MEXICO CITY -- The brazen kidnapping of 27 people from a call-centre in the Caribbean coast resort of Cancun may have been part of a dispute between the owners of the business, prosecutors said Wednesday.
The chief prosecutor of the state of Quintana Roo said eight heavily armed attackers burst into the call centre -- which sold vacation services -- on Tuesday night, and abducted a total of 30 employees.
Three of the 30 were released by the abductors, but the remaining 27, including one of the owners, were missing for hours.
Prosecutor Oscar Montes de Oca said police raided a house in Cancun early Wednesday, and found three heavily armed kidnappers inside along with the 27 victims; two other kidnappers were arrested as they tried to flee across the roofs of neighbouring homes. The victims were found blindfolded in two rooms of the house; neither the call centre nor the house are in the city's beachside tourist zone.
Montes de Oca said the "strongest theory is that it was a dispute between partners in the firm, it is probably an act of revenge between them."
While Montes de Oca did not provide further details on the nature of that dispute, he did suggest that an organized criminal gang was involved.
"We are not going to allow any openings for criminal gangs that grew stronger over many years because of the corruption and impunity in past administrations," he said.
Cancun had long been spared the drug violence that affected many other parts of Mexico, until a few years ago. Since then, the city's murder rate has spiked, and the notorious Jalisco cartel was said to be moving into the resort.
No ransom was demanded in the Tuesday kidnapping.
