Mexico City police arrested a hotel manager and clerk for cooperating with a local gang to kidnap guests for ransom.
Sergio S., 38, manager of the Hotel Plaza Revolución, and employee Carmen Michelle N., 23, were taken into custody Wednesday afternoon after a man from Monterrey, Nuevo León, alerted police to the kidnapping of his wife and daughters from their room.
The employees of the hotel in the Tabacalera neighborhood are suspected of collaborating with the La Unión de Tepito gang by providing rooms to carry out kidnappings.
The man’s wife told police that her husband received a phone call around 10:00am on Wednesday in which the receptionist said a drug and weapons search was being carried out in the hotel.
Two men entered the room seconds later and said they were part of the La Unión de Tepito. They took the man’s wife and two daughters with the help of a hotel employee.
The man later received a video call from his wife’s cellphone in which the supposed gang members confirmed the kidnapping and demanded he pay a ransom of 500,000 pesos (US $26,500).
The man later heard his wife’s voice through a wall and realized they were in a communicating room. When he entered the room he found his wife and daughters along with the hotel manager.
He called police, who arrested the manager and receptionist.
The kidnapping wasn’t the only one thwarted in the city this week.
Another rescue was made Tuesday night in the Hotel City Express in Tlalpan, in the south of the city.
Police arrested three Colombian nationals after a man stopped officers on the street to say that he had received photographs of his mother being held captive in a room of the hotel. Police said the kidnappers demanded 300,000 pesos (US $16,000) for her release.
Sources: Excélsior (sp), Infobae (sp), El Universal (sp)
