kidnap y - robertson ryan · in lokoja (kogi state). criminal groups had also kidnapped two other...

Note: Hiscox and Control Risks request that recipients do not forward the contents outside the distribution list. Any breach of this will lead to removal from the distribution list.

Prepared by for

MO

NTH

LY

KIDNAPBRIEFING

This is the 110th issue in a series of kidnap-focused reports prepared by Control Risks on behalf of Hiscox. The Monthly Kidnap Briefing is distributed to select clients in order to keep you informed of the trends in kidnapping worldwide and assess the risk of kidnapping to your business.

This issue includes an overview of kidnapping-for-ransom trends in March, a brief on kidnap and police corruption in Venezuela and a focus on kidnap in Karachi.

ISSUE 110 | April 2015

TABLE OF CONTENTS

GLOBAL INSIGHTAmericas 1Africa 2Asia 2Middle East 3

BRIEF ON LATIN AMERICAPolice corruption in Venezuela 4Long-standing police corruption 4‘Police revolution’ 4Police still perpetrating crimes 4Government support needed for effective reform 5

FOCUS ONKarachi: the kidnapping capital of Pakistan 6Going from bad to worse? 7

ABOUT USControl Risks 8Hiscox 8

If you would like to provide us withfeedback on the Monthly Kidnap Briefingor inform us of your interest in a specificcountry or theme that you would like usto cover in a subsequent issue, thenplease write to [email protected]

1


Prepared by for

GLOBAL INSIGHT

Americas

KIDNAP IN MONTERREY HIGHLIGHTS RISKS TO HIGH NET-WORTH INDIVIDUALS AND THEIR DEPENDANTS

The kidnapped daughter of a well-known businessman involved in the energy industry was released on 16 March after being held for four days in Monterrey (Nuevo León state). Monterrey has become increasingly insecure in recent years as a result of a continuing turf war between the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas. It is Mexico’s wealthiest city, and kidnaps of wealthy individuals and their dependants – along with large ransom demands - are common.

The victim in this case was kidnapped while driving in San Pedro Garza Garcia, an area of Monterrey that is popular for socialising and which has generally been considered safe despite an increase in kidnaps in the city in recent years. The kidnap is likely to have been opportunistic and the kidnappers are likely to have been seeking a potential target by assessing people’s wealth based on their vehicles, a common tactic in Monterrey. The victim was reportedly driving a sports car at the time of the abduction, which is likely to have attracted the kidnappers’ attention. Risks to wealthy individuals and their dependants can increase if their wealth is made obvious by their appearance or the vehicle in which they are travelling.

The victim’s perceived wealth is also likely to have influenced the kidnappers’ higher than average ransom demand of MXN 5m (US$332,000). The average ransom demand in Nuevo León in 2014 was US$144,000 according to Control Risks’ records. This case provides a reminder that the security situation in Monterrey remains unstable and that caution should be exercised in all areas of the city – even those believed to be safe – and that ostentatious displays of wealth should be avoided.

ABDUCTION OF TEENAGE GIRL A REMINDER OF THE RISK OF KIDNAPPING IN GUATEMALA

The abduction of a 16-year-old girl in Santa Cruz el Naranjo (Santa Rosa department) on 13 March is a reminder of the kidnap risk in Guatemala, which remains HIGH.

The victim was travelling on a motorcycle when she was intercepted by a group of men, who took her to a mountainous area. Most abductions in Guatemala in 2014 were staged while the victim was in transit. In urban centres, criminals often target victims when their vehicle is stationary, either at traffic lights or while in traffic. In more remote areas, gangs are more likely to intercept vehicles, forcing the victim to pull over, or make targets stop at illegal roadblocks. Such tactics highlight the need for robust journey management for both routine and non-routine journeys.

