MEXICO CITY - KRT NEWSFEATURES

(KRT) - When assailants swung hammers against the windows of actress Laura Zapata's car last month and kidnapped her and her sister, the masked criminals reminded Mexico's rich and famous that they remain vulnerable to kidnappers seeking million-dollar ransoms.

Zapata and Ernestina Sodi are sisters of Mexican pop diva Thalia, whose star continues to rise in the Latin music scene. After weeks of negotiations between kidnappers and Thalia and her husband, music business mogul Tommy Mottola, Zapata was released. Mexican newspaper accounts quoted family friends as saying the ransom was about $1 million.

Sodi, however, remains unaccounted for.

Despite gains made recently by federal and state police, kidnapping remains an acute problem in Mexico. At least 15,000 people have been abducted since 1992, with 106 of the victims dying at the hands of kidnappers or in rescue attempts, according to the Citizen's Council on Public Security, a Mexico City crime think tank.

But the attack on Thalia's family, like so many more abductions among the wealthy in Mexico, is not included in official statistics. The singer never reported the crime to police, following the first rule of private security consultants who urge families to avoid Mexican authorities.

Police have for years often proven themselves too corrupt to trust. Frequently, analysts said, anti-kidnapping squad leaders have turned out to be in league with kidnap ringleaders.

"Mexico is making progress, but I would be violating my clients' trust by saying they should all go out and get police involved in negotiations," said Paul Magallanes, a former FBI agent who runs a Los Angeles-based private security firm that negotiates ransoms throughout Latin America. "Mexico remains a dangerous place for anyone with a high profile."

Mexican states such as Sinaloa, Chihuahua and Jalisco have applied a heavy hand against kidnappers, using stealthy police commandos, high-tech gadgetry and thorough intelligence. As a result, abductions in those states have been markedly reduced in the last couple years. But throughout the rest of Mexico, officials can only watch from the sidelines as kidnappers work seemingly unfettered.

It's gotten so bad that in the monied world of business executives, socialites and celebrities, kidnapping has become a tool for revenge. According to one published estimate from federal authorities, 80 percent of kidnappings involve a business partner, an employee or a family member of the victim.

These days, average Mexicans see more to trust in President Vicente Fox's Federal Preventive Police and Federal Investigations Agency. But the vulnerable rich remain skeptical, and pay dearly for private security forces and sophisticated home defense hardware. Some simply pull up stakes and move to Texas or other U.S. states.

Mexicans of all economic levels spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year for everything from trained guard dogs to the expertise of multinational security consultants.

They take these measures even while Mr. Fox pushes reforms.

Analysts point out that he is stymied because relatively well-trained Mexican federal police can do little about kidnapping. The crime remains a state-level violation with a confusing array of criminal penalties. Only by using federal laws against organized crime and illegal guns can federal police get involved.

"It is frustrating as a police officer, who wants to do better for our people," said one federal agent who is closely following the Zapata-Sodi kidnappings and asked not to be identified. "We can only do what the law allows us."

In this case, federal authorities are working the crime from the margins and without Thalia's cooperation. They're using the attack on Ms. Zapata's car - and the illegal weaponry allegedly used by the kidnappers - as the basis for an official investigation.

Thalia is not the first Mexican celebrity to shun police involvement after an abduction.

Singer Vicente Fernandez is among them. The abduction of his son, Vicente Jr. - whose mutilated finger was delivered to the entertainer - prompted Mexican authorities in the 1990s to mount a massive, but short-lived, counter-kidnapping effort. The younger Fernandez was eventually released.

Fernandez now spends most of his time in San Antonio.

"Today, 40 percent of kidnappings lead to at least one arrest. But the public, and especially the kidnappers, are not getting the message," said Jose Antonio Ortega, president of the Citizens' Council on Public Security. "Everyone thinks it's all about money, and too often it seems like the families and the authorities are more concerned about the amount of ransoms given out than the value of human life."

Ortega is sympathetic to families who fear police.

He supports Fox, who is urging the Mexican Congress to overhaul local kidnapping laws, making them tougher and ensuring uniform criminal penalties from state to state. He also lauded Mexican officials for reaching out to the FBI for new training on anti-kidnapping techniques.

Without that federal initiative, Ortega said, the lives of more Mexicans will be wasted, "like the hero Javier Ibanez Sandoval, whose courage was worthless against an inept system."

Last year Sandoval pursued his own investigation after the kidnapping of his son in the southwestern state of Guerrero, a troubled area infamous for abductions by masked men in black combat uniforms.

Sandoval's work prompted authorities to arrest some suspects, but lax laws allowed judges to free the assailants. Sandoval was later murdered.

After his slaying, police arrested two kidnappers suspected of having taken his son, and are investigating their possible involvement in the murder of Sandoval. Further, the state judges who had earlier freed the suspected kidnappers have been suspended.

"That must be the message we send to public servants who let kidnappers go free and allow them to work with impunity," said Ortega of the Citizens' Council on Public Security. "We must tell those who work with criminals that they will be relieved of their duties, and then indicted themselves."

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