Corporate security experts believe that 30 to 50 kidnappings for ransom are occurring daily, with ransom payments going up to $300,000.

From McClatchy News (via Yahoo News):

Corporate security experts estimate that drug gangs are now responsible for 30 to 50 kidnappings a day in Mexico and that ransoms often run to $300,000 if the victim is returned alive. They often hold several victims at a time. Two other victims were being held with Escobedo.

“The narco-kidnappers are not looking for chump change,” said Felix Batista , a Miami -based corporate-security and crisis-management consultant who’s negotiated the releases of dozens of kidnapping victims throughout Mexico .

“It’s a pretty darn good side business.”

The kidnap and ransom market in Mexico has been spilling into the US, with the city of Phoenix in Arizona experiencing a rise in kidnapping.

Corporate security experts estimate that drug gangs are now responsible for 30 to 50 kidnappings a day in Mexico and that ransoms often run to $300,000 if the victim is returned alive. They often hold several victims at a time. Two other victims were being held with Escobedo.

“The narco-kidnappers are not looking for chump change,” said Felix Batista , a Miami -based corporate-security and crisis-management consultant who’s negotiated the releases of dozens of kidnapping victims throughout Mexico .

“It’s a pretty darn good side business.”

Causes for the increase in kidnapping may be due to the fact that the global drug trade is not producing as much cash as before.

Mexican officials say the wave of kidnappings is a sign that drug traffickers have been squeezed by President Felipe Calderon’s yearlong offensive against smugglers. The president has dispatched 20,000 soldiers around the country to confront what had been growing drug violence that had pushed the number of kidnappings, murders and arms-smuggling cases to record levels.

“Drug trafficking is not producing for them as it did in the past,” Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said last month in Washington . “So they are moving into other crimes, such as extortion, kidnapping, car theft.”

Globally, kidnapping and ransom is a $500 million industry. The estimated drug trade revenue in Mexico is $23 billion.