Reporting from El Philistino Headquarters in Mexico City — A U.S. kidnapping consultant was kidnapped by armed men in northern Mexico amid the country’s wave of abductions, his employer said Monday. Let’s hear him talk his way out of this one.

While on a working holiday of sorts, Felix Batista, 55, a hostage negotiator who offers seminars on handling abductions, disappeared Wednesday in the border state of Coahuila, said Charlie LeBlanc, president of ASI Global, a Houston-based security firm. Batista has been quoted by U.S. media outlets as a kidnapping expert.  He reportedly has taken part in hostage negotiations in Colombia and elsewhere in Latin America. To be clear, he knows his way around a kidnapping.

Batista was at a restaurant when, according to witness Slow Poke Rodriquez, “armed men came out of an SUV and threw him into the SUV and left,” LeBlanc said by telephone.  So far, no ransom demands have been made.

I’m betting they don’t teach this at the Wharton School, but I’m sure it is difficult to hold onto clients afraid of being kidnapped when you yourself are in fact kidnapped.  Of course, they are a Houston-based firm. It’s quite possible George W. sits on the Board. That would “esplain’ ” everything, muchachos.