What was supposed to be a romantic getaway to Mexico for their engagement turned out to be very the opposite for Jennifer and Frank Massabki.
They rented a car to drive around for the week in Mexico City and within an hour of driving they were crashed into. The car hit their back bumper and Frank got out to speak with the driver, you know normal American stuff we are used to.
All of sudden though, it was a scene out of Taken and there were two men pointing guns at the couple. They were taken hostage, blindfolded and commanded to remove all their jewelry. Jennifer recalled one of them saying, “This is going to get a lot worse for you.”
This below image was right before their kidnapping.
Now Liam Neeson doesn’t randomly show up sadly, and the couple were driven to some other location. Once there, they were ordered to call friends and family to get ransom money. The couple were captives for hours and were tortured. Jennifer was also almost raped, but they failed at doing that.
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Another thing these C-List kidnappers did? Lose their captives! Frank was eventually able to escape and found not-corrupt police to come back and save Jennifer. That would be the largest concern for me when going to a different country. I would hate to need assistance and not have proper authorities to come save the day.
The couple credited their escape to them being fluent in Spanish which helped them hear what their captors were saying. They probably assumed that they had kidnapped dumb Americans…BUT THEY WERE WRONG!
Frank talked to MarketWatch and said:
“We just want other people to know these dangers exist.
We were lucky to escape, and if our story can prevent one other person from going through what we went through, and what we almost had to go through, it would be worth it.”
Once the couple got back to the States, Jennifer had to have emergency plastic surgery on her nose because of what the kidnappers did.
Back in January the U.S. State Department issued a warning saying that people should not travel to the following Mexico states: Sinaloa, Colima, Michoacán, Guerrero, and Tamaulipas. They also warned people going to Mexico City that they should be extra cautious.
Since summertime is fast approaching us, it’s a good idea to revisit these warnings. The Mexico tourism board said this about the normal Mexico tourism areas to Time:
“The vast majority of crimes in Mexico do not occur in areas frequented by international tourists. The vast majority of Mexico is safe for tourists.”
Now that statement was from people that want you to spend money in Mexico so take those words with caution.