This past weekend, the members of the Barcelona-based dance-rock band Delorean suffered what’s apparently been called a “virtual kidnapping.” The band was in Mexico City to play the MUTEK Festival, and police say that they’re now safe, but their families certainly suffered from a serious scare.

As Spin points out, Cambio reports that kidnappers, posing as police, called the band when they were at Mexico City’s Four Points Hotel. The kidnappers claimed that the band wasn’t safe and that they had to be moved to another hotel. Once there, they confiscated the band members’ cell phones, and then they called the band members’ families to demand ransom. The “virtual kidnapping,” in which the kidnapping victims are safe but their loved ones have no way of reaching them, is apparently a relatively recent phenomenon in Mexico, and it’s possible that Delorean weren’t in any danger. Still, it can’t be fun to suffer any kind of Mexican kidnapping, virtual or actual.

The Spanish embassy says that the investigation is ongoing, and so they haven’t made any further statement on what happened, but the band has already canceled one show in San Francisco. Delorean’s friends John Talabot and Pional have also canceled Mexican shows, and I have to imagine that foreign bands will now be even less likely to play shows in the country.

UPDATE: Delorean have released a statement today, 10/9:

On Monday morning October 7th we received a phone call at our hotel room in Mexico City from a person posing as a hotel security officer. We were informed that there was a security threat at the hotel.

What followed for the next 30 hours was an experience where the threat of death was real due to the psychological manipulation inflicted on us by our kidnappers. Thanks to the fantastic work of the National Police in Spain, Ertzantza , Interpol and the Federal Police in Mexico, we were successfully rescued yesterday morning.

While it would be convenient to blame Mexico, that would not be sound. This could have occurred anywhere in the world. Our hope is that this situation will bring attention to the abuse that we were subjected to by our kidnappers, so that other travelers do not fall victim in the future.

This has been extremely difficult for us and our families. At this time we have no further comment and we ask that you respect our privacy so that we can return to normality in our lives.