Gangland feuds blamed for big rise in kidnaps

Kidnappings are increasing at an "unprecedented" rate with a sevenfold increase in the past three years to nearly two a week, a British intelligence report has found.

The number of kidnappings reported to the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS), a government agency established to deal with serious crime, has increased from roughly 25 in 1998 to about 195 last year.

A specialist intelligence unit has been set up to deal with a big growth in kidnaps overseas that are being masterminded by British criminals or that have links with UK gangsters. In the last half of 2001 there was about one such kidnap per week, the NCIS report into the work of its kidnap and extortion section revealed.

The intelligence agency believes the huge rise in kidnaps, which has grown from five cases reported to NCIS in 1993 to nearly 200 in the past year, is being fuelled partly by crime gangs seizing their opponents in disputes over guns, drugs and territory.

In many cases, including incidents in which members of the public are held and ransoms demanded, the kidnap victim has been tortured and beaten. In the cases to which the NCIS was alerted none of the victims was killed.

The NCIS report, which is due to be published next month, warns: "During the year there has been an unprecedented rise in kidnap investigations. Importantly, there has been a considerable and marked increase in reported criminal vendetta kidnaps to police forces throughout the UK.

"This type of kidnap involves criminal groups in a dispute over drugs, firearms or territorial infringements. Having failed to negotiate the release of a member of the group who has been kidnapped, the matter is reported to the police."

It continues: "Another growth area relates to the international dimension of kidnapping. During the last half of the year, there has been an average of one overseas kidnap per week with a direct or indirect impact in the UK. As a result the [kidnap and extortion] section has created a portfolio of operational and intelligence units who specialise in dealing with such issues in other jurisdictions."

The new units have been providing foreign police forces with information and assistance on kidnap, blackmail and contamination cases in which products are poisoned and money is demanded. The NCIS is currently working with 46 countries on this issue.

In a foreign kidnap case dealt with by NCIS, criminals based in the UK arranged for a Ghanaian businessman to be kidnapped in Amsterdam and taken to a hideout in Belgium. The NCIS was contacted when a ransom demand was made to his family living in Ghana.

In a 13-day operation the Belgian hideout was discovered and the businessman, who had been tortured, was freed. The kidnappers were arrested in London and throughout Europe.

London-based Chinese gangsters, known as "Snakeheads", have been responsible for a big rise in kidnap cases in the past.

The criminals are paid up to £10,000 per person to smuggle illegal immigrants from their homeland to the UK, but once they enter Britain they are held hostage until their relatives pay a ransom.

A series of successful raids by Scotland Yard's kidnap unit has drastically reduced the number of "Snakehead" cases, but detectives believe that some of the gangs have now moved out of the capital.

Tortured victims of a new menace

Criminal underworld

In May, Mark Lambie, a London gang leader, was jailed for 12 years for kidnapping two men and torturing them with a hammer, a hot iron and boiling water.

Lambie, 30,had lured Gregory Smith and Twaine Morris, to the Broadwater Farm estate in north London. The pair were kidnapped at gunpoint and tortured by Lambie, who demanded £20,000 and drugs. Mr Smith escaped and Mr Morris was freed after he threw himself on to the bonnet of a police car while being moved to a new location

Overseas ransom

Shiud Malik, a 40-year-old Birmingham man, was lured to a villa in Belgium where kidnappers beat him, set fire to his hair and feet.They threatened to kill him and demanded a £60,000 ransom. Police commandos stormed the hideout and freed him in December last year.

'Snakeheads'

A Chinese chef, Xaio Ming Cao, 25, was held for 12 days after he was grabbed by a gang at Hendon tube station in north London in 1996. He was handcuffed to a radiator and made to crawl and bark like a dog while he was kicked. A £40,000 ransom demand was made to his family in China, but the gang were arrested and jailed.