A Costa Rican diplomat was snatched from his car in Caracas over the weekend in the latest of a rash of high profile kidnappings, Venezuelan officials said Monday. The officials said armed assailants intercepted Guillermo Cholele vehicle in eastern Caracas late Sunday and forced him into a van.
Diplomats have been targeted before by kidnappers in one of Latin America's most dangerous capitals. Mexico's ambassador and his wife were kidnapped and robbed earlier this year, but were ultimately released unharmed. Bolivia's military attache was also briefly kidnapped, as was the son of the Vietnamese ambassador. Chile's consul general was shot and beaten in November, the victim of a two-hour-long "express kidnapping." Kidnappings in Venezuela are lucrative and more often than not go unpunished.