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Kidnapping: An Efficient Business
- HenryBemis 7y agoFor people who wonder 'but how do these organizations get all that £€¥$ to fund their terrorism acts? Drug trafficking, robberies, kidnapping. Counterfeit products and human trafficking are also two more standard 'revenue streams'. In the case of ISIS apparently it was stealing and selling Oil. Depending on the country you live in, bank robberies either contribute to a gangs' income, or if funds local or international terrorism. This is the main reason police does its best to arrest them. The loss of a bank's £€¥$ is bad, threatening some bank employees and customers is bad, funding the next 'Sri Lanka' is far worse (I am NOT pointing fingers or taking sides - just using this example as it was the most recent).
- Simple_Guy 7y agoLet's point out that drug trafficking is only lucrative because it is illegal. Also human trafficking isn't immoral if you don't think that government should be able to lay claim on a piece of the earth, and counterfeit products are also not immoral because you are providing the same products (or similar) at lower cost.
- golergka 7y ago> human trafficking isn't immoral if you don't think that government should be able to lay claim on a piece of the earth what
- sbzodnsbd 7y agoHe’s a libertarian that forgot that HT is usually associated with forced prostitution or slavery. Which is understandable because nowadays coyotes are being prosecuted as HT. (Hence his quip about borders)
- Simple_Guy 7y agoWhy shouldn't I be able to move from one place to another? If a bunch of goons will say I can't, why can't I hire another bunch of goons that say I can?
- HenryBemis 7y agodrug trafficking - correct. Everywhere that e.g. recreational drugs have been legalized, the prices dropped. Of course, heroin and other drugs are not legalized, and I don't think society is in as much of a risk from recreational drugs, as much as it is from opioids (which some are legal with a doctor's prescription) human trafficking - this is not "moving populations to some other location giving them houses", I think you got it all wrong. This is your mother/daughter being taken and raped many times per day by many men for many years, your son been cut to pieces and have body parts removed. Go see a doctor. You need help. counterfeit products - you probably have created nothing in your life, so yes. Once you create something, let's see how you will like it if people copy your hard work and deprive you of income. I think you are a troll, or naive-beyond-repair or just a horribe person. Sometimes I wish HN had a 'block' mechanism, so you can block someone and eliminate their writings from our screens.
- sbzodnsbd 7y agoHe’s not a troll (I.e. OP is sincere, not just trying to provoke) he’s probably a libertarian that forgot that HT usually refers to forced prostitution. (As opposed to coyotes moving ppl across borders) While the OP’s point was not well articulated (assuming I’m right about his political leanings), this illustrates the importance of the principle of charity; I.e he’s not mental and/or unredeemable. He just has quirky a worldview For the record, I disagree with OP on eliminating borders.
- joe_the_user 7y agoA lot of terrorist organizations have state sponsors. Al Qaida began through sponsorship of the US and Saudi Arabia in an effort to bog down the pro-Soviet Regime then in power in Afghanistan. Edit: Of course, illegal activities help to both supplement state funds and hide their source.
- imglorp 7y agoI worked for a tech company in the past that had a product that would help stop kidnappings. We made a sale to the government of a large third world country. They made their first payment and we began to deploy, but obstacles kept arising and nothing more came from it. The subsequent payments weren't made, the product might have disappeared from their warehouse, etc., so we fled the deal. As it turns out, half the government wanted to end kidnappings, while the other half was perpetrating them. Either side was quick to pocket any lose budget on its way to unwary vendors.
- agumonkey 7y agoI wonder how agencies are trying to monitor this .. for once big data and their cookies would be a lovely thing
- some_random 7y agoI was going to mention that ISIS also bootstrapped itself by looting the central bank in Mosul (that was the first time I had heard of them iirc), but it seems that may not have actually happened. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant#cite_ref-245 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_...
- fvrghl 7y ago> In 2017 Qatar reportedly paid $1 billion to an al-Qaeda affiliate and Iran to win the release of a royal hunting party. These numbers are wild. Why doesn't this happen more often in the US?
- thereare5lights 7y agoThe people rich enough to pay such ransoms either have security or they're on the down low.
- watwut 7y agoBetter law enforcement. This sort of business happen in countries with corruption off the charts.
- C1sc0cat 7y agoOr those that have a collapsed state I worked for a Huge Arab firm in the London office and one our guys in Beruit got grabbed - we got him back. Not sure if it was just cash or "we know where your mum lives be terrible if anything happed to that street".
