Monday, March 26, 2001
Kidnapping Creates Global Business
<http://news.findlaw.com/ap/f/1310/3-26-2001/20010326004924630.html>
By JOHN ENDERS
Associated Press Writer
When Americans and others are kidnapped overseas and held for ransom, it
means more business and sky-high fees for a small band of consultants who
specialize in dealing with kidnappers.
An increase in recent years in hostage-taking in volatile places like
Ecuador, Colombia, Nigeria, Yemen and Chechnya keeps such consultants
busy and makes their expertise invaluable.
�Kidnapping for ransom has become big business, particularly on the part
of extremist groups who use it to finance their other activities,� said
Clark Staten, director of Emergency Response and Research Institute of
Chicago, a security consulting firm.
�The consultant is sent out to simplify a problem,� said Peter Dobbs of
London, one of the world�s top kidnap and ransom experts whose firm
advises companies how to avoid kidnappings, helps them find insurance
against that risk, and negotiates ransom payments when it happens.
The U.S. government tries to discourage American companies from making
ransom payments, saying it encourages terrorism.
But companies frequently feel they have no choice _ especially when
hostage-takers start killing captives, as happened in late January with
one of 10 foreign oil workers who were kidnapped Oct. 12 in Ecuador.
The other hostages _ four of them Americans _ were released March 1.
There was a price: $13 million in ransom reportedly paid by an
international oil consortium after the murder of hostage Ronald Sander of
Sunrise Beach, Mo.
Between 70 and 80 percent of kidnap cases end in a ransom payment, Dobbs
said. Many ransom payments are negotiated by people like Dobbs,
consultants who charge up to $2,000 a day for their services plus
expenses such as hiring a helicopter, travel and lodging.
Dobbs� list of clients reflects the growing worry felt by international
companies.
�We have about 2,500 clients, more than a million insured people,� said
Dobbs, who was a consultant on the film �Proof of Life,� the story of an
American oil company executive kidnapped by Latin American guerrillas and
held until ransom negotiators deal for his freedom.
His firm worked on 24 kidnappings last year, 26 in 1999 and 16 in 1998.
So far this year, his �incident board� includes six kidnappings in
Colombia, three each in Zimbabwe and the Philippines, and one each in
Ecuador, Mexico and an unidentified Southeast Asian nation.
Employees of international oil, gas and mining firms are most at risk,
because there are more of them working abroad, and because their
companies can afford ransom payments.
�The magnitude of the problem has increased over the last 10 years,� said
Eleni Jacub, a senior risk manager for the security consulting firm
Control Risks Group, which counts 91 of the top Fortune 100 companies
among its clients.
Of the 1,000 hostage cases that Control Risks has worked on in the past
25 years, half have occurred over the past decade.
Control Risks� records show 300 foreign nationals have been kidnapped in
Colombia since 1991; more than 100 in the former states of the Soviet
Union, including Russia�s restive republic of Chechnya; and about 100 in
the Philippines and the same number in Yemen.
The State Department�s overseas security council notes: �There is a
greater risk of being kidnapped in Colombia than in any other country in
the world. More than a dozen U.S. citizens were kidnapped in Colombia in
1999, twice as many as in 1998.�
Though politics and economics often blur in hostage takings by many
groups, sometimes the motive appears purely political.
That seems to have been the case in Chechnya, where Radio Liberty
reporter Andrei Babitsky was kidnapped last year and Doctors Without
Borders medical worker Kenneth Gluck was grabbed in January. It also
appears to have been the motivation for the murder of three American
Indian leaders by Colombian guerrillas two years ago.
In the case of the oil workers kidnapped in Ecuador, the families of the
hostages went public with demands that their employers pay ransom.
Such public pressure _ along with media reports of other ransom payments
_ puts increasing pressure on multinational firms to bargain with
kidnappers.
The companies often turn to professional consultants, most of them with
extensive contacts in the U.S. intelligence community and foreign and
domestic law enforcement agencies.
The consultants usually negotiate with kidnappers via intermediaries from
local police or military.
Ransom demands vary, as do ransom payments.
�We have had demands for up to $100 million,� Dobbs said.
In 10 years, his firm has helped arrange three ransom payments exceeding
$1 million and about 10 payments in excess of $500,000, he said. The
average ransom payment has been $250,000.
Mike Ackerman, founder of the Ackerman Group of Miami, another top
political risk analysis firm, says kidnapping in the Third World is
sometimes made easier because of inefficiency or corruption among
government officials and police.
�It is not a high-risk undertaking,� he said. �Most kidnappers get away
with it.�
Ackerman negotiated the release of seven Canadian workers and one
American freed in 1999 in Ecuador. Their kidnappers demanded $15 million
initially, and $3.5 million eventually was paid. The workers were freed
after 100 days in a remote jungle region of the country.
The group that held those workers is believed to be the same one that
kidnapped the 10 oil exploration workers in Ecuador last October.
The origin of their Ecuadorean kidnappers is not clear. But Ackerman and
others believe they have a connection to the Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia, a guerrilla group that controls large portions of that
neighboring country.
�It�s either a FARC black op, or it�s people who used to be FARC and have
combined with criminal elements in Ecuador,� Ackerman said.
For released captives, freedom is sweet.
Rod Dunbar of Edmonton, Alberta, was among seven Canadians and one
American held for 100 days in Ecuador in 1999.
Several dozen gunmen in combat fatigues and painted faces kidnapped
Dunbar and a co-worker, Leonard Carter of Montezuma, Utah, from a jungle
area in northeastern Ecuador where their employer, United Pipeline, was
doing work on an existing oil pipeline.
�They just came out of the bush, right in front of us,� said the
36-year-old Dunbar.
�All with automatic rifles and pistols.�
Eventually they were grouped with others and taken to remote camps near
the Colombian border.
The hostages were taken on 36-hour forced marches through swamp and
jungle, sleeping in the rain for days on end.
The kidnappers fed their captives �monkeys, snakes, piranha, wild pig _
anything that walked, crawled or swam that they could get their hands
on,� he said.
When they were freed, they got to thank Ackerman and other others who
negotiated their ransom.
�We owe a lot to those people,� Dunbar said.
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On the Net:
State Department�s Overseas Security Advisory Council:
http://www.ds-osac.org/
Ackerman Group: http://www.ackermangroup.com
Kroll Associates: http://www.krollworldwide.com/home.cfm
Chubb Executive Risk: http://cber.chubb.com/
Pinkerton/BurnsSecuritas: http://www.pinkertons.com/
