The Argentine Foreign Ministry was asked today to investigate the disappearance in Bolivia of Mauricio Hochschild, 62-year-old Jewish industrialist of German origin who is believed to have been kidnapped. Hochschild is an Argentine citizen.
Friends of the mining magnate are very pessimistic concerning his fate. They disclosed that prior to his disappearance he had expressed fears of some development and had been taking precautionary measures.
The measures included living at the home of American friends in Bolivia. Because of this and the other precautionary measures, his Argentina friends express the belief that Hochschild’s kidnapping must have taken place under very special circumstances. One theory is that his powerful car, in which he had been reported on route to the airport to leave for Chile, Argentina and the United States, was stopped by uniformed soldiers or police.
Hochschild, his friends here disclosed, had sent his son on to Chile ahead of him last week and was supposed to have followed him Monday. He settled in Bolivia in 1923 and made a fortune there as owner of several mines producing tin, zine and wolfram. He was the country’s second greatest tin producer, being outranked only by the Patino enterprises. He was arrested three months ago on charges of financing a revolt against the Bolivian Government, but was released a month ago.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