- deadbunny 7y ago> we know where your mum lives be terrible if anything happed to that street I was totally expecting that line to be: > we know where your mum lives and she'll be very angry when we tell her what you're up to
- ohaideredevs 7y agoSpeaking of Beirut. "Four Soviet diplomats were kidnapped in September 1985 by a fundamentalist group called the Islamic Liberation Organization. Russia quickly dispatched its Alpha group, tasked with counter-terrorism hostage-rescue operations, to Beirut. Once the team learned that Arkady Katkov, a consular attaché and one of the four hostages, was killed, they responded quickly by tracking down and locating one of the kidnappers’ leaders (or relative it’s not clear). In order to send a clear message to the terrorists, Alpha group members castrated the hostage, cut him down into pieces and sent him to the hostage takers. They also threatened to kill more of the kidnappers’ relatives if the Soviet diplomats were not free." https://blogbaladi.com/how-russia-responded-to-the-kidnapping-of-four-soviet-diplomats-in-beirut-in-1985/ https://blogbaladi.com/how-russia-responded-to-the-kidnappin...
- TheLuddite 7y agoKidnappings are a great way to redistribute wealth.
- golergka 7y agoVery revealing point on what "wealth redistribution" really means.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- deadbunny 7y agoVery revealing that you can't tell when someone is making a joke.
- balancemayvary 7y agoPerhaps most telling then, where things go when you allow wealth inequality to become too extreme.
- chriselles 7y agoRelative risk/reward. Kidnapping in the US is extremely high risk and low reward. Kidnapping in the developing world is a different story. In some places, kidnappings are now being conducted further down the wealth food chain targeting middle class victims at the maximum daily withdraw cash limit in ATMs. Transactional, high velocity kidnapping, Unlikely to be investigated and followed up by overwhelmed local law enforcement.
- mr_luc 7y agoI remember that in Ecuador and Peru people called that kind of kidnapping "secuestro express."
- tyurok 7y agoIn Brazil, it's "sequestro relâmpago", roughly translated to "lightning kidnapping"
- MuffinFlavored 7y agoIf in Brazil you are carrying a concealed weapon like some people do in America, will as many "sequestro relâmpagos" still be successful?
- JamesBarney 7y agoI only have one friend who was kidnapped and having a concealed weapon wouldn't have helped him. He had three guys pointing weapons at him before he even realized he was being kidnapped.
- billabul 7y ago'ndrangheta (one of the strongest mafia in italy) in early days built entire cities kidnapping people, many child of italian entrepreneurs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27Ndrangheta#Modern_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27Ndrangheta#Modern_history https://www.fabioitri.com/scomparsi_their_bodies_will_never_be_found-r7566 https://www.fabioitri.com/scomparsi_their_bodies_will_never_...
- lentil_soup 7y agoI was kidnapped many years ago and in conversation with them (to calm them and myself) they regarded kidnapping their profession, literally asking me to allow them do their job. You could feel they had a script for how things had to go. First they scare you to try to get you to say things from which they can get a feel for how much you're worth, then they throw a high number (I guess based on the previous step), negotiation starts, the ransom delivery and finally release.
- vaylian 7y agoIf you like to share this information: Which country was this? I imagine someone has to be quite psychopathic (or extremely greedy) to do kidnapping. I would imagine it is usually very traumatising for the victims, regardless of how friendly the kidnappers might seem.
- cheez 7y agoI was mildly aware that some acquaintances were familiar with people who kidnapped for ransom. Surprisingly, they were described as normal people.
- saiya-jin 7y agoNot more psychotic than most war veterans out there. Seeing kids, women or generally innocent civilians blown to pieces, machined down etc. numbs any moral compass. So unless somebody dies or they cut fingers or ears off, this might look like a good and OK job moral-wise to them.
- lentil_soup 7y agoThis was in Venezuela over 10 years ago. It was quite surreal, I was even lectured by one of them about being out at night, that I should be more careful since there's "bad people" out there and I was lucky to get caught by some good ones (!). I guess that shows what their frame of mind is, or how they excuse the whole thing to themselves.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- z3t4 7y agoIf you think you are about to get kidnapped, the earlier you attempt to escape the more likely you will succeed. The longer you wait the harder it will get. So try to escape right away.
- trabant00 7y agoThis sounds to me like reading the statistic backwards in terms of causation. I imagine people who can and are willing to try escape as soon as they can while people who either don't want to try or simply can't will never escape.
- TACIXAT 7y agoYou can cause a scene earlier, break windows, set off car alarms. That's a lot harder once you're in a vehicle or in a house being held.