Just hours after being the victim of a shocking kidnapping in his home area of Tamaulipas in Mexico, Olympiakos’s Alan Pulido has been found alive and well following a 24-hour man hunt.
“a phone call to 066 [Mexican 911] to locate him”. said a report by the Coordination Group of Tamaulipas on Sunday night. “A little before midnight of Sunday, May 29th, a professional soccer player was rescued safe and sound,”
Whilst the authorities deserve some credit for the retrieval of one of the countries international footballers, it’s perhaps worth mentioning that Mr Pulida reportedly owed his escape….to himself.
Just hours ago, the attorney Ismael Quintanilla Acosta pulled a press conference to confirm that the player had escaped his captors, who were keeping him in a safe house.
Pulida mentioned himself that whilst hauled up in the mystery location, he found an opportunity to pull a gun from the perpetrator tasked with watching him, and shot him. All before quickly smashing a window and making his escape. It’s believed that a second man holding the player also fled in the mayhem.
It’s at this point that Pulida contacted the federal and state forces to be rescued.
The Mexican international has since been taken into the safe reaches of the authorities where his injuries, inflicted after beatings, were treated by health professionals.
The below story has been translated from Spanish news outlet Proceso.
Governor Egidio Torre Cantú took advantage of the player’s stay to take pictures with him and congratulate federal and state forces for the “successful operative”.
Alan Pulido said in a brief media commentary that he was “fine thank God”. The authorities announced that they will give more details of the rescue mission today.
Hours before, the self-named criminal group “Zeta Vieja Escuelas” [literally ‘Z’ Old School] hung at least one banner and broadcasted on social media a message which stated that members of the State Police protected members of the Cartel del Noreste (CDN) [Northeastern Cartel] who were responsible for the athlete’s kidnapping.
“You fucking Estatales [state police], let everyone know that in the player’s kidnapping yesterday they covered Tiki Tiki’s escape”, said one such text.
The so called “Tiki Tiki” is one of the leaders of the CDN in Ciudad Victoria. The principle capo of that group is identified by military authorities as Juan Francisco Treviño, aka “Kiko Treviño”, nephew of Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales, aka “Z40”, who is currently being held in Almoloya.
The story that the Zetas Vieja Escuela and its ally the Grupo Bravo are propagating coincides with the way previous criminal group operations have worked when they carry out high impact events, in which they solicit corrupt police officers to protect the cartel members them as they withdraw.
The international soccer player’s kidnapping occurred at 11:30 PM Saturday night when he and his girlfriend Iliana Salas left a party at the palapa zone in the National Park Los Troncones, according to authorities.
They were intercepted in a spot close to the park by at least two vehicles with armed men and covered faces. The outlaws took the Olympic player and his BMW car. They removed the woman from the car, who promptly alerted authorities by calling from her cell phone.
The place where the player was kidnapped is a “hive of Zetas, where mass graves and criminal safehouses have been found previously”, according to a source in the State Prosecutor’s office.
During all of Sunday, hundreds of members of the state police, members of the Mexican Army and federal police carried out a big rescue mission in the area, while a helicopter scouted over Ciudad Victoria and the surrounding highway.
As the mission carried on, members of the local police began to raid safehouses in different parts of Tamaulipas’ capital to try and find the missing player.
……blimey.
More news to come.