Costa Rican diplomat kidnapped in Venezuela

Venezuelan authorities launched an investigation Monday after a Costa Rican diplomat was snatched from his car in Caracas over the weekend in the latest of a rash of high-profile kidnappings. Officials said armed assailants intercepted Guillermo Cholele vehicle in eastern Caracas late Sunday and forced him into a van. Costa Rica "considers these events extraordinarily serious," a foreign ministry statement released in San Jose said. Kidnappers have contacted Cholele's relatives in Costa Rica seeking ransom, the statement added. Venezuelan Interior Minister Tareck El Aissami said an investigation was under way and being handled at the "highest level... to achieve the release of the Costa Rican official." Diplomats have been targeted before by kidnappers in one of Latin America's most dangerous capitals. Mexico's ambassador and his wife were kidnapped and robbed earlier this year, but were ultimately released unharmed. Bolivia's military attache was also briefly kidnapped, as was the son of the Vietnamese ambassador. Chile's consul general was shot and beaten in November, the victim of a two-hour-long "express kidnapping." And in one of the most high profile abductions, kidnappers late last year seized professional baseball player Wilson Ramos of America's Washington Nationals team, who also ultimately was rescued by security forces. Kidnappings in Venezuela are lucrative and more often than not go unpunished. They are usually resolved after relatives pay a ransom to the captors. In 2009, the most recent year for which there are official figures, there were 16,917 kidnappings in the country, although estimates by some non-government organizations are higher. The government has launched a program to clean up the police and disarm the population in response to soaring crime. Venezuela's murder rate -- 48 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2010 -- is nearly five times higher than the world average.