One of my customers runs a small used tire business. He is a legal Guatemalan immigrant and a heck of a nice guy. He has a nice family and is well respected in the community he lives in. When I got to his shop a few weeks ago, the roll up doors were down and nobody was around. I left a Hot Tools flyer and went on my way. A few days later I am watching the news and they are talking about a kidnapping of a businessman from Dudley NC and it is Chino, my customer. He was kidnapped for ransom.

link to news story

He wasn't there the next week, but the following week I spent a half hour talking to him. There are a few lessons to be learned and some insight as to how it feels to be taken against your will by force.

Basically, he was asked by one of the men to look at a tire with a problem and suggest what needed to be done to fix it. While he was squatted down by the tire another man came around the car with a shotgun, and told him to get in the car. They drove him to a building in the middle of nowhere and tied him up. He was tied in such a way as to be almost unbearable after a few hours. He was tied with his hands behind him and his feet were linked to his hands behind him so he could not straighten his legs. He said that after a while cramps were excruciating. It was very hot, and he was given water one time in the 3 days he was held.

He told me that the boy they left to guard him was very nervous and he could tell he did not want to be there. He also told me that he had gone through a lot of emotions but that he had made his mind up that if he could get free, he was going to kill whoever he had to. By the 3rd day he convinced the boy that the others were not coming back and they walked to a convenience store where SBI agents found them. The other men were arrested after they rode by the scene in a car.Chino saw them and shouted at the agents that those guys are the other men.

Lessons according to the victim:

Be aware, don't let your guard down ever. He says he remembers thinking that something shady was going on and he ignored it. Trust your gut.

Have a weapon ON YOUR PERSON. A gun in a drawer several steps away is of no use in an emergency.

When at your lowest, determine to LIVE and do whatever it takes to survive. It is easy to lose hope and give in to hopelessness.

Determine that if a chance is offered, you will not hesitate to attack and kill. Most people are conditioned to not be violent. An otherwise peaceful person will find it hard to transition to performing a violent attack. Chino says in his mind he decided "if I got a chance I was going to kill these motherfuckers".


He went into a few more details. They had called his wife and demanded a ransom. She was trying to raise the money, but who has 100k laying around. He also says that he believes more people were involved as he had never seen the men before. He is armed at all times now and says he is much more aware of who and what is going on around him. The men are in jail and they say the investigation is ongoing.

Good grief!  Glad he's ok!

Is kidnapping still a federal capital crime?

Yeah, Guatemala is dangerous. .

Tag

Wow, that sucks.  I'm happy he made it out OK....looks to me like we're importing more of that LatAm culture.  When I was in Columbia for work, that was on mind mind for sure.

Reading comprehension fail

Wayne County, NC

Do humanity a favor.

Get the rope.

No need to travel. Obama brings the tropics to you!





I saw the guy was legal. Were his kidnappers?

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After things settle down he should

1) move,

2) install a good closed circuit surveillance system

3) figure out who is close to him that is also close to the kidnappers

4) carry a gun if legal.

Not in Guatemala, it was here in the US.

[I hope it was just sarcasm and my meter needs calibration]

I figured that out in the post let alone the linked story.

I thought this was going to be about a kidnapping in South America but it happened in the good 'ol US of A.  

So much culture we are importing.

This shouldn't be a problem if he does step 1 right.

Interesting.

Is your friend a Gringo? I see his name is Latino but does he have roots in Central America or from there?  I'm wondering how he was targeted....edit- just saw that you mentioned that he's a Guatamalen immigrant.


Kidnapping is a cottage industry in Central America. I know of an incident in Tegucigalpa where a guy was snatched right in front of the Intercon hotel. Also rule of thumb is never use local cab drivers as they are often associated with kidnapping gangs.

As for the US....well this type of crime has been happening in the migrant communities for years. Much of it is hushed up or not reported because of fear of reprisal or deportation. Your friend is lucky to be alive. More often than not they just kill the victim regardless of whether the ransom was paid or not.  He's also lucky that his mom or dad or whomever is stll in Guatamalea wasn't kidnapped. A technique used here is to snatch a legal immigrants family member back in their home country and have the immigrant pay the ransom...a person would walk into his tire shop and hand him a cell phone with his mom on the other end begging for her life.

Is there a dimension to the story missing?

Are you 100% sure this guy is totally clean?

ETA:  I'm going to guess somebody who works/worked for him got an eye on a pile of money sitting in a safe.  Maybe it was his money, and maybe it wasn't, but they thought they could muscle him for it.

