Kidnapping for ransom

Summary

Business Daily – “Kidnapping for ransom”

Host: Ed Butler, BBC World Service
Air date: March 11, 2026

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Overview

This episode of Business Daily investigates the alarming global rise of kidnapping for ransom as a criminal business—an industry inflicting deep economic and emotional wounds on its victims. Focusing on hotspots in West Africa and Latin America, the episode explores the methods used by kidnappers, the way the crime is spreading, the victims’ harrowing experiences, and expert advice on minimizing harm and negotiating ransoms. The episode also highlights transnational trends, evolving tactics, and ongoing shortcomings in law enforcement and prevention.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Human Cost: First-Hand Victim Testimony

• Ibrahim, a livestock herder in eastern Ghana, recounts his abduction for ransom. The psychological and financial trauma suffered by victims and their families is a central thread.
  • [01:24] Ibrahim: “He don't know them. He's so, so afraid. He's so, so afraid.”
  • [08:24] “He have animals and he's not a wealthy man… [kidnappers asked] how much will you give us? …they told him that he should give them 15,000 Ghana cedis. If he didn’t afford that money, they should kill him.”
  • [09:23] “He sell lot of animals before getting that money. Since he come back, he's even working footed. He's not even buy motorbike because no resources to take care of the house. The animals that he sells leave him with nothing.”

2. Scale and Spread of the Crisis

• Massive numbers: Around 20,000 kidnappings in Nigeria in six years; the issue is now spilling into Ghana and Benin.
• Driven initially by Islamist violence in northern Nigeria, but increasingly a “free for all amongst all kinds of criminal gangs.”
  • [01:48] Jeremy Douglas, UN Office on Drugs & Crime (UNODC): “It's definitely accelerating, globalizing... We have also technologically driven kidnapping and extortion in Asia at the moment.”
  • [03:09] Ed Butler: “Making Nigeria a global hotspot.”
  • [03:28] Flora Berger, Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime: “It kind of has spread first to the border with Benin, spreading also into Ghana.”

3. Changing Tactics and Criminal Networks

• Target selection: Kidnappers increasingly target wealthy livestock owners, businesspeople, and sometimes community members, using inside information.
  • [03:48] Flora Berger: “They have started recruiting younger member of their community in other countries… we'll often hear of young individual who will... be involved in the kidnapping of a member of his own community and often related to livestock and cattle.”
• Transnational methods: Borders are exploited for hiding victims and conducting negotiations.
  • [05:29] Berger: “It's extremely easy to cross the border... keep the hostages in these foresty areas. Definitely using the border as... a way to hide.”

4. Economics of Kidnapping

• Ransom demands: Range from a few thousand to tens of thousands of US dollars, depending on perceived victim wealth.
  • [04:35] Berger: “For the wealthy cattle owners, it can be hundreds of thousands of Ghanaian cedis... tens of thousands of US dollars.”
• Negotiation process: Victims’ families sometimes end up selling everything they own.
• Payments: Increasingly made in local currencies, but sometimes involve cross-border transfers, including cryptocurrency.
  • [17:36] Jeremy Douglas: “There's also a lot of cross border transfers of cryptocurrencies that take place, which makes it much easier for criminal groups, frankly.”

5. Expert Advice: Negotiating a Ransom

(Carlos Seoani, Kidnap Negotiator based in Mexico)

• Professional help is essential.
  • [12:07] Seoani: “Get professional help… you need crisis management skills and knowledge in order to serve through those storms.”
• Negotiation strategies:
  • Do not accept first demands:
    [13:34] Seoani: “Establish credibility… The bad guy say, we want $2 million. Okay, I have your $2 million. No resistance, no bargaining… Now I want five. So you just bought the victim in captivity an extra week.”
  • Always bargain down:
    [15:20] Seoani: “Between 10 and 20% [of original demand].”
  • Take your time:
    [14:06] “Don’t pay fast. You need to say, I don’t have it, but I’m gonna do my best effort… break down the bad guys’ expectancies.”
  • Plan settlements stepwise:
    [14:31] “You have to go from 15 to 10 to 7 to 3 to, to 1... the well is dried.”
• Return rates:
  • [15:45] Seoani: “...only one person didn’t return... Over more than two decades and close to 200 cases, one person didn’t return.”
  • [16:43] “Usually, as I told you, kidnapped victims return worldwide... around 94, 95%.”