The kidnappers contacted the victim’s family and made a ransom demand. Police rescued the victim on 15 March and no ransom was paid. The case is a reminder of the persistent kidnapping threat that everyone, but particularly young people, in Guatemala face; according to Control Risks’ data, dependants accounted for 47% of victims between January 2014 and March 2015. Dependants are regularly kidnapped because they are regarded as ‘easy targets’, and families are likely to pay a ransom quickly so as not to prolong a kidnap-for-ransom and ensure the victim’s safe release.

The criminal kidnappers may have planned the abduction and selected the teenager based on the perceived wealth of her family; alternatively, this could have been an opportunistic kidnap-for-ransom. Both types of kidnaps are common.

TABLE OF CONTENTS






2


Prepared by for

TABLE OF CONTENTS






Africa

SPATE OF INCIDENTS IN CENTRAL NIGERIA UNDERLINES PERSISTENT COUNTRYWIDE KIDNAPPING THREAT TO EXPATRIATES

Gunmen on 12 March kidnapped three Chinese nationals from a local business premises in Lokoja (Kogi state). Criminal groups had also kidnapped two other Chinese expatriates, three Indian construction workers and an American missionary in the state in recent weeks.

The spate of incidents in Kogi highlights the geographical spread of kidnapping-for-ransom in Nigeria. Although the Niger delta remains the country’s overall kidnapping hotspot, the threat in recent years has also extended to the Middle Belt, with criminal kidnapping gangs operating in parts of Benue, Kogi and Nasarawa states. In the north and north-east of the country, Islamist militant groups pose the primary threat to local residents and foreign operators. Local Boko Haram factions have increasingly employed kidnapping-for-ransom to fund their operations and have sought to abduct foreign nationals in recent months.

Criminal gangs with financial motives – as opposed to Islamist groups – were responsible for the recent incidents. Despite the emergence of small-scale Islamist networks in both Kogi and Nasarawa in recent years, Boko Haram is likely to lack the capability and intent to stage kidnaps of expatriates outside its territorial strongholds in the north-eastern states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa.

Foreign nationals remain attractive targets for criminal gangs because of their perceived wealth. Expatriates are most commonly targeted by criminal gangs at project sites or as they travel to and from their accommodation. Most criminal kidnapping cases tend to be resolved within a week and rarely end in the victim’s death. Islamist cases in the far north are considerably different, with longer negotiations, higher ransom demands and a greater threat to the victim’s life, with several killings having been recorded.

In a case in February, two minors were kidnapped in Santa Elena (Petén department); they were rescued by police officers after two days in captivity. Both this kidnap and the kidnap in March occurred in border areas where law enforcement is lax and organised criminal groups with operations in Mexico, Honduras and El Salvador have significant influence.

Guatemala country is Central America’s kidnapping hotspot and was 13th on Control Risks’ global kidnapping rankings in 2014. Kidnapping is likely to remain a problem in 2015 unless the administration of President Otto Pérez Molina can make strides in improving law enforcement and combatting criminal gangs.

Asia

MALAYSIA: MILITANT GROUP RELEASES LAST HOSTAGE, EXPECT ABDUCTION ATTEMPTS IN NEXT SIX MONTHS

The Philippines-based Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in early March released a Malaysian police constable whom the group had kidnapped in Mabul (Sabah state) in July 2014. The constable was the group’s only remaining victim and the last to be targeted in a spate of five kidnaps-for-ransom on the Malaysian east coast between November 2013 and July 2014.

Whether a ransom was paid to secure the constable’s release was not reported. Nevertheless, with total reported ransom demands for the five incidents exceeding US$18m, the kidnaps are likely to have been lucrative for the group. Unconfirmed reports indicate that the family of one of the victims, a Chinese tourist kidnapped from a resort in Semporna in April 2014, paid US$6.8m for her release in May 2014.

3


Prepared by for

TABLE OF CONTENTS






The Malaysian authorities in July 2014 introduced several security measures aimed at combatting the kidnapping threat from the ASG, and there have been no known incidents since. The main initiative – a night-time sea curfew ranging from the shore line to three nautical miles from the international sea border – remained in place as of March 2015. Nevertheless, the Malaysian coastline is a vast expanse, making it difficult to patrol. Given the size of the potential ransoms the ASG stands to gain from a successful abduction, attempts in the next six months are likely.

