TIGER KIDNAPPING By: Wille Heino
Tiger kidnapping Could you be targeted?
Over the years there have been many articles in Circuit Magazine about the kidnapping threat, and rightly so.
As we know, the danger of kidnapping is always a concern amongst high-level executives, especially when operating and traveling to some regions where kidnapping occurrences are more common. In this article, however, the topic is focused on one particular method of kidnapping, and that is what's known as tiger kidnapping. Background Tiger kidnapping is always conducted by serious organized crime groups. Although the kidnapping phase itself is fast, traumatic, and often violent, to be able to go through the many stages of the process, it requires intelligence, insider knowledge, surveillance and
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resources from a hostile group - these types of incidents are not carried out by low-level opportunist criminals. The phenomenon started back in the seventies with tactics used by the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The IRA kidnapped people in order to get them to place car bombs against British political and military targets. The phenomena, which started as a terrorist tactic, soon developed into what has become known as tiger kidnappings, with the aim of obtaining large amounts of cash. After proving to be a successful tactic, the trend quickly spread and soon grew into a global phenomenon. During the 1980s, incidents were isolated, mostly