6. Challenges in Prevention and Law Enforcement

• Lack of trust in authorities:
  • [11:27] Ed Butler (about Ibrahim): “He didn’t report the case to the police because he says nomadic Fulani tribesmen like him are routinely victimized by the authorities.”
• Shortcomings & innovations:
  • [17:36] Jeremy Douglas: “We train on online investigations... And it’s also very much these days about the financial investigations because the money transfers can be much more sophisticated.”
  • No "silver bullet":
    [18:44] Douglas: “There’s no silver bullet. But those things are really not being done in many, many parts of the world. There’s very little from the preventive side, very little on the mitigation side.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [01:24] Ibrahim (Victim):
  “He's so, so afraid. He's so, so afraid.”

• [08:24] Ibrahim:
  “They told him that he should give them 15,000 Ghana cedis. If he didn’t afford that money, they should kill him.”

• [12:07] Carlos Seoani (Negotiator):
  “Get professional help. Doesn't matter if it's private, if it's public. ...you need crisis management skills and knowledge in order to survive through those storms.”

• [13:34] Seoani:
  “Establish credibility.”

• [14:06] Seoani:
  “Don’t pay fast. If you say it will take me a long time, that is a very tough assignment. You didn’t say no. So you need to say, I don’t have it, but I’m gonna do my best effort...”

• [15:20] Seoani:
  “Between 10 and 20% [of the original ransom is typically paid].”

• [18:44] Jeremy Douglas (UNODC):
  “There’s no silver bullet. ...Fundamentally, people are putting themselves in positions to be potentially kidnapped and then therefore extorted.”

• [19:34] Ibrahim (After return):
  “The life now is so, so hard because since they recall him back, it's not only him. Entire house doesn't have peace of mind about sleeping. And he still so, so scared about them because sometimes they do call him again.”

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:24] — Introduction & victim’s story (Ibrahim)
• [03:28] — Growth & spread of kidnapping rings in West Africa (Flora Berger)
• [07:17] — First-hand account: abduction and ransom negotiations (Ibrahim)
• [11:27] — Life after kidnapping and mistrust of authorities (Ibrahim)
• [12:07] — Strategies for negotiating kidnappings (Carlos Seoani)
• [17:36] — Global response and challenges for governments (Jeremy Douglas)
• [19:34] — Lasting impacts: emotional and economic aftermath for survivors (Ibrahim)

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Conclusion

This sober episode lays bare the business of kidnapping for ransom, highlighting both its rapid expansion and the crushing consequences for families and communities. Expert voices underline that careful, professional negotiation can save lives and money, but the need for improved prevention and robust law enforcement is urgent. Victims like Ibrahim are left with lasting trauma and economic ruin, even after surviving their ordeal—a grim reminder of the crime’s far-reaching effects.

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Transcript

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[Ed Butler]

Hi there, I'm Ed Butler. Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. Today we're looking at the growing global scourge of kidnapping.

[Ibrahim (Kidnap Victim)]

The day that they came to him, they came around 12 midnight and then they tired their hands at the back. He don't know them. He's so, so afraid. He's so, so afraid. On that day, more and more people

[Ed Butler]

like this man, tens of thousands of them it sought are being taken and kidnapped for ransom every year. Who's behind this criminal industry and is it getting worse?

[Jeremy Douglas]

It's definitely accelerating globalizing. It's long been a problem in places like Latin America or in Africa. But we have also technologically driven kidnapping and extortion in Asia at the moment. That's where we see, I think, a lot, a lot of growth.

