WEALTHY MEXICANS are so terrified of soaring kidnapping rates that they have taken to implanting tiny transmitters under their skin so satellites can help find them.

Mexico ranks with Iraq and Colombia as being among the worst countries for abductions having soared by more than 40 percent between 2004 and 2007.

Xega, a Mexican security firm, claims that its sales jumped 13 percent this year, on the back of a boom in implantation sales. It has apparently installed its tracking chip inside more than 2,000 clients.

The company injects the crystal-encased chip, the size and shape of a grain of rice, into clients’ bodies with a syringe.

However the person still has to be close to another larger device carried by the client with a global positioning system in it. If the kidnappers do not take this away from the person a satellite can then pinpoint the location of the victim.

So it might just be a wee bit of a gimmick.

Reuters