Middle East

YEMEN: SANAA REMAINS COMPLEX KIDNAPPING THREAT ENVIRONMENT

Three foreign national kidnapping victims regained their freedom in March. Two of the victims were abducted in the capital Sanaa. The incidents were very different, highlighting to a degree the complex threat environment in the capital.

Iranian authorities claimed that an intelligence operation led to the 2 March release of an Iranian diplomat who was kidnapped in July 2013. Reporting indicated that the victim was held by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Long periods in captivity characterise Islamist extremist kidnaps of foreign nationals in Yemen, placing significant strain on the victim, the victim’s family and company resources. Other complicating factors are that Islamist groups often use the victim in online propaganda, underlining the requirement for a predetermined media strategy and that groups can make political and/or high financial demands. Companies and families often have little influence over these demands, leaving governments in the negotiating seat.

A recent incident involving a French employee of a development company was significantly shorter in duration because of its tribal nature. The victim was released along with her translator on 3 March after just one week in captivity. Tribal kidnaps rarely last more than two weeks, though the cultural aspects of tribal negotiation and the need for local government liaison on negotiations over low-level political demands complicate these cases.

Zaidi Shia Houthi militants lend a third dimension to the kidnapping threat in Sanaa. Since the Houthi takeover of much of the capital in September 2014, Houthis have been responsible for several kidnaps of local nationals, specifically high-ranking government and security officials, journalists and activists who speak out against the movement, and those whom the movement accuses of supporting or harbouring AQAP. The sustained period of heightened insecurity in the capital has led several foreign embassies to withdraw their missions and advise their nationals against all travel.

4


Prepared by for

BRIEF ON LATIN AMERICATABLE OF CONTENTS






POLICE CORRUPTION IN VENEZUELA

The kidnapping risk in Venezuela remains HIGH and is unlikely to improve as long as the country’s political and economic situation remains highly unstable. The security environment is such that the country’s own police forces are reported to be perpetrating the crime. Several recent arrests have underlined the regular involvement of both serving and former officers in criminal activities, a situation that is unlikely to change without increased political will to reform the country’s security forces.

LONG-STANDING POLICE CORRUPTION

Police corruption is a long-standing issue in Venezuela – there have been reports of current and former police officers being involved both directly and indirectly in traditional kidnaps-for-ransom and express kidnaps. In an effort to clean up the dysfunctional and corrupt police force, the government in 2011 dissolved the capital Caracas’s notorious Metropolitan Police (PM) in favour of expanding the centralised national police force, the National Bolivarian Police (PNB). In January 2014, the country’s interior minister gave out his personal mobile (cellular) telephone number on live television and urged police officers to call him directly to report cases of corruption within the force.

‘POLICE REVOLUTION’

In a further effort to combat police corruption, President Nicolas Maduro in November 2014 announced a ‘police revolution’ to ‘purify’ the country’s 141 police bodies. Maduro created a Presidential Commission to investigate and possibly restructure the PNB, the investigative police (the CICPC), and municipal and state police forces. However, little of what the commission has proposed to date could be described as ‘revolutionary’; professionalisation, education and reorganisation were previously proposed in a 2009 effort to reform the force. As with previous reforms, the commission has no mandate to reorganise or retrain National Guard officers, who often carry out policing functions and who have a long-standing reputation for corruption and human rights violations.

POLICE STILL PERPETRATING CRIMES

Despite the government’s efforts to reform the force, the arrests of 13 CICPC members in January over their alleged involvement in kidnapping and extortion highlighted continuing corruption within Venezuela’s police forces. Those arrested included a CICPC head of district, a supervisor and five detectives. According to reports, a raid on the CICPC’s headquarters found a kidnapped businessman being held on the premises. The accused had allegedly demanded a ransom payment of VEF 300,000 (US$47,000), which was paid at the police station. The head of Venezuela’s police reform commission, Freddy Bernal, said that authorities had identified two other victims who had been kidnapped by the same CICPC unit.

