Word: ransoms
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...kidnapping has become one of the country's most common forms of crime since the fall of Saddam Hussein. U.S. officials say that up to 40 people are kidnapped every day, a phenomenon highlighted last week when a U.S. soldier in Baghdad went missing, an apparent abduction victim. With ransoms ranging from a few thousand dollars to more than a million and with the police often unwilling or unable to even register such cases, officials say kidnapping has become an increasingly lucrative business. It helps the kidnappers that their criminal activity is often confused with the routine hostage taking...
...kidnappers happened to be cruising the street and, when they saw him get out of a brand-new car, assumed he was rich. Later, during interrogations by his captors, the Chevrolet Lumina would come up again and again. "Whenever I said my family were too poor to pay ransom, they would hit me and say, 'Don't lie to us. We know what kind of car you drive...
...stops? The U.S. official says the first switch was probably a handoff to a second group, which would hold him and claim the ransom. "It's not unusual for more than one group to be involved," says the official. "As in any organized business, there's specialization. Some gangs do the snatching and then pass on their captive, for a fee, to another gang." The money changing hands at this stage may be no more than a few hundred dollars; the muffled conversation Waddah heard at the first house may have been a quick round of bargaining...
...chest and thighs, followed by rapid- fire questions: What was his name? Where did he live? Where did he work? What was his family's phone number? "They said, 'The sooner you give us a phone number to call, the sooner we contact your family, negotiate a ransom and let you go,'" Waddah says. A common persuasion technique employed by kidnappers is to call the family of the victim and let them hear him screaming during torture. That usually gets the family's attention and makes them more likely to pay a ransom quickly. It upset the captors' plans, says...
Both the Monitor and the Carroll family deny that they paid for her release, although Carroll’s captors originally demanded a $10 million ransom. The captors later said that they no longer wanted ransom money...