[Ed Butler]

The economics of kidnapping. That's Business Daily from the BBC. The sound there of African villagers being beaten. This was a video taken last year by a criminal gang in northern Nigeria in order to persuade relatives or lawmakers to part with their cash.

[Ibrahim (Kidnap Victim)]

They told my wife, if you don't want us to kill your husband, bring money. They used to beat us when they want to negotiate with our people. When they are beating us even, they are the one that used to teach us what we will be saying. Tell them you need money or else they will Kill you.

[Ed Butler]

Those are the words of one kidnap victim, Heroia, who was taken with his daughter last year. The ransom was paid. Mariam was also taken in a separate incident when gunmen stopped the train that she was traveling on.

[Ibrahim (Kidnap Victim)]

More than scared. More than scared because we were thinking is ahead of time for us maybe, probably we will not see our families again.

[Ed Butler]

Some 20,000 Nigerians are estimated to have been kidnapped in this way over the last six years. It's a growing criminal crisis fueled by Islamist violence in the north. Now though, most experts say it's become a free for all amongst all kinds of criminal gangs, making Nigeria a global hotspot.

[Flora Berger]

It kind of has spread first to the border with Benin, spreading also into Ghana. So we have seen a spread.

[Ed Butler]

Basically that's Flora Berger, a researcher at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, confirming the growth of kidnapping, especially within nomadic tribal communities in West Africa.

[Flora Berger]

Basically the original, let's say Nigerian bandits who started doing that, they have started recruiting younger member of their community in other countries, which basically facilitates the kidnapping of people in their own family. So we'll often hear of young individual who will, you know, give information or be involved in the kidnapping of a member of his own community and often related to livestock and cattle. Targeting cattle owners. After the market today, a cattle owner can be directly targeted. For example, they'll call his family and say, you know, we know we have him, we know he has money, deliver us the cash.

[Ed Butler]

What sort of ransoms are we typically looking at?

[Flora Berger]

I mean, for the, the wealthy cattle owners, it can be hundreds of thousands of Ghanaian cities. So it's, it's quite, it's quite tens

[Ed Butler]

of thousands of US dollars.

[Flora Berger]

Yeah, exactly. So this is for the really wealthy individuals. It can be also smaller business owners and particularly for the Nigeria Benin border dynamic. It was very interesting because the kidnappers were phoning from Nigeria with a Nigerian phone and they were asking a ransom in naira in the Nigerian currency.

[Ed Butler]

So how typically would you say this is transnational kidnapping? People are taking advantage of a nearby border to take the victim, carry them over or at least escape to the neighbouring country if and when a kidnap is completed.

[Flora Berger]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, as we know, it's extremely easy to cross the border, you know, keep the hostages in these foresty areas. Definitely using the border as, you know, a way to hide.

[Ed Butler]

In the case of northern Ghana, a lot of the concern, I suppose around northern Ghana is to do with what's going on in Burkina Faso to the north right now with an Islamist uprising with Jaim A well known Al Qaeda affiliate working in that area and the fear that it could be traveling south of the border. Is there any sense that this kidnapping spree is associated with the rise of Islamist violence?

[Flora Berger]

So to date there is no evidence proving that the two phenomenon are linked. We specifically looked into that. But we know from our other work in the Sahar in Bukina Faso that when Jim infiltrates a new community, a new, a new territory, one of the first thing they do is kidnap, you know, local leaders that can influence their community or people who have specific, you know, intelligence information. People that can become spy for them. So the kidnapping is a key part of the expansion strategy.

[Ed Butler]

Flor Berger of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Crime. This is a livestock market in eastern Ghana. And this is Ibrahim. He's a livestock herder who often trades here. Last year his life was turned upside down when kidnappers came knocking on his door.

[Ibrahim (Kidnap Victim)]

The day that they came to him, they came around 12 midnight. He's sleeping and they wake him up. The one of them hit him with a wood. And then they asked him they should fold his hands. And they fold his hand and then they tie their hands at the back. Then he don't know them.

[Ed Butler]

How were you feeling at that moment?

