Today’s world can be quite a dangerous place, especially for tourists and the population of the 11 countries with the highest rates of kidnapping. Be it for political reasons, ransom money or as a blow in a conflict between two opposed groups, kidnapping has been used since the dawn of mankind to gain advantage in a conflict. While in many countries kidnappers mainly target tourists so that they can request ransom money from their families and make a living out of it, the people in the items on this list can fear kidnapping at any time, no matter if they’re local or visiting. For a list of the most dangerous places for tourists you should surely see our list of the 9 most dangerous countries for tourists to visit. If you are interested in finding out where they have the highest kidnapping rates for locals and people from abroad alike, read on.
Kidnapping does not have to be all about violent crime, though. A lot of kidnappings result from child custody disputes, where the court (according to the defendant) unlawfully rules for the other parent. The child can be held illegally against its own will or the will of the other parent, which in no way threatens the child usually, but is also considered kidnapping. In certain places, though, if the child is taken away but it has given its own consent, the offending parent may not be held liable for kidnapping. However, laws vary from country to country and from state to state.
There are many types of recognized kidnappings which vary in how bizarre they are. Take for example, the Tiger Kidnapping which, albeit its exotic name, is the common act of kidnapping someone close to the target in order to exploit their relations with the kidnaped person. Another common type of the crime is Express Kidnapping which is fairly common in certain Latin America countries. It usually consist of briefly kidnapping tourists or wealthy looking people and demanding money from their family or company. A variety of that is the ATM kidnapping, in which the victim is taken around ATMs and forced to withdraw huge sums of money. Sometimes these sorts of forcefully being held result in the victim being taken to their own home and robbed.
