Kidnapping as a Business Risk?

An entire shadow industry has grown up around kidnapping. There are negotiation consultants and security companies that specialize in abductions, as well as kidnapping insurance and plaintiff lawyers who go after the insurers when a case ends badly. All told, the kidnapping industry brings in a minimum of $1 billion a year and probably much more. "You are dealing with a business--they have decision makers, a negotiation team, an implementation team," says Christopher Voss, who last year retired as the FBI's chief international kidnapping negotiator. He once supervised cases in the Philippines, Haiti, Iraq and Colombia; today he runs the Black Swan Group, a Washington, D.C. consultancy. "The idea of a durable agreement is the same in kidnapping as in business--only it's a life-and-death issue."

Read the rest of the Forbes article on international gangs that kidnap American workers.