Word: extortionate
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There was no question that the money was the evil lucre of rebel drug deals, extortion rackets, and ransom payments made by the desperate relatives of hostages. By some estimates, such scams earned the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - the country's largest guerrilla army known as the FARC - $500...
Cambridge residents can be a sketchy crew, and James W. Lewis may be the sketchiest among them. In 1982, seven people died in the Chicago area because some Tylenol pills they took were laced with cyanide. (CYANIDE!) The case was never solved—and the $100,000 reward offered...
Worst were the empty playgrounds, bathed in the sunshine of that Technicolor autumn. The parks and schoolyards should have been full of children, noisy with glee, burdened by nothing more troubling than skinned knees. Instead, their silence radiated fear. That was Washington in October 2002, when a person or persons...
After his father's death, Marroquín suffered from depression. Landing in impoverished, war-ravaged Mozambique as his family sought refuge, he contemplated suicide as he considered how far his clan had fallen. The family's troubles continued in Buenos Aires. Escobar's widow, now known as Maria Isabel...
Visages, the rebel explosives expert, says he initially swallowed the FARC's rhetoric about Marxist revolution and social justice. But after joining, he watched as firing squads gunned down rebels who were unfairly accused of spying for the army. He says the final straw came when the guerrillas forced his...