Important to note that her own cousins helped set up the kidnapping and there is no drug transaction or service mentioned. Was done purely for money. Also, this isn’t a story about just one event. A much broader story is laid out. A quick search shows ~1300 confirmed kidnappings per year with 70000 reported missing. A kidnapping ending in death may just get reported as a murder. These numbers indicate a systemic problem.
So much that it is a consumer industry now:
“To pay the first ransom, Mrs. Rodríguez’s family took out a loan from a bank that offered lines of credit for such payments.”
I find this style of storytelling dizzying. As a non-native english user, the interleaving of narrative confuses me. Is it a desired style of journaling?
The narrative in this story did get confusing. But there is a purpose to it: the story of Mrs. Rodríguez took place around 2014-2017, whereas Luciano Garza's was July of this year. It's rare that the news department (i.e. as opposed to the New York Times Magazine) will run a feature closely detailing a years-old event, not without an obvious hook to why the story is being told now. Likewise, Luciano's kidnapping and murder, sadly, wouldn't merit such an indepth feature without an obvious tie to broader events.
Writing about both murders in this article made sense, IMHO, even if the transitions between narratives weren't always completely clear. Part of the reporter's angle was that Mrs. Rodríguez's highly publicized fight impacted how people reacted to Luciano's kidnapping, for better or worse.
I recall reading an article on HN the other day which revealed there's even an insurance policy against ransom kidnappings, and that there are companies specializing in dealing with them - particularly, in business settings, they'd pay off the kidnappers and then bill your company for "consulting" (this is so that your company doesn't look like it's supporting organized crime by paying ransom).
The difference is that ransomware gangs often come through with the decryption keys, while these two examples make it seem like it is common for kidnapping gangs to just keep the ransom and bury the hostage in a shallow grave. Ignoring the enormous moral issues, I wonder what the business incentives are here.
What alternative would you prefer? Not giving any loan at all for people in such circuimstances? Or give out money for free to anyone who pretends to be in this situation?
