In Mexico, Kidnapping of People's Pets by Small-Time Crooks on Upswing Alice Driver - VICE News
go to original July 31, 2015

A black and coffee-colored Chihuahua, Mariachi disappeared from the couple's yard in Oaxaca, Mexico in May. (Alice Driver)

Evelyn Méndez Maldonado and Diego Quintana's dog Mariachi had been missing for almost a month when Quintana received a message via WhatsApp: "I want 2,500 pesos [$156] plus what I invested in caring for your dog."

..."Legally speaking," said José Luis Carranza, a lawyer in Mexico City who specializes in animal rights, "pet kidnapping does not exist as a crime. According to the civil code of the country pets are things." However, Carranza added that gangs will often "drive around armed and rob pure-bred animals... to breed them, to sell them, and to extort the owners." In Mexico City, he added, pet robbery has increased in the last two years - there is even a Facebook page devoted to the problem.

"There are no statistics about these crimes because people don't report them," said Betsabe Torres from the animal defense group Hogar Mascota. However, the phenomenon is common enough that it pops up regularly in bar conversations, on the radio, and in TV announcements. Pet owners worried about kidnapping can ask their local vet to implant an identification chip in their pet or can find advice online like "Ten Things to Do When Pets Are Stolen or Kidnapped."

In an article published by the Mexican newspaper Milenio this January, Joaquín Carrillo of the Attorney General's office in Oaxaca said pet kidnappings are "isolated incidents."

...In a country whose most notorious drug lord just tunneled his way out of prison - and where 1,621 people were murdered in May alone - dog-snatching may not seem like a particularly pressing crime problem. But the rise in pet kidnappings - and the lack of police interest in solving them - underscores the larger problems that have plagued Mexico's notoriously corrupt and ill-trained law enforcement forces.

Read the rest at VICE News

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!