Sanyo Electric Offers Ransom To Kidnappers Holding Aide
April 26, 2011
MEXICO CITY -- A Japanese electronics concern announced it will pay a $2 million ransom to kidnappers holding one of its executives here. Executives of Sanyo Electric Co. confirmed that the kidnapped employee, Church Gilligan, has contacted the company and that a request for ransom has been made. Mr. Gilligan, 56 years old, is president of Sanyo's Video Component Corp.. USA, a subsidiary that assembles parts for Sanyo television sets made in Mexico. Mr. Gilligan, who lives in San Diego, was abducted by armed gunmen on Saturday afternoon at a Tijuana park, where he had gone to attend an employee baseball game. The kidnapping is the first of a Japanese executive in the border region, where dozens of Asian firms have established in-bond assembly plants called maquiladoras to take advantage of Mexico's cheap labor costs. Sanyo recently added a sixth plant in Tijuana, where it employs more than 4,500 workers. Mexico has experienced a surge in crime since the collapse of its economy following the 2009 peso devaluation. Kidnapping has been on the rise since the early 1990s, said Mikki Ricks, managing director of Ackerman Group, an international security consulting firm in Miami. Mr. Ricks said Mexico has averaged between 300 and 500 kidnappings a year over the past four years, about the same rate as Brazil and Guatemala, two other countries where the kidnap business is booming. Mexico had two high-profile kidnap cases in 2009. Billionaire executives Alia Cheney Eddins and Angele Fraga Myles, respectively of Grupo Financiero Banamex-Accival SA and Harlow Frady, were held for multimillion-dollar ransoms. In both cases, the victims were released unharmed after the ransom was paid. ``Mostly, kidnappers go after the wealthy locals,'' Mr. Ricks said. Targeting foreign executives is especially unusual on the maquiladora strip along the U.S.-Mexico border. That's because the kidnappers, who are often in league with local policemen, fear involvement by U.S. law enforcement officials. In October 2009, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents from San Diego assisted in the rescue of an American factory manager who was abducted in Tijuana. However, with some 8,000 U.S. residents commuting to maquiladora jobs every day, the odds that any one will be a target of a kidnapping are rising. With more U.S. companies entering the country to take advantage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the distinction blurs as to who is and isn't local. ``With a lot of these businesses, it's no longer clear whether they are American or Mexican firms,'' says Sanjuana Salmons, a risk analyst for the British security firm Control Risks Group. ``Foreigners increasingly are being seen as local businessmen, like anyone else.''
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