In last Tuesday’s (2/21) Wall Street Journal, David Luhnow writes, “Rodolfo Cazares, a Mexican symphony conductor, was sleeping in bed with his wife in northern Mexico when masked gunmen burst into their home and shook them awake. Within hours, the gunmen kidnapped 18 members of the same family. Seven months later, Mr. Cazares—a 36-year-old leader of the Bremerhaven city orchestra in Germany—and three other men are still missing, even after family members paid four ransoms to a presumed drug cartel. The case is only now coming to light because the family is growing desperate at the inability of the Mexican government to solve the case. For months, Mexican officials didn’t appear to even investigate the crime, the family said. Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office said it had no comment on the case. … Even in Mexico, where kidnapping has reached epidemic levels, the mass abduction of the Cazares family stands out. All of the victims were linked: fathers, sons mothers, aunts, husbands, wives, uncles and cousins. Among those taken were three U.S. citizens, including an 11-year-old girl celebrating her birthday and a 9-year-old boy.”
Posted February 28, 2012
