Word: ransoms
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...following a tradition going back to the very first heist at Russborough House, in 1974. That caper, pulled off by a Provisional i.r.a. gang, was led by Rose Dugdale, an English millionaire's daughter turned republican rebel. The gang did want some money - over $200,000, according to the ransom note - but its real objective was to trade the paintings for the release of Dolours and Marion Price, sisters who were jailed for life on explosives charges and were on hunger strike in London's Brixton jail. The Dugdale gang took 19 paintings, including a Goya, a Vermeer...
...federal charges were filed under the Hobbs Act, a 1946 corruption law which forbids the use of extortion (that $10 million ransom note found after the Ashland, Virginia shooting) and the interruption of interstate commerce. Not exactly sexy stuff, but designed to ensure relatively speedy justice to alleged criminals who have the poor sense to commit their crimes without regard to state lines - and provides the death penalty for those found guilty. As a juvenile, the 17-year-old Malvo is eligible for execution only if he's found guilty in Virginia and Alabama; Maryland and federal statutes forbid...
...sought to burnish her tough-on-terrorism image by appearing on television with arrested suspects. One such photo-op, on Oct. 19, however, went badly awry when Arroyo marched out a prisoner and introduced him as Abu Pula or "Doctor Abu," a forty-something leader of the kidnap-for-ransom group Abu Sayyaf, who allegedly engineered the 2000 abduction of 11 European tourists from a Malaysian beach resort. Alas, the perp she walked wasn't Doctor Abu: he was Mark Bolkerin Gumbahale, a 21-year-old Abu Sayyaf member arrested while playing video games at an Internet cafe...
VOICE PRINTS Like DNA or fingerprints, voices are unique. Graphs measure the intricacies of a particular voice, obtained from threats or ransom demands made over the phone or extracted from surveillance tapes...
Spurred on by disturbing revelations since the Sept. 11 attacks of Yemen's connections to terrorism, President Ali Abdullah Saleh claims he wants to end the country's fabled history of lawlessness. It was one thing when tribesmen held foreign visitors for ransom; now it's clear world-class terrorists have been using Yemen for major operations and recruitment. "The President is declaring loud and clear: 'No to terrorism,'" says Faris Sanabani, a Saleh adviser and editor of the weekly newspaper Yemen Observer. "No one wants to wake up to the sound of an explosion...