Venezuela: Kidnap Capital Of the World
Average kidnapping rate in a day is five while a murder case can be compared to any war zone. This is Venezuela known as the kidnap capital of the world.
Venezuela has the highest kidnapping rate under the sun. The law and order in the country has reached its nadir and now the criminals are also scared of the absence of authority. There is an Anti-Kidnap Squad in the Venezuelan police department, news.com.au reports.
According to an earlier report by Fox News, Wilson Ramos from the Washington Nationals baseballs team, was kidnapped and kept outside Valencia in the north-central part of Venezuela. Ramos is a Venezuelan citizen and visits his family occasionally. He was kidnapped when he was on a visit. Masked gunmen kidnapped him for ransom. This is just another story of Venezuela's public kidnapping among numerous others which affect the poor and the rich alike.
The National Institute of Statistics of the Government of Venezuela exposed a staggering data. During the period between July 2008 and July 2009, 46 people were kidnapped on an average every day in Venezuela.
The Venezuelan Observatory on Violence said the number could well be higher than what had been discovered. As many as 70 people could have been kidnapped every day, Fox News reports.
Most of the kidnappings were not reported to the police. That is why it is unlikely to get the actual figures. There are around 18,000 criminal bands operating throughout the country. One congressman in the country, William Ojeda, called Venezuela as the "kidnap capital of Latin America."
In addition to kidnapping, the murder rates in the country are also huge in number. In 2010, the registered number of murders is about 17,600 - 57 per 100,000 people. In 2013, the number has grown to 60 per 100,000 people. Interestingly, the murder rate in the U.S. is 4.8 per 100,000 people.