Couple of years ago I’d see these schemes all the time in local media.
Ah yes the classic evil spirit defense!
I’d suggest most successful kidnappings never actually make the news, as the whole affair never involves the authorities.
But is it an ear with rich parents?
That was sort of my question. Do those happen? I sort of suspect not, just because I would think that people would involve the authorities after the fact; you know, get the kid back, and then call the police and try to bring the kidnappers to justice, even if you don’t get the money back.
I understand those kind of kidnappings happen in other countries, where the authorities, well, aren’t, but in the US, not so much.
Also, even if it was true at one time, considering how quickly the alarm goes up for a missing person, particularly a child, I wonder if parents wouldn’t contact authorities before the kidnappers had a chance to contact the parents.
The kidnapping of Freddy Heineken comes to mind. Not, as per OP, in the US but nevertheless a datapoint.wiki link
In North America, unlikely. People withdrawing huge amounts of untraceable cash probably trigger some sort of alarm. Most kidnappers won’t take a cheque. And most people with the connections to raise large amounts of cash quietly - you probably don’t want to mess with.
Where was it, Italy or South America somewhere, where when the authorities heard about a kidnapping they would freeze the family’s money to prevent them paying the kidnappers?
Well, there was this infamous case, but someone will probably say it doesn’t count.
I love that story. When my son is misbehaving, I call him Red Chief-- his real name actually is Johnny. I was very sad when I had to explain it to my husband.
Steve Wynn’s daughter Kevyn was kidnapped in 1993. Steve paid $1.45 million and got her back safely. The kidnappers were caught when one of them tried to buy a Ferrari in Newport Beach for cash.
Not a factual source, but in the Ron Howard/Mel Gibson movie Ransom, that FBI guy told Mel that the families that paid generally got their kids back. Interesting that no reviewer at the time called them on that.
Virginia Piper, some details here. Two suspects arrested, acquitted due to evidence tampering. Officially they are innocent, and the crime is unsolved.