Indie Dance Band Kidnapped for 30 Hours in Mexico
Holy hell, this is harrowing. This past weekend, Delorean, an electronic-pop act from Barcelona, performed at the Mexican installment of the Mutek Festival and on Monday morning, they were still at their Mexico City hotel when an emergency call came in, urging them to vacate the premises due to a shootout. They complied—and were taken hostage.
According to El Pais, the instruction was a ruse by members of the violent drug cartel, Los Zetas, who took the four men to another hotel and locked them in two separate rooms. The captors then contacted the band members' families back in Spain, demanding a ransom of five-million pesos (more than $380,000) for their release. Fortunately, various international police forces tracked the calls back to their location; after they'd been held for 30 hours, the musicians were rescued safely.
The Spanish National Police confirmed the band's release on Twitter:
Las Policías española y mexicana y la Ertzaintza liberan a los 4 miembros del grupo #indie Delorean, víctimas de un secuestro en México D.F.
— Policía Nacional (@policia) October 8, 2013
Yesterday, Delorean addressed the incident in a Facebook post:
On Monday morning October 7th we received a phone call at our hotel room in Mexico City from a person posing as a hotel security officer. We were informed that there was a security threat at the hotel.
What followed for the next 30 hours was an experience where the threat of death was real due to the psychological manipulation inflicted on us by our kidnappers. Thanks to the fantastic work of the National Police in Spain, Ertzantza, Interpol and the Federal Police in Mexico, we were successfully rescued yesterday morning.
While it would be convenient to blame Mexico, that would not be sound. This could have occurred anywhere in the world. Our hope is that this situation will bring attention to the abuse that we were subjected to by our kidnappers, so that other travelers do not fall victim in the future.
This has been extremely difficult for us and our families. At this time we have no further comment and we ask that you respect our privacy so that we can return to normality in our lives.
Pitchfork notes (via Playground) that two other Spanish musicians, John Talabot and Pional, have curtailed their Mexican tours in the wake of Delorean's terrifying experience, citing "security reasons." Dios mío.
[h/t Vanyaland, press photo via True Panther Records]
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