Mexican kidnappers targeting American tourists have 'no code' curbing ruthlessness: expert

Kidnapping Americans in Mexico was "a business" executed by professionals with a law enforcement or military background – and was more prevalent during the 1980s than any other time in history – renowned private investigator Jay Armes III told Fox News Digital. 

Abductions were "run as operations" that targeted the elite and wealthy with average ransom demands of $25 million, and they kept the victim alive if the family paid up, he said. If they didn't pay, the victim was dead.

"Death was bad for business," Armes III told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview. "Think about it. Why would anyone in their right mind pay a ransom when they know that they're not only going to lose their loved one, but they're going to lose their money?" 

But today's kidnappers in Mexico "have no rules, no ethics," the Dallas-based private investigator said. "They don't place any value on a human life. They'll get whatever they can and kill you for anything."

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Kidnappings, especially of tourists, are typically carried out by "inexperienced" criminals, Armes added.

"They're new. It could be the first time they're doing this, so they can panic and shoot the victim because they don't want witnesses," according to the private investigator.

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A far cry from the "professional kidnapers" that Armes III and his father, who is widely considered one of the first and most successful global private investigators, dealt with in the 1980s to the mid-2000s. 

They were dangerous and brutal, but "almost predictable" and used violence as a scare tactic to make sure they were paid, Armes III said.

"They would actually treat this as an operation," he said. "They were very sophisticated. They would do their research. They picked a very wealthy target, did surveillance and found out what resources they had and where they did their banking."

"When it was time to strike, they would kidnap the head of the family, the head of a business and demand huge ransoms. Back in the '80s, the average ransom we saw was probably $25 million, maybe $15 million."

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One of the most notorious, ruthless kidnappers was Daniel Arizmendi Lopez, aka "El Mochaorejas" ("The Ear Lopper"), who cut an ear from each victim to send to their families as a chilling warning to take his ransom demands seriously.

During his trial, he "calmly stated his profession as kidnapper," the AP reported during his trial, where he was asked why he killed businessman Raul Nava Ricano.

"Because he didn't give me the money that I was asking for," Lopez reportedly said.

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He and his gang were responsible for 21 abductions and two murders at the time of his capture in the summer of 1998, according to the Associated Press.

Arizmendi's earnings was estimated at more than $40 million, according to a June 1998 Washington Post story.

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Armes III and his father had a couple of cases involving Arizmendi's victims in Mexico City. Because the cases are kept private, Armes III said he couldn't go into detail, but he said he remembers how dangerous he was.

"When they caught him, if I remember correctly, he had like two or three houses that were full of cash stacked from floor to ceiling," Armes III said. "It was all made from ransom money. That was a professional kidnapper."

But dealing with "The Ear Lopper," and others like him, in some ways, was easier than today's Mexican kidnappers because "variables were reduced," Armes III said.

"You kind of know what to expect," he said. "It's just a matter of outsmarting them, right? Figuring out who they are and how to catch them. And, of course, mitigating the risk to your team and yourself."

Over the last 20 years or so, the wealthy and elite learned to travel with bodyguards and private security, so the big-game fishing dried up.

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Express kidnappings, which Armes III said are essentially Mexico's version of "juggings," became the new trend, Armes III said.

"With people who do express kidnappings, it's much more difficult to predict because they're completely random," he said. "This may be the first time that they've ever done this. They're not experienced, they'll overact and tend to spook easier. 

"And when they spook, they tend to harm the victim or kill the victim, just to try to eliminate any ties between the victim and them. So, it's always much more difficult to deal with people that are not professional."

He said the suspect could be a bartender or a waiter in a vacation resort restaurant who notices an American tourist with a Rolex or his wife with a designer bag, and that's enough to make them targets.

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"When people are on vacation, they're in this tourist mindset," Armes III said. "They think, 'I'm not a drug [dealer], either. I'm not a rich person. There's no reason for anyone to want to target me, so I'm completely safe.'"

And that couldn't be further from the truth, said Armes III, who explained that express kidnapers drain tourists' bank accounts, credit cards and snatch anything they consider valuable.

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"They're scoping out the people in a restaurant and tend to look for a victim, someone that they think has a little money or has access to money. They let them finish their meal and then put a gun in their ribs on their way back to their car and tell them to go the ATM."

"They'll take them from ATM to ATM to ATM until they're maxed out and then dump them on the side of the street. We're talking about $10 grand at most, maybe $5,000, $2,500. It doesn't matter to them. They want fast, easy money."

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He said the victims are lucky if they're dumped on the side of the road after they're robbed.

"They’ll dump you out on the street corner and take off," Armes III told Private Investigators Association of Idaho during a Q&A. "Unfortunately, sometimes even after the family and the loved ones pay, they will kill the hostage and leave them on the side of the road."

He told Fox News Digital that the new generation of criminals replaced "the code" with the "Wild West."

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EVOLUTION OF KIDNAPPINGS ARE TIED TO ESCALATION OF CARTEL VIOLENCE

The evolution of tourist kidnappings in Mexico is closely tied to the history of the cartels, Artemis III said.

Popular resort cities like Cancun used to be considered "safe zones" because cartel members and their families used to vacation there just like U.S. tourists, he said.

The cartels were set up like old-school Mafia in the States, where each cartel controlled an area and there was a mutual respect for each other's territory, and a cartel member's wife, girlfriend and children were off-limits.

That was the code, Armes III said.

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Then came along ruthless murderers like "El Chapo" (Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera) who waged all-out war with other cartels starting in the mid- to late 2000s, Armes III said. They recruited killers from Latin America and Central America who ignored the old rules of engagement, according to Armes III.

The emergence of sicarios, which were essentially roving bands of hit men that hunted rival cartel members, indiscriminately slaughtered all their enemies, but innocent people, including American tourists, were murdered in the cross fire or mistaken for targets because they had a similar style and color car, Armes III said.

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"When I started in this industry in the '80s, you never heard about someone getting their head chopped off. … Innocent women and children would never have been killed," he said. "Then this happened on a regular basis, and it became like a competition. Who could kill with the most shock and awe?"

"A rival cartel member chops one guy's head off [and] leaves it on the hood of a rival's truck. Then they retaliate with two or three heads. They'll throw the heads in the street or put it them on spikes in the middle of a thoroughfare to put fear into the other cartels and psychologically control the population."

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Armes III, who started working with his father at 5 years old and became an officially licensed private investigator at 18, has been in this field his whole life, and even he's "hesitant" to cross into Mexico.

"I'm a pretty tough guy. I can navigate myself around any country of the world with ease," Armes III said. "But nowadays, you've got this whole new generation of a criminal element that has no rules and no regard for life."

"It's scary. They'll kill you for anything."