Wilson Ramos, catcher for the Washington Nationals baseball team, was freed Saturday after being held by kidnappers for two days in the mountains outside the city of Valencia in north-central Venezuela. Ramos, a Venezuelan citizen, had been visiting his family in an upscale neighborhood when he was taken by masked gunmen and held, ostensibly for ransom.
This painfully public kidnapping has highlighted an endemic problem for Venezuelans, rich and poor alike.
An extensive victimization survey carried out by the Government of Venezuela’s National Institute of Statistics revealed that almost 17,000 people were kidnapped between July 2008 and July 2009, for an average of 46 per day. According to the Venezuelan Observatory on Violence (OVV), this number could be even higher, reaching as many as 70 per day.
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