Mexico now leader in kidnappings

Mexico is now apparently in first place for kidnappings worldwide. This year, it has already outpaced Brazil and Colombia.

I wonder, though, how these countries compare in terms of reporting of crimes. Many, many crimes, including kidnappings, do not get reported in Mexico. On the other hand, the government has had a public campaign aimed at increasing crime reporting, specifically for kidnapping. So, could the “increase” really be due to better data? I’m not sure anyone will ever know. Even if you compared police reported numbers to survey numbers, there would be so much noise in both sets of data, that I’m not sure you could ever really figure out an really accurate kidnapping rate.

In any event, Mexico now has the dubious distinction of being #1.

And to think, I never even thought about buying kidnapping insurance while in Mexico!