This is not the first time that the CICPC has been accused of involvement in criminal activities. The force was involved in a violent confrontation with armed civilian militias in Caracas in 2014 that resulted in a ‘purge’ of the force’s leadership. In April 2014, meanwhile, three PNB members were tried for kidnapping two victims from their home in the La Vega area of the capital. The police demanded VEF 200,000 (US$32,000) in return for the victims’ release, and the victims were freed after the ransom was paid.

5


Prepared by for

TABLE OF CONTENTS






GOVERNMENT SUPPORT NEEDED FOR EFFECTIVE REFORM

It remains to be seen whether the recommendations that the commission will make will receive consistent government support, which will be crucial for effective reform. Police involvement in kidnapping and extortion is likely to remain common until Maduro’s government commits to the practical steps needed to meaningfully reform the force. However, with Maduro remaining heavily reliant on the security forces for his political survival, reforms are unlikely to be pushed through soon.

6


Prepared by for

KARACHI: THE KIDNAPPING CAPITAL OF PAKISTAN

Pakistan’s commercial capital is also the country’s kidnapping-for-ransom capital. Kidnapping trends in Pakistan are driven by criminals with a financial agenda and the commercial capital provides them with the ideal location to ply their trade. In 2014, 13% of the high volume of kidnaps that Control Risks recorded in Pakistan took place in Karachi.

The financial motivation of kidnappers in the city is reflected in their targeting patterns: of the victims recorded between January 2013 and March 2015 whose employment type was known, 44% were junior-to-mid-ranking employees. An additional 23% were business owners and the remaining 36% of victims were the dependants (mostly children) of the two aforementioned groups. Other victim types, which are common in other cities in Pakistan, such as government employees or security forces, did not feature. Kidnappers did not target specific sectors that they perceived to be lucrative; rather they targeted individuals based on their profile and whose security measures were not insurmountable. Victims between January 2013 and March 2015 were consequently representative of a range of sectors.

Figure 1: Kidnaps by sector in Karachi, Jan 2013 – Mar 2015

FOCUS ONTABLE OF CONTENTS






Control Risks recorded a wide range of ransom demands between January 2013 and March 2015, reflecting kidnappers’ diverse targeting patterns and capabilities. The lowest demand was US$3,000 while the highest was US$50m. Kidnappers in the Defence area of Karachi on 3 June 2014 abducted an engineer working for a private company who was also the son of a prominent businessman. The kidnappers reportedly demanded PKR 5bn (US$50m). Police monitored the negotiation until the kidnappers settled for PKR 1.5bn (US$15m), by which point they had located the hideout, and rescued the victim on 27 August.

Foreign nationals are rarely targeted in Karachi, though migrant workers from Africa were targeted in a spate of incidents in late 2013 and early 2014. Other incidents have affected dual nationals: in those cases, the kidnappers are unlikely to have distinguished the victim from a local national before the abduction. In the most recent recorded example, kidnappers in May 2013 targeted a man with dual Pakistani-US nationality and demanded PKR 20m

FINANCE

17%

MEDICAL

10%

AID ORGANISATION

7%ENGINEERING

7%MANUFACTURING

7%

RETAIL

35%

OTHER

OTHER

17%

Agriculture

4%4% 3% 3% 3%

Entertainment Pharmaceuticals Real Estate Religious

7


Prepared by for

TABLE OF CONTENTS






(US$200,000) for his release, though the victim was rescued two days later. Most criminal kidnappers are deterred from deliberately targeting foreign nationals, both by the security measures that foreign nationals employ – which exceed most groups’ capabilities – and by a heightened fear of arrest, which outweighs any potential for additional financial gain. Nevertheless, militant groups continue to possess significant capability and the case of US aid worker Warren Weinstein – who was kidnapped from his home in Lahore in August 2013 and remained in captivity as of March 2015 – is a stark reminder that isolated, high-profile abductions can occur in any city in Pakistan.

