Wilson Ramos, the catcher for Washington D.C. baseball team the Nationals, was abducted from his home in Santa Ines, in Venezuela’s central Carabobo state.
Ramos was in Venezuela to play for a winter league team during Major League Baseball’s off-season. Reportedly picked up by a team of four armed men, he was presumably targeted because of the large ransom his kidnappers may extort in exchange for his return. On Thursday, Venezuela's police located the vehicle used in the abduction in a neighboring town.
The Venezuelan government has promised to dedicate massive resources to resolving the case in a hurry. One official, quoted in an Associated Press story, says that the government "is working 24 hours a day to solve this case."
Venezuela has one of the highest rates of kidnapping in the world. According to the Venezuela’s National Statistics Institute (Instituto Nacional de Estadisticas - INE), there were up to 73 abductions reported every day during the period of July 2008 ? July 2009.
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