List of kidnappings
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This is a list of kidnappings.
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Modern kidnappings of celebrities or their relatives
Kidnappers interested in getting a large ransom or a political effect often target celebrities or their relatives. Here are some of the people affected by these crimes:
- Beatriz Adriana - The Mexican actress's son was kidnapped and found dead in Tijuana. While rumors abounded that her son's death was due to a drug debt, no evidence of that was ever found.
- Julio Iglesias's father was kidnapped in 1985. Found well and alive.
- Julio Cesar Chavez received threatening calls, saying his sons would be kidnapped.
- Jorge Campos (soccer player) - His father was kidnapped and later found alive in Acapulco, Mexico.
- Adolph Coors III, heir to the Coors beer fortune. He was found dead.
- Industrialist Baron Édouard-Jean Empain was kidnapped for ransom. His captors cut off one of his fingers in order to bring proof that they held him.
- Alejandro Fernandez - his brother was kidnapped (see Vicente Fernandez).
- Vicente Fernandez - The famous Mexican singer's son, Vicente Fernandez Jr., was kidnapped and later released alive.
- John Paul Getty III, kidnapped in Italy in 1973. His grandfather, the then world's richest man, American multi-billionaire oil tycoon, J. Paul Getty, refused to pay his $3 million ransom until one of the boy's ears was cut off and sent to a newspaper.
- Georgiy Gongadze, a prominent Ukrainian journalist kidnapped and later found beheaded in 2000. His disappearance has triggered a major political and diplomatic scandal also involving United States and other Western countries. No details of the crime revealed yet.
- Charles Lindbergh - The aviator's two-year old son, Charles Jr., was kidnapped in 1932, and was killed. This was among the most famous of modern kidnappings of celebrities' relatives. See Lindbergh kidnapping.
- William Randolph Hearst - His granddaughter Patty Hearst was kidnapped by the SLA in 1974. Her father gave $6 million in food to the poor of the Bay Area as ransom, but she was not released. She became part of her captor's group and was later convicted on bank robbery charges.
- Thalía - The Mexican Diva's sister, the also famous actress Laura Zapata and another unidentified sister, were kidnapped. They were both released alive.
- Laura Zapata (See Thalía).
- Nikoloz Tskitishvili - The basketball player, a star in his home country (Georgia), had strangers call to his house and threaten to kidnap his brother and mother after it became known he signed a million-dollar contract with the NBA's Denver Nuggets. As a consequence, he moved all his family to Denver.
- Johnny Tapia - The world boxing champion saw his mother raped and kidnapped when he was 8 years old. He was hiding when he witnessed the assault. His mother's body was found on a road days later.
- Alejandra Guzman - The Mexican singing diva has received several calls threatening to kidnap her ten year old daughter, because of which she has hired extra security. She always takes her daughter with her on the road.
- Jorge and Juan Born, (1974), scions of the Bunge y Born business were kidnapped in September by the Montoneros and only released after the payment of a $60 million ransom.
- Yuri - She was going to be kidnapped, but the plans folded when one of the would be kidnappers left the criminal band that would have committed the act, and told her cousin about the plans.
- Cesar Rosas - the wife of the member of Los Lobos, Sandra, was kidnapped on October 23, 1999, and never found again. Gabriel Gomez was accused and sentenced for her kidnapping and murder.
- Victor Li Tzar-kuoi, son of the Hong Kong tycoon, Li Ka Shing - kidnapped by Cheung Chi Keung, AKA "Big Spender". He was released after the world record payment of a HK$1Billion (US$134 million) ransom in cash. Cheung was later captured and executed in Guangzhou in 2000.
- Frank Sinatra, Jr., son of Frank Sinatra, was kidnapped and released after ransom was paid.
- Veruska Ramirez, former Miss Venezuela, kidnapped and released three hours later, after signing 15 autographs for her captors.
- Susana Gimenez - the Argentine diva's boyfriend's father was kidnapped on January 8, 2004.
- Adal Ramones, who was kidnapped in 2000, later released alive.
- Adi Koila Mara Nailatikau, First daughter of Fiji and senator, during a coup against her father. Kidnappers threatened to kill her, but she survived.
- Carlos Pesquera, former candidate for governor of Puerto Rico and president of the PNP party, held captive for a few hours on July 2004 in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico; released after paying captiors 1,000 dollars.
- Jean Mermoz, by an African tribe, at the Sahara.
- Riddick Bowe's wife, Julie and his five kids were kidnapped for five days by Bowe himself.
- Eric Peugeot, son of Raymond Peugeot, an automobile industry millionaire, was kidnapped at the age of four in 1960 in Paris. He was returned after payment of a ransom, and his kidnappers arrested a few years later.
