Most Expensive Ransom
Possibly, you might have seen in movies how authorities never negotiate with criminals. But the reality is that criminals do get ransoms. One of the business criminals can do best involves kidnapping people and demanding for huge ransoms. This business is also extremely risky. And in most cases, these criminals target extremely rich people who never care about losing a few millions.
Such rich people include wealthy businesspersons and oil rankers. In most cases, the ransoms don’t represent any huge damage to them. A large number of such cases happened in the 1970s particularly in Argentina. The following are some of the most expensive ransoms ever paid:
1. Maran Centaurus oil tanker crew - $ 7 Million
Somali Pirates hijacked the Maran Centaurus oil tanker which carried oil worth $165 million in 2009 and they took the crew captive. They eventually set the crew free three months later after more than $ 8 million was dropped onto the tanker for their release.
2. Patty Hearst - $ 6 Million
Patty Hearst was only 19 years old and a second year undergraduate when the Symbionese Liberation Army kidnapped her together with her boyfriend in 1974. The Liberation Army asked her father to distribute food worth $70 to each Californian who needed it.
3. Enrique Metz - $5 Million
Enrique Metz was an extremely rich Mercedes Benz executive. A guerilla group from Argentina called the Montoneros captured him in the year 1975 and asked for a huge ransom of $ 5 million to release him.
4. John Thompson - $3 Million
In 1974, ERP kidnapped John Thompson – president of Firestone Company - and demanded a ransom of $3 million. They released him 3 weeks later after the huge amount was paid. This was one among the many such cases in the 1970s.
5. Ronald Grove - $1 Million
6. Vincenzo Russo 1972 - $1 Million
7. Bobby Greenlease Jr 1953 - $600,000
Kidnapping seems to be among the most profitable businesses in the world as we can see from the list, which represents some of the most expensive ransoms. In some cases, kidnappers sought money while in others it was done to meet political goals.
