By Daily Mail Reporter
23rd August 2008
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- Middle-class families in Mexico are having tiny transmitters
implanted under their skin so that satellites can track them
if they are kidnapped.
Sales of the device have jumped by 13 per cent this year after
kidnappings surged by almost 40 per cent in the country between
2004 and 2007.
The crystal-encased chip, which is the size and shape of a grain
of rice, is injected into clients' bodies with a syringe.
A transmitter in the chip sends radio signals to a device, carried
by the client, with a global positioning system in it, say makers
Xega. A satellite can then pinpoint the kidnap victim's location.
Kidnap appeal: A victim's family used a giant billboard depicting
a member of the gang which took their son in Mexico City
Detractors say the chips, which cost £2,000 plus an annual
fee of £1,100, give a false sense of security.
Mexico ranks with conflict zones such as Iraq and Colombia as
among the worst countries for abductions.
One client, Cristina, 28, who did not want to give her last name,
said: 'It's not like we are wealthy, but they'll kidnap you for
a watch. Everyone is living in fear.'
The recent kidnapping and murder of Fernando Marti, 14, the son
of a well-known businessman, sparked an outcry in a country already
hardened to crime.
Target: Businessman Alejandro Marti, centre, whose 14-year-old
son Fernando was kidnapped
Most kidnappings in Mexico go unreported, many of them cases
of 'express kidnapping' where the victim is grabbed and forced
to withdraw money from automatic cash machines.
Official statistics show 751 kidnappings in the country last
year, but the independent crime research institute ICESI says
the number could have exceeded 7,000.
Xega, based in the central Mexican city of Quererato, designed
global positioning systems to track stolen vehicles until a company
owner was kidnapped in broad daylight in 2001.
Frustrated by his powerlessness to call for help, the company
adapted the technology to track stolen people.
Most people get the chips injected into their arms between the
skin and muscle where they cannot be seen.
Customers who fear they are being kidnapped press a panic button
on an external device to alert Xega, which then calls the police.
Chips are down: AGPS satellite like this one is used to pinpoint
where potential hostages are
'Before, they only kidnapped key, well-known economically successful
people like industrialists and landowners. Now they are kidnapping
people from the middle class,' said Sergio Galvan, Xega's commercial
director.
Katherine Albrecht, a U.S. consumer privacy activist, says the
chip is a flashy, overpriced gadget that only identifies a person
and cannot locate someone without another, bigger GPS device
that kidnappers can easily find and destroy.
She said fear of kidnapping was driving well-off Mexicans to
buy a technology that had yet to prove useful.
'They are a prime target because they've got money and they've
got a worry and you can combine those two and offer them a false
sense of security which is exactly what this is,' she said.
President Felipe Calderon has come under heavy pressure to stamp
out violent crime. He hosted a meeting on Thursday of security
chiefs and state governors.
Outside of Mexico, U.S. company VeriChip Corp uses similar radio-wave
technology to identify patients in critical condition at hospitals
or find elderly people who wander away from their homes.
Xega sees kidnapping as a growth industry and is planning to
expand its services next year to Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1048129/
- Terrified-Mexicans-splash-chip-implants-satellites-trace-theyre-kidnapped.html
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