Word: ransoming
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...already dead, of course. That sad news had been known from the beginning. Huang's tormentors, you see, were not members of some professional kidnapping-for-ransom gang. They were morticians?employees of one of the hundreds of companies that compete for market share in Taiwan's bizarre and unruly funeral industry. In Europe and the U.S., "death care" is a multibillion-dollar business, dominated by colossal corporations with stock-market listings, ISO ratings, and executives recruited from leading business schools. It's a big industry in Taiwan too (residents spend around $3 billion a year on funerals...
...year ago, the same group of Muslim rebels kidnapped 21 people, including 9 Malaysians, 8 Europeans, 2 South Africans and 2 Filipinos, from the eastern Malaysian diving resort of Sipadan. Over the following four months, they auctioned them off for a whispered total of up to $25 million in ransom money. Bad enough that it happened again: even more frightening, it was clear from day one of the most recent crisis that the resolution would be swifter and a lot more brutal. Over the past year, the rebels spent their ill-gotten riches on firepower: M-16s, Uzis, mortars, cannons...
...concerns. The Philippines has a new President, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, and she announced from the start that she had no intention of suffering the humiliation dealt predecessor Joseph Estrada last year. Estrada succumbed to Malaysian and European pleas to hold the troops back and allowed Libya to broker a ransom deal. As a result, the ragtag band of one year ago has grown into a kidnapping army that can only get more audacious with every success. With Washington's backing, Arroyo refused all negotiation and ordered 5,000 troops into the scattered Sulu archipelago to, in the words of operational...
...students then broke up into smaller groups to analyze the fingerprints, footprints, ransom note and other clues. ExperiMentors volunteers led chromotography demonstrations to pinpoint what type of ink was used to write the ransom note and looked at hair and cloth from the crime scene under microscopes...
...over the place. Working both sides of the border, gangs own perhaps half the nightclubs and bars in Shenzhen, often reportedly in partnership with officers of the People's Liberation Army and the Public Security Bureau. They are into everything that pays: car theft, gambling, prostitution, kidnap for ransom and even, astonishingly, petrol. The bulk of the bribes received by convicted customs chief Zhao came from smuggling gasoline. The racket worked like this: a tanker anchors in international waters and waits for motor launches to gather round. An auction follows, and the buyers smuggle the fuel to shore in barrels...