” Morales was referring to early accounts in the Mexican news media that described Batista as a former FBI agent, an error that could have further endangered him.
Batista worked as a “response coordinator” for ASI Global, a Houston-based firm that provides security experts to help protect business executives and their families from all sorts of risks, including kidnapping and extortion. Charlie LeBlanc, president of ASI Global, confirmed that Batista has more than 20 years’ experience in the field and successfully negotiated payment and release in hundreds of cases. A “response coordinator” such as Batista is not hired to jail kidnappers but to secure the release of captives — he is the middleman.
LeBlanc stressed that Batista was working as an independent contractor, not a full-time employee, and that he was in Mexico on his own, drumming up business. LeBlanc does not believe that Batista was working a kidnapping case at the time of his capture. “We’re still hoping for a positive outcome and supporting his family and the investigation,” LeBlanc said.