Also of notice is that Dominican actor Andres Garcia announced he doubled his security guard numbers, afraid he and his family could get kidnapped too. On the same line, Manny Pacquiao, world boxing champion at the Flyweight, Jr. Featherweight and Featherweight divisions, has had to hire six security guards who constantly surround him and his family in his home country of the Philippines, after receiving kidnap threatening calls from several groups.
This crime is flourishing in poor countries, where the economic situation can drive people to desperate measures.
Faked kidnappings
- Author Agatha Christie, whose disappearance in 1926 was feared to be a kidnapping. When she re-appeared with no explanation, a real-life mystery began which remains to this day.
- Jules Croiset; Dutch Jewish actor faked being kidnapped by neo-nazis.
- Aimee Semple McPherson: evangelist who maintained she was kidnapped while all evidence pointed to the contrary.
- Seka Aleksic, faked his kidnapping in a car in 2004.
- Jennifer Wilbanks: alleged that she was kidnapped as an excuse for her running away from her own wedding.
Assumed kidnap conspiracies that turned out to be fake
- Victoria Beckham. The former member of the Spice Girls and wife of soccer player David Beckham was supposedly planned to be kidnapped on November 1, 2002.
- Jorge Ursino, the alleged illegal immigrant transporter from Arizona faked his own kidnapping to collect money, making headlines.
Other kidnappings
- Edgardo Mortara a six-year-old Jewish child rescued by Pope Pius IX in 1858 because a passing housekeeper had secretly baptized him. The child was never returned to his parents notwithstanding the humanitarian pleas of President Ulysses S. Grant, Emperor Franz Josef, and Napoleon III. At age 18 he decided to remain Catholic, taking the name Pius.
- Larcena Pennington and 11 year old Mercedes Sais Quiroz, by Apaches (1860).
- Marian Parker - On December 14, 1927 William Hickman kidnapped and murdered twelve-year-old Marian Parker, the daughter of a Los Angeles banker. A few days after being paid a small ransom, Hickman was arrested and tried. On October 19, 1928 became the first American kidnapper to be executed for his crime.
- Brooke Hart, the son of a San Jose, California businessman, was kidnapped and murdered. His kidnappers were lynched by a mob, the last public lynching in California (1933)
- North Korean abductions of South Koreans (began in 1950)
- Robert (Bobby) Cosgrove Greenlease Jr. - the six-year-old boy was kidnapped and immediately murdered September 28, 1953 in Kansas City, Missouri by Bonnie Heady and Carl Hall. They then demanded and were paid a $600,000 ransom from the boy's father, a wealthy automobile dealer. Notable in the case was that more than half of the ransom money was stolen by a corrupt police officer and never recovered.
- Adolf Eichmann, Nazi war criminal, abducted by Mossad in Argentina and brought back to Israel to stand trial for crimes against humanity. He was convicted and hanged. (1960)
- Joseph Bonanno, (1964). The crime family leader was kidnapped by his own enforcer, along with his lawyer. Forced to make economic and retirement agreements with other mafia bosses, he and his lawyer were let go alive.
- the forcible deportation the Chagos Islanders by the British government of Harold Wilson, to make way for a US military base on Diego Garcia (for which the British government received a £5 million discount on a Polaris missile) (1967 – 1973)
- James Cross, British diplomat, and Pierre Laporte, Quebec provincial politician. Their kidnappings by the Front de libération du Québec set off the 1970 October Crisis. Cross was released; Laporte was murdered.
- North Korean abductions of Japanese (1970s – 1980s)
- Walter Palmers, (1977), Austrian industrialist.
- Aldo Moro, (1978), former Italian Prime Minister.
- Shergar, (1981), Epsom Derby-winning racehorse
- Enrique Camarena, (1985), Mexican American DEA official, found dead.
- Mordechai Vanunu, Israeli nuclear whistleblower, abducted by Mossad in Italy and brought back to Israel, where he was convicted of treason and espionage, and served 18 years in prison, 11 years in solitary confinement (1986).
- Gerrit Jan Heijn, (1987), Dutch top executive of Ahold, brother of Albert Heijn; kidnapped and killed in 1987 by Ferry E.; after that Ferry E. pretended that his victim was still alive and asked and received ransom; he was caught after spending one of the banknotes of the ransom, of which the numbers had been recorded; he served a prison sentence and is free now; it was frowned upon that after his release he received over 300,000 euro back-payment of disability benefits for the time he was in prison (rules have changed now, this would no longer be possible).
- Delimar Vera Cuevas 1997, five week old baby kidnapped by a woman who set her house on fire to take her away, casually found by her natural mother at a birthday party six years later.
- Humberto Alvarez-Machain, suspect in the murder of Enrique Camarena, kidnapped, allegedly by Americans, to bring him to trial in the United States.
- Ingrid Betancourt, (2002), Colombian presidency candidate, by the FARC movement.
- Arjan Erkel in Chechnya (2002)
- Dru Sjodin. American college student, found dead on April 17, 2004.
- James Brandon, in Iraq (2004)