Probably just some of those poor unfortunate orphan waifs who fearlessly travelled for 45 days to illegally cross our border.  Never mind that they're adults in every sense except to the government and that they wear gang tattoos identifying them as MS-13, who routinely does those sorts of kidnappings for their income back in their wonderful homeland.

The poor boys were probably just homesick and decided to do something that reminded them of their home towns.  We need to understand their proud cultural heritage, accept and embrace their diversity and declare a new national holiday the way Cinque de Mayo has been embraced and accepted.

National Kidnapping Day for everyone!!!

Same same....

Not far off.  My wife grew up in Dudley before moving to Goldsboro.  

Well, we did have a similar incident here in Columbia a few months back.  A guy was stiffed by his street dealers and the Mexican Cartel kidnapped the guy looking for their cash.  FBI saved his ass, for now.....

But I've got a feeling you were in Colombia?

Mostly because the people in those communities (1.) have a heritage of paying ransom, and (2.) come from countries where kidnappers are rarely caught.

Whenever crime pays, you can expect more of it.

Jesus fucking Christ!

Which one was the nervous captor?

 

Kidnapped!


I used to work at a business in South Texas where the owner's wife and kids all worked. He sponsored a CHL class at work for any employee that wanted one. I know at least three of us carried all the time.

Have to bring this one up again...

The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker breaks this down pretty well. de Becker is a big time liberal, so you might try to avoid paying for the book (borrow, library, etc.).

ETA: Another solution to this whole kidnapping for ransom thing is... Be broke and don't have any rich family or friends.

Must have been Five Points.

Principles of Personal Defense by Jeff Cooper

Quick read. Solid info.

Download it to your phone and read it over lunch in 4 days. Then practice it for a few weeks. The read it over lunch for 4 days again. Rinse. Repeat. Until it becomes 2nd nature.

A used tire store is a largely cash business. It caters to poor minorities. It may or may not treat its employees well. It may employ idiots who see the owner with a wad of cash and think that because the owner has a stack of hundreds, he must be fucking his employees.

It's easy to imagine several circumstances in which customers from the thieving element might decide to try something like this, even though the owner runs his business in accordance with the law.

I used to work next door to one in Florida. That place jammed all day long.

I'm glad your customer/friend is OK.

Stay safe on your route.

Except this is North Carolina,U.S.A.

So if the Mexicans and Central Americans here in America are now plying the kidnapping trade here.....imagine what another 10 million
Mexicans and OTMs are going to add to the security and safety of America....



More crisis to exploit with the solution they already have in place.....imo

So... don't be a Guatemalan immigrant?

Check....iPad autocorrect fail.  

Yep Wayne county, NC , Guatemala

Well, not sure which of the three was the one he convinced to walk to the store. Chino is a legal immigrant and is a one man operation, no employees.

He does think there may have been others involved, possibly customers or someone else who had knowledge of his business.

The men were from a community 15 miles away called Seven Springs. There are areas in Wayne County that are almost totally Cental and South American in population. As a side note, a girl was kidnapped from Seven Springs about a week after this incident happened. She was recovered but I would assume she would possibly have been raped or even sold into sex slavery.

I have several older men from down south on my route who run businesses and are moral people. They all say that where they come from is absolutely lawless, and that that lawlessness follows the illegal immigrants here.

Chino (Roberto) is a solid guy and I am sure he is seen as pretty successful in the Latino/Hispanic community, and that makes him a target.

He says he won't be a victim again.

"Be a stupid ethnicity, win stupid prizes"?  

Thank your for sharing this story.  Some great lessons.

He needs to keep his head on a swivel for the gang members who are still at large and may now target him to shut him up before trial.

Great story and valuable lessons.

Or, maybe there was just a bullshit rumor that he had a "pile of money in a safe," and word got around to the wrong desperados?

Nahh, that never happens...

thank you obama!!!  Fuck skydiving, whitewater rafting, or swimming with the sharks for an adrenaline rush.  Just hang around outside these days and you can have a real life south american survival scenario right here in the good 'ol U.S.A.  

Quoth the man of an extinct culture.

 

I just ordered it, thanks

Is it available for e-Readers on Amazon?

Looks like I need to pony up some cash for that one too.

Not sure how I ever missed reading it years ago, but somehow I did.

Yeah, I saw it for Kindle too. I wanted a real book for a cha nge though.

I couldn't help but notice that one of the kidnappers is. The lesson here is to always be suspicious of unknown individuals, regardless of their pigmentation.

He had to make the decision to kill the kidnappers?  I must not have that many emotions.

Think state lines need to be crosses...not sure though.

The names all appear Mexican.



 

Anyone want to give me odds that these guys are part of the recent Obama immigrant wave (dreamers)?

Yes. Culture is doubleplusgood (except European Christian culture).