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Revista Real Madrid - N° 160 - 09.1963
Cover and well-illustrated inside feature dedicated to the kidnapping, release and return to Madrid of Di Stefano in the summer of 1963.
The pro-Castro F.A.L.N. may never have been able to gather much popular support in Venezuela, but it was adept at making mischief. Posing as government narcotics agents, several F.A.L.N. members abducted in August 1963, visiting Argentinean Soccer Star Alfredo Di Stéfano, 37. From a hideout in Caracas the F.A.L.N. issued ulletins, even held a press conference to exhibit their prisoner, while Venezuelan police scurried helplessly about looking for them. Finally, 56 hours after his abduction, Di Stéfano
was released unharmed. On the street the first cop he approached refused to believe he was really Di Stéfano. The kidnapping—like the theft of touring Louvre treasures earlier that year —was one more brazen attempt by the F.A.L.N. to shame the pro-West government of President Rómulo Betancourt. In this it succeeded; it also ucceeded in exposing the woefully inefficient Caracas police force.
So when six years later, the Caracas police force got wind of an attempt by the FALN to kidnap Pelé before the World Cup Q in Caracas, they made sure not to be exposed again and Pelé was accompanied every step of the way by heavily armed security forces.
The “Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional” (Armed Forces of National Liberation, FALN) was a Venezuelan guerrilla group formed to foment revolution against the democratically elected government of Rómulo Betancourt.
30 x 21 cms, magazine, 32 pages.
1963
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