When people are able to do some research and find out that if they pay up, they really will get their stuff back, often times they will pay up. Everything old

When people are able to do some research and find out that if they pay up, they really will get their stuff back, often times they will pay up. Everything old is new again. Back in the late 17th/early 18th century, with no police, ransoming stolen possessions back was a fairly common and accepted practice. See e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Wild http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Wild for one of history's more colourful characters.