[Ibrahim (Kidnap Victim)]

He's so, so frustrated because he don't know them. And he's so, so afraid. He's so, so afraid. On that day, what happened then? He took his motorbike. And then there are four people. The one that come with the motorbike. He took him to the house and they put him inside the room. They tied his hands and then tied his leg.

[Ed Butler]

It was only at this point that the kidnappers revealed their demands. 200,000 Ghanaian CDs or about $20,000. Ibrahim said he could only afford a fraction of that.

[Ibrahim (Kidnap Victim)]

He have animals and he's not a wealthy man. And then he told them that he can't afford that money. And then they asked him, how much will you give us? And then he told them that he will give them 5,000 cedis. They say no. They told him that he should give them 15,000 Ghana cedis. If he didn't afford that money, they should kill him.

[Ed Butler]

What happened? How did this resolve itself?

[Ibrahim (Kidnap Victim)]

They said they can't reduce the price again. And they detained him five days in their room. And now his family members organize animals and sell and organize their money and go.

[Ed Butler]

So you had to sell all your livestock just to stay alive.

[Ibrahim (Kidnap Victim)]

He sell lot of animals before getting that money. Since he come back, he's even working footed. He's not even buy motorbike because no resources to take care of the house. The animals that he sells leave him with nothing.

[Ed Butler]

Have you heard of other people suffering the same fate being kidnapped in your community?

[Ibrahim (Kidnap Victim)]

The people that they kidnap in their community, they are there. He's the fourth person that they're keeping up in their community.

[Ed Butler]

He's the fourth person kidnap victim. Ibrahim, you're listening to Business daily on the BBC World Service.

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[Ed Butler]

I'm Ed Butler, and today we're looking at the business of kidnap for ransom. How it's spreading and what happens to those who are taken. Ibrahim spent five days in captivity, much of it bound to a chair and blindfolded. He didn't think he'd survive. He suspects that one of his captors had links within his own community because they were getting reports of his family's efforts to raise money for him. He didn't report the case to the police because he says nomadic Fulani tribesmen like him are routinely victimized by the authorities. They never help them. But experts say that tackling this kind of crisis alone is rarely the best solution.

[Carlos Seoani]

Get professional help. Doesn't matter if it's private, if it's public. I mean, you need crisis management skills and knowledge in order to serve through those storms.

[Ed Butler]

This is Carlos Seoani. He's based in Mexico, another major kidnapping hotspot, and he's an expert on the subject. Making a career out of advising people how to deal with a situation that for most will be the worst experience they've ever faced.

[Carlos Seoani]

When you have somebody from your company or your family being kidnapped, then you need someone with the proper knowledge in order to, to guide you through, through a maze, a really deep dark hole, and allow you to make proper decisions.

[Ed Butler]

So what is your first advice to a family member who has suffered this?

[Carlos Seoani]

I'm going to say that I've been involved in around 170 cases. So there's a list of do's and don'ts. And those do's and don'ts can help reduce the amount to be paid, reduce the time of captivity, and reduce the harm, physical harm, to the victim. Because it's not just a matter of money.

[Ed Butler]

What's the first thing then on that list that the first do or don't you need?

[Carlos Seoani]

Establish credibility. So when you say to the bad guy, this is what I have, and that's the only thing that I'm able to get, the bad guy believes you. The bad guy say, we want $2 million. Okay, I have your $2 million. No resistance, no bargaining, no nothing. Then I'm gonna say, oh, I made a mistake. Now I want five. So you just bought the victim in captivity an extra week.

[Ed Butler]

So you're saying don't meet the first ransom demand. Don't agree with it, don't pay everything

[Carlos Seoani]

and don't pay fast. If you say it will take me a long time, that is a very tough assignment. You didn't say no. So you need to say, I don't have it, but I'm gonna do my best effort and I'm gonna sweat 24 hours a day in order to get you as most as I, as I can. So break down the bad guys expectancies.

[Ed Butler]

Okay, and then what?

