• KIDNAPPING: Two mountain tourists, one Mexican and one French, were kidnapped at the Nevado de Toluca natural park in Central Mexico as they arrived in two separate SUVs to the site of the famous extinct volcano (altitude 15,354 ft), according to Mexico State police sources.
• SEARCH: As of Sunday evening, the Mexican National Guard and the State of Mexico police were searching for the victims. Back in 2015, he State of Mexico organized Mexico’s first high-altitude police after several reports against mountaineers in different natural parks.
• NUMBERS: Some 117,000 French tourists visited Mexico in 2017, according the most recent figures from the French Government. As the seventh most visited country in the world (per the latest United Nations rankings), Mexico received 41 million tourists in 2018.
• WARNING: In its most recent advisory for travelers to Mexico of November 7, France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned: “Kidnappings for ransom are rare. On the other hand, ‘express’ kidnappings are very frequent” (the later being holding a person until extracting the maximum limit from ATMs).
