Surveillance camera captures moment missing Mexican grocery store worker is kidnapped by men posing as cops
- Carlos Javier Flores was reported missing by his family after four men posing as cops detained him at his store in Tonalá, Jalisco, on Saturday
- The Jalisco State Prosecutor’s Office released a statement Monday indicating the 47-year-old was not in custody of the police
- Flores’ family told Mexican news outlet Tele Diario that Flores had been recently threatened after he sought repayment from a loan made to a woman
Authorities in the western Mexican state of Jalisco have launched a search after a man was kidnapped from his store by armed men posing as law enforcement agents.
Surveillance video leaked on social media and to local media organizations showed the moment Carlos Javier Flores was approached by four individuals dressed in black at his grocery store in San Gaspar, a neighborhood in the city of Tonalá.
The fake cops also wore bulletproof vests with badges that identified themselves as members of the Jalisco State Prosecutor’s Office.
The 47-year-old grocery store owner’s wife, Laura Flores, told UNO TV that the men advised Flores they were only conducting an inspection before they took him away as their daughters looked on.
Carlos Javier Flores stands behind the counter at his grocery story in Jalisco, Mexico, as an armed man posing as a police agent approached him on Saturday. The individual was one of four posing as cops and informed told Flores they were there as part of a routine inspection and led him into an unmarked pickup truck. Flores has not been seen or heard of since
A surveillance camera outside Carlos Javier Flores’ grocery in Tonalá, a city in the Mexican state of Jalisco, records the moment the 47-year-old was reportedly kidnapped by four men who identified themselves as cops. The Jalisco State Prosecutor’s Office said no law enforcement agencies participated in the bogus arrest
Carlos Javier Flores was reportedly threatened and told warned would be kidnapped if he insisted collecting $223 he was owed by a woman
‘The first thing [they] told him [was] that [it was] a routine check-up and after that they grabbed him and put him in the truck,’ Laura Flores said. ‘We went out and we asked them why were they going to take him away and they didn’t answer us. They just closed the doors and left.’
In the two videos that appeared online, at no point did Carlos Javier Flores resist being arrested.
Laura Flores said she used her cellphone to record the armed individuals leading her husband into an unmarked, black pickup truck. She also managed to record the vehicle’s rear license plates although the last couple of numbers were partially covered.
She added that her husband had opened the shop three weeks ago and that last week he received a phone call in which he was threatened with being kidnapped if he did not forego the collection of a $178 loan owed by a woman.
Carlos Javier Flores, a grocery store owner in Jalisco, Mexico, is led into a pickup truck by four men disguises as police officers on Saturday. His family reported him missing
Carlos Javier Flores, who expected to collect $223 with interest already included, never filed a report with the police.
The Jalisco State Prosecutor’s Office issued a statement Monday confirming that Carlos Javier Flores was not in custody of the Tonalá municipal police, Jalisco state police or that he had been detained by agents from their department.
‘It should be noted that according to information obtained by the Jalisco Prosecutor’s Office derived from other investigation files of people who were kidnapped, criminal groups use the tactic of posing as law enforcement agents in order to commit different crimes,’ the prosecutor’s office said. [‘It’s] a situation that has remained in evidence in different operations where the seizure of tactical equipment, clothing and other objects with logos of different municipal, state and federal agencies was pulled off.’