Ramos Kidnapped

[sadie1263]

CARACAS, Venezuela - Officials said Thursday they have found the vehicle used by armed men who abducted Washington Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos, a case that highlights a sharp rise in kidnappings in Venezuela.

Police found the kidnappers' vehicle abandoned in a nearby town and were gathering evidence, Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami told reporters Thursday morning. He said anti-kidnapping units were dispatched to the area in central Carabobo state.

The 24-year-old Venezuelan player, who had just finished his rookie season, was seized from his home by kidnappers on Wednesday night.
"The abductors haven't made contact with the family or with anyone," said Domingo Alvarez, vice president of the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League, in a telephone interview. "We're worried."

Ramos was taken away in an SUV by four armed men from his home in Santa Ines, spokeswoman Katherine Vilera of his Venezuelan team, the Aragua Tigers, said on her official Twitter account.


Read more: www.foxnews.com/sports/2011/11/09/washington-nationals-catcher-ramos-reportedly-kidnapped-in-venezuela/?test=latestnews#ixzz1dK4cb7Bi

[♫anna♫]

washingtonexaminer.com/sports/teams/nationals/2011/11/nationals-catcher-ramos-remains-missing QUOTE:
Nationals catcher Ramos remains missing
Published November 10, 2011
The vehicle used by three men to abduct Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos was found Thursday morning, a potential clue to help investigators in Venezuela locate the missing 24-year-old.

Ramos was taken at gunpoint Wednesday at approximately 7 p.m. local time in front of his mother's house in the city of Valencia, 108 miles from the Venezuelan capital of Caracas. But more than 24 hours later, the kidnappers still had not contacted the Ramos family to ask for ransom money, according to a source close to the family.

Tareck El Aissami, Venezuela's interior and justice minister, told Venezuelan reporters Thursday that an orange 2007 Chevrolet Activa, stolen Tuesday night in Valencia, is believed to be the getaway vehicle. It was found abandoned near the town of Bejuma, about 31 miles west of Valencia.

El Aissami's department later issued a press release in Spanish on its official website that said a team of "high level" criminal investigators known as the Scientific, Penal and Criminal Investigative Body (CICPC) is in Valencia to begin an investigation to find Ramos and apprehend his kidnappers.

Ramos returned home this month to play in the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League. He is a member of the Aragua Tigers, a team based in Maracay, a city in north-central Venezuela near the Caribbean coast and 35 miles from Valencia, his hometown. Ramos played in 113 games for the Nats in 2011 and had 15 home runs -- a club record for his position -- and 52 RBI.

It was a promising start in his first full major league season. Ramos was acquired by Washington in a trade with the Minnesota Twins on July 29, 2010. There are currently eight other members of the Nats' organization participating in the Venezuelan winter league, including big leaguers Jesus Flores, a catcher, and Henry Rodriguez, a relief pitcher.

"Our foremost concern is with Wilson Ramos and his family, and our thoughts are with them at this time," read a joint statement written by Major League Baseball and the Nationals. "Major League Baseball's Department of Investigations is working with the appropriate authorities on this matter. Both Major League Baseball and the Washington Nationals have been instructed to make no further comment."

Baseball players and their families are especially inviting targets because of their relative wealth in a country where poverty is chronic. In June 2009, Texas Rangers catcher Yorvit Torrealba had to pay a ransom to return his 11-year-old son, Yorvit Eduardo; his brother-in-law, Daniel Antonio Alvarez Morales; and another relative from kidnappers. That case remains part of a string of high-profile kidnappings in the country in recent years.

"[Ramos is] not a U.S. citizen. He is a, I believe, a green card holder," U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said at its daily briefing Thursday. "It's obviously of great concern to us. We did cite in our country-specific information the very real dangers of kidnapping and violent crime in Venezuela, and we condemn these kinds of violent acts. And we stand by to help, in whatever way possible, the family, if they contact us."