GOING FROM BAD TO WORSE?

Karachi is the only city in Pakistan to have dedicated authorities responsible for combatting and responding to kidnapping: the Anti-Violent Crime Cell and the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee. The agencies have had some success in resolving cases, but have had limited impact in terms of improving the threat environment in respect of kidnapping-for-ransom. According to statistics from the Karachi police, reports of kidnapping-for-ransom in the city increased in 2014: police reportedly recorded 117 incidents compared with 79 the previous year. Control Risks’ data for the same period confirms that reported incidents of the crime increased in 2014.

Although the recorded rise is likely to be largely attributable to increased media scrutiny of kidnapping-for-ransom in 2014 and more families coming forward to report the crime, a small deterioration in the threat environment is also a concern. A Pakistani military operation in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, which began in June 2014 and was continuing as of March 2015, has displaced many militants into settled areas. These include Karachi, in whose suburbs Pakistan’s main militant group, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP, Pakistan Taliban), is known to have a presence. Also in the latter half of 2014, internal disputes and leadership struggles among TTP elements led to some groups breaking away into smaller factions. In Karachi, some of those offshoots have increasingly turned to extortive crime as a means of raising funds in the first instance, rather than promote an ideology. Throughout 2015, companies with operations in Karachi should continue to treat kidnapping-for-ransom as a significant security concern; all employees should continue to implement security measures to mitigate the risk of kidnapping-for-ransom.

8


Prepared by for

ABOUT USControl Risks’ services are exclusively retained by Hiscox. In the event of a kidnap, detention or extortion incident covered by Hiscox, clients will benefit from Control Risks’ services as part of their insurance policy.

CONTROL RISKS

Control Risks is a leading international business risk consultancy. It offers a range of integrated political risk, investigative, security and crisis management services to corporate, government and private clients worldwide.

Since its foundation in 1975, Control Risks has worked on 2,668 cases of kidnap, extortion and other crises in 130 countries, representing more than 129 years of accumulated experience. Cases have ranged from traditional kidnaps-for-ransom, express kidnaps, hostage takings, ship and aircraft hijacks to political detentions, product extortion and contamination and other threat extortions. Control Risks has a full-time team of Response Consultants, available for immediate deployment in response to a crisis anywhere in the world. Response Consultants will advise on negotiation strategies and on how to manage the various interests of the victim, family, employers, the media, the government and local law enforcement agencies.

The Response Division has its own dedicated team of research analysts. As well as supporting consultants deployed on cases, they maintain the International Kidnap Online Service (IKOS) which follows the trends in kidnapping worldwide and allows clients to assess the risk to their business. In addition to IKOS, Response Research produces commissioned kidnap and extortion analysis of any country or sector. If you are interested in any of these services, please write to [email protected]

For more information about Control Risks, please visit our website at www.controlrisks.com

HISCOX

Hiscox is the world’s largest provider of specialist kidnap, detention and extortion insurance, with a market share of 60-70% by premium income. We cover companies and individuals against all forms of extortion and can protect your assets from illegal demands and the consequential associated expenses.

Our clients include multinational companies operating in high risk regions of the world, key executives working in commercially sensitive positions and individuals whose wealth or fame may attract the attention of criminals.

Hiscox kidnap and ransom underwriters are the most experienced in the field. Our knowledge of the sector enables us to make quick decisions on cover, no matter how unusual the request. We are highly skilled in handling what may be a very difficult and sensitive emergency. Our specialist policies can be tailored to suit individual needs and circumstances.

We have underwriting teams based in Guernsey, Paris, Cologne, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and at Lloyd’s of London.

For further information, please contact us at [email protected]

TABLE OF CONTENTS






kidnap y - robertson ryan · in lokoja (kogi state). criminal groups had also kidnapped two other...

Documents