MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Kidnapping “industry” boom in Argentina.

Kidnapping has become a booming industry in Argentina with a 565% jump in the last two years reports Buenos Aires city daily Clarin.

In 2001, 46 cases were reported in Argentina, but in 2003 the number ballooned to 306, according to the Security Office from the province of Buenos Aires, the most populous of the country.

Last year kidnappers managed to collect the equivalent of 1,2 million US dollars in ransom. This year the amounts paid total 200,000 US dollars.

Buenos Aires province police estimate that over a hundred organized gangsters are the hard core of the kidnapping industry in the province and the federal capital.

In these two last years kidnappers demanded the equivalent of just over 8 million US dollars but finally managed to collect 1,2 million US dollars, that is 16%.

An even smaller percentage of the ransom money has been recovered.

The main motive for the delinquents getting involved in kidnapping is because "it's a quick way of making good money", according to security experts and testimonies from some kidnappers arrested.

However press reports also indicate that these crime organizations "always have close links to security forces and in many cases worked for them as informants".