Read more at the Washington Examiner: washingtonexaminer.com/sports/teams/nationals/2011/11/nationals-catcher-ramos-remains-missing#ixzz1dMqxZhe9

[sadie1263]

CARACAS, Venezuela - The kidnapping ordeal of Washington Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos ended after two days when Venezuelan police commandos swooped in to rescue him in a flurry of gunfire and arrested five alleged abductors.

Ramos said he was happy and thankful to be alive, and that the final moments had been hair-raising as police and the kidnappers exchanged heavy fire in the remote mountainous area where he was being held.

"The truth is I'm still very nervous, but thanks to God everything turned out well," Ramos told Venezuelan state television, speaking by telephone after arriving at a police station in his hometown of Valencia early Saturday.

He thanked the police and National Guard commandos who rescued him, saying "the boys did a great job."

Ramos, 24, had not been seen or heard from since he was seized at gunpoint outside his home Wednesday night and whisked away in an SUV. It was the first known kidnapping of a Major League Baseball player in Venezuela, and the abduction set off an outpouring of candlelight vigils and public prayers at stadiums as well as outside Ramos' home.

Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami announced on Friday night that Ramos was "safe and sound" after the rescue. He didn't say whether anyone had been wounded in the gunfire.

[tiki]

Wow!! I thot its gonna end bad way. I give LOTTA points to the police for rescue they are heroes!

[♫anna♫]

It could ended badly Tiki! Thankfully Wilson Ramos was rescued from his abductors!
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/13/wilson-ramos-baseball-kidnap-rescue QUOTE:
Kidnapped US baseball player rescued
Wilson Ramos, a catcher for the Washington Nationals, describes his ordeal at a press conference in Valencia. Photograph: Reuters

With tears in his eyes, Wilson Ramos, a catcher for the Washington Nationals professional baseball team in the US, embraced his rescuers and said he had wondered whether he would survive a kidnapping ordeal that ended when Venezuelan commandos swept into his captors' mountain hideout.

Ramos said he was thankful to be alive and described his "hair-raising" final moments as a prisoner during the rescue on Saturday, when soldiers exchanged heavy gunfire with the kidnappers in the remote area where he was being held.

He said his kidnappers had carefully planned the abduction and told him they were going to demand a large ransom.

"I didn't know if I was going to get out of it alive," Ramos told reporters at a police station in his hometown of Valencia, flanked by police investigators, national guard commanders and the country's justice minister, Tareck El Aissami. "It was very hard for me. It was very hard for my family."

El Aissami said the authorities had arrested four of the captors, all of them Venezuelan men in their 20s. A 60-year-old woman and a 74-year-old man were also arrested as accomplices for supplying the kidnappers with food, he said.

The six suspects were led past journalists at the police station with black hoods over their heads.

The authorities were still searching for at least four Colombian men who escaped during the rescue, El Aissami said. He did not say whether anyone was wounded in the gun battle.

Ramos, 24, was seized at gunpoint outside his mother's home in Valencia, 90 miles from Caracas, on Wednesday night and taken away in a 4x4. It was the first known kidnapping of a Major League Baseball player in Venezuela, and the abduction set off a series of candlelit vigils and public prayers at stadiums as well as outside Ramos's house.

El Aissami said investigators' first break in the case came when they found the kidnappers' stolen Chevrolet vehicle abandoned in the town of Bejuma alongside the mountains of central Carabobo state.

With that location pinpointed, he said, they studied past crimes in the area and ended up checking on a rural house that authorities believed had been used in a previous kidnapping.

A 4x4 parked outside had mud on it even though there was no mud in the area, El Aissami said.

Investigators suspected that the vehicle was being used to shuttle food to another spot nearby, and eventually determined the house was probably being used by the kidnappers as a support base while holding Ramos elsewhere.

El Aissami said authorities took over the house and detained the couple who had been cooking for the abductors.

Once investigators thought they had found the general area where Ramos might be, President Hugo Chávez personally authorised an aerial search mission and teams also set out on foot in the mountainous area, El Aissami said.

Teams searched most of the day on Friday and finally came upon the remote house where Ramos was being held.

Chavez followed the operation "minute by minute," the justice minister said.

[♫anna♫]

Yes Wilson Ramos is one lucky guy!