EDUARDO Valseca lived a quiet life in Mexico with his family until June 13, 2007, when everything was turned upside down.
That day, he was kidnapped by suspected gang members and held hostage for over seven months.
Who is Eduardo Valseca?
Eduardo Garcia Valseca is known as a Mexican businessman who was kidnapped in June 2007 by a gang of heavily armed men after dropping his kids off at school.
He was ultimately held captive for more than seven months and was not released until an undisclosed amount of money had been paid.
After he was released, Eduardo told CNN that he believed his abductors were under the assumption that he was rich because his father used to own a chain of newspapers.
After the $8 million ransom went unpaid, his abductors began beating him severely and even shot him twice, once in the leg and once in the arm, according to CNN.
It is still unclear who is behind Eduardo’s kidnapping, but he believes that it was related to a kidnapping ring run by Ricardo Palma Salamanca and Raul Julio Escobar Poblete, according to Distractify.
Where is he now?
When Eduardo returned home in January 2008, he weighed less than 100 pounds and could barely move or speak.
“He was so weak and had been through so much that he couldn’t even smile,” his wife Jayne told CNN.
“He could barely talk above a whisper and it took several hours of giving him liquids and foods for him to even be able to talk and to finally smile with the children.”
As per Oxygen, Jane also said: “I pulled him into me and put my arms around him, and he just felt so cold.
“It was literally as if he was already dead, and I just started kissing him all over his cheeks.”
Eduardo recalled the borrowing time, saying, “I was not afraid of dying because I couldn’t take it any more.”
Shortly after, the family moved to the United States and started raising awareness about how organized crime affects people on both sides of the border.
They ended up in Washington, DC, where his wife later died from cancer, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Speaking on losing his wife, Eduardo said: “That was the worst thing in my life, more than the kidnapping. That was terrible.”
Since then, he has lived a quiet life outside of the media.
When is Eduardo’s Dateline episode?
Over the years, Eduardo’s story has been featured on Dateline multiple times and is returning to screens in 2024.
Dateline re-released their episode on Eduardo’s kidnapping, titled The Ranch, on May 27, 2022.
A re-run of the episode will air two years later on NBC on Friday, July 5, 2024, at 9 pm ET.
The episode will also be available to stream on Hulu and Peacock.