[Carlos Seoani]

Well, you have to establish what we call tsf, a target settlement figure. I mean, how much are you able to raise in the coming three or four days? If I get my money out of the bank, I ask a family members for a loan, sell my vehicle, I believe I can get £30,000. Okay, now we have to establish steps. So you have to go from 15 to 10 to 7 to 3 to, to 1, to. There's no more water in the well. The well is dried. And that takes time and that takes knowledge. And there's a methodology.

[Ed Butler]

So you proceed slowly, you make incremental offers. What As a proportion of the original demand. What sort of a total should you normally end up at?

[Carlos Seoani]

Between 10 and 20%.

[Ed Butler]

Really? As little as that?

[Carlos Seoani]

In many, many cases we end up paying from 10 to 20% and some cases even a little bit less. That is not like a rule, but it's more or less a guideline.

[Ed Butler]

And that improves not just your bank balance obviously, but you've also improved the prospects of the victim.

[Carlos Seoani]

Yeah, look, in those 170something cases that I've help families or companies, only one person didn't return. Over more than two decades and close to 200 cases, one person didn't return. What happened? I have no clue. You have to raise the probabilities for the victim to return. Don't frustrate the bad guys. You have to let them get away with a piece of your, of your money, of whatever you have. It's not going to be nice. You may be in debt for several months, but get the victim back home.

[Ed Butler]

Have you ever suffered a victim being kidnapped repeatedly?

[Carlos Seoani]

Not the same victim, but a family?

[Ed Butler]

Yes. Okay. Because there is that fear, isn't there, that if you pay you're going to encourage further kidnapping.

[Carlos Seoani]

I mean, you don't pay what may be the consequences. Really ugly physical violence against the victim. Usually, as I told you, kidnapped victims return worldwide, not just in Mexico or Latin America. I'm going to say around 94, 95%. That's the data that I have return, not necessarily on harms, but they return. So if you play a game where you say there's no money, usually they will go through the physical harm and it's not going to be just slaps. These people are, they could be really, really demons.

[Ed Butler]

Kidnapped negotiator Carlos SEOWANI well, the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime has set up a body to advise governments on how to handle the scourge of kidnapping. The UNODC's deputy director is, is Jeremy Douglas.

[Jeremy Douglas]

We've had a project to essentially prepare mitigation measures with governments to help them prepare populations in places where there's the high prevalence of kidnap. If you're looking at prevention, there's a lot of environmental awareness that needs to be raised in places like Latin America, in Africa, West Africa particularly. And at the same time for governments, it's really about mitigation and investigation so that they have an understanding of the types of actions that criminals may be taking, packaging together an investigative response, but then it's also working with them on the investigation techniques and so forth to push back on the criminal groups that's where we train on online investigations or investigations that are more traditional in West Africa or in Latin America. And it's also very much these days about the financial investigations because the money transfers can be much more sophisticated. They're using cryptocurrencies. It's not simply the transfers of black bags in parks at night that we might see in movies. There's also a lot of cross border transfers of cryptocurrencies that take place, which makes it much easier for criminal groups, frankly.

[Ed Butler]

Yeah, so there is no silver bullet.

[Jeremy Douglas]

There's no silver bullet. But those things are really not being done in many, many parts of the world. There's very little from the preventive side, very little on the mitigation side. Fundamentally, people are putting themselves in positions to to be potentially kidnapped and then therefore extorted. So if we can raise the awareness level to the risks that they face, we can prevent a crime from taking place. It's much more effective than simply trying to investigate after. But obviously the investigation is very important as well.

[Ed Butler]

Jeremy Douglas. That's almost it for this edition of Business Daily, written and presented by me, Ed Butler. Before I go though, spare a thought not just for the financial but also the emotional losses than those who suffer this terrifying ordeal. People like Ibrahim in eastern Ghana. How is your life now?

[Ibrahim (Kidnap Victim)]

The life now is so, so hard because since they recall him back, it's not only him. Entire house doesn't have peace of mind about sleeping. And he still so, so scared about them because sometimes they do call him again. People still call.

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