BanderasNews
Puerto Vallarta Weather Report
Welcome to Puerto Vallarta's liveliest website!
Contact UsSearch
Why Vallarta?Vallarta WeddingsRestaurantsWeatherPhoto GalleriesToday's EventsMaps
 NEWS/HOME
 AROUND THE BAY
 AROUND THE REPUBLIC
 AMERICAS & BEYOND
 BUSINESS NEWS
 TECHNOLOGY NEWS
 WEIRD NEWS
 EDITORIALS
 ENTERTAINMENT
 VALLARTA LIVING
 PV REAL ESTATE
 TRAVEL / OUTDOORS
 HEALTH / BEAUTY
 SPORTS
 DAZED & CONFUSED
 PHOTOGRAPHY
 CLASSIFIEDS
 READERS CORNER
 BANDERAS NEWS TEAM
Sign up NOW!

Free Newsletter!

Puerto Vallarta News NetworkNews Around the Republic of Mexico | July 2008 

Kidnapped South Koreans Released in Mexic
email this pageprint this pageemail usRobin Emmott - Reuters
go to original



Lee Jeong-Gwan (right), South Korea's director general for consular affairs, gestures before a briefing at the Foreign Ministry in Seoul July 23. Five South Koreans held hostage in Mexico for eight days have been released unharmed, the foreign ministry said Wednesday. (AFP/Jung Yeon-Je)
 
Reynosa, Mexico - Mexican police freed five South Koreans on Tuesday in a violent city on the U.S. border after they had been kidnapped by people smugglers, a state attorney general's office said.

The four men and a woman were taken captive on Monday in Reynosa near Texas, and the kidnappers had demanded $30,000 in ransom.

A South Korean foreign ministry official said they would soon be handed over to South Korean authorities.

"Police found the five Koreans held in a hotel in Reynosa. It seems the people smugglers offered to take them across to the United States but then kidnapped them for a much bigger ransom," said a spokesman for the Tamaulipas state attorney general's office.

He said the rescue came after intelligence work and tip-offs in northern Mexico and Mexico City.

The five South Koreans worked in the used car trade and were in Mexico on business, local media reported, citing diplomatic sources.

(Reporting by Magdiel Hernandez in Reynosa, Miguel Angel Gutierrez in Mexico City and Jon Herskovitz and Kim Junghyun in Seoul, editing by Jackie Frank)



In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving
the included information for research and educational purposes • m3 © 2008 BanderasNews ® all rights reserved • carpe aestus