Taken by Force: Adult Abduction Defense

Fast as a flash, a masked man presses a pistol into your face as another entangles your arms. A short scuffle ensues, but you’ve been snatched off the street and forced into a van. Zip ties. Gags. Blindfolds. Like a scene from a movie. What the hell just happened? How the hell did this happen? Who are these people? What happens next?

This was a kidnapping. Fast. Violent. Overwhelming.

Real kidnappings aren’t always so dramatic and cinematic, but in a world of 8 billion, that very rare thing isn’t all that rare.

DEFINITIONS

Kidnapping is the unlawful taking or abduction of another by fraud or force. The victim may be physically carried away, enticed, taken hostage, or coerced. The clue to the most common victim of kidnapping is right in the name — kids. But regardless of your age, if someone snatches you off the street against your will, we still call it kidnapping.

But this article isn’t about child abduction. Children being taken, stolen, or trafficked is one of the worst crimes imaginable, but it’s outside the scope of this article. This piece is about adult abduction prevention.

Here are some broad definitions:

Kidnap for Ransom

The definition is right in the name – Kidnap for Ransom means being abducted and held until a ransom is paid. It’s especially prevalent in Latin America and West Africa, with Mexico, Colombia, and Nigeria being major hotspots — but isn’t uncommon in any unstable nation or those currently in conflict (like Ukraine).

Express Kidnapping

This type of abduction is typically fast. This subset of kidnap-for-ransom will usually only last a few hours or even a few minutes, with the victim being forced to self-ransom from an ATM or financial institution. Express Kidnapping is one of the reasons why there are daily ATM withdrawal limits.

Hostage Kidnapping

When victims are detained and held by criminals until demands are met, it’s a hostage kidnapping. If you’ve watched a movie with a bank heist in it, you’ve seen an example of criminal hostage kidnapping.

Political Kidnapping

A variation of Hostage Kidnapping is Political Kidnapping, which occurs when a terrorist organization holds people hostage to demand and extort concessions from a government or to make a statement by instilling fear.

Kidnap for Murder

This is the kind of kidnapping you most often see on true crime TV because it’s within the realm of serial killers. Kidnapping is but the first crime to get the victim to a second location for further assault and worse. Statistically this is more of a concern for women than men, but if you’ve been kidnapped already you’re living in the world of the outlier.

 State-Sanctioned Kidnapping

Typically the most organized form of kidnapping, state-sanctioned kidnapping can be performed by one nation covertly operating within the sovereign territory of another, or by secret police within one nation.

PRE-KIDNAP CYCLE

The efficacy of kidnappers is an interplay between the capabilities of their targets and their own resources and experience. This spans the spectrum from opportunistic to state-sanctioned. Put more crudely: from molester to Mossad.

Who they are and how they operate largely depends on who you are. In many ways, a kidnapping is like any other criminal action because the aggressor has picked the target, time, place, and location. This leaves the victim largely reactive, but not helpless.

Regardless of who the kidnapper(s) are, they operate with the same pre-kidnap cycle, even if they aren’t consciously aware of them: Selection, Surveillance, and Snatching.

 Understanding the pre-kidnap cycle can help you identify and counter potential threats.

SELECTION

What Are You?

Who Are You?

Kidnappers select a victim based on known quantities. The more specific, the more planning and resources required to ensure success. This is a matter of scale. If a group is looking to just take someone of a given demographic, they can be easier to counter than one that is looking for you specifically. You might be chosen because of the nation you are from, the company you represent, personal wealth, political position, or because of a close relationship with another in the above category.

While anything can happen, the likelihood of events happening are not equally distributed across the globe. Westerners visiting the Middle East are more likely to be taken hostage by terrorists, and businessmen in Central America are more likely to kidnapped for ransom.

If you are a particularly high-risk individual, especially in a high-risk area? This is the sort of thing personal security details (PSDs) were invented for in the first place. No one individual, no matter how good or well-heeled, can take on everyone all the time.

SURVEILLANCE

Where Do You Go?

When Do You Do It?

Keep public information about your whereabouts and movements tight, especially if you’re a high-risk person or are in a high-risk area. This isn’t always possible in our always-connected social media sphere, but it doesn’t mean you have to be live streaming your location openly to the world all the time (but location sharing with a trusted circle with via apps can be a good idea).

Vary your routines when possible. Try to break any predictability cycles because it makes planning more difficult.

If your spider sense is ringing, pay attention. At minimum, make a note of it and send it to a trusted friend to create a trail. It could be someone looking at you just a little too long. Did that kid just call someone right when you left the hotel? Are locals behaving strangely?

SNATCHING

The kidnapping team wants as much control as possible because they want to be successful. They need the time, space, and opportunity to take you. Ideally, they don’t want anyone to see, or even anyone to know at all (until a time of their choosing). And they certainly don’t want others to interfere or intervene. The moment others know, the clock starts.

There is strength in numbers, so isolation is your enemy. People in groups are harder to take than individuals. Individuals are harder to take in heavily populated areas. Similarly, the more freedom of movement you have, the better it is for you. This is why having a fake taxi or rideshare driver isn’t uncommon.

Often the objective is to overwhelm the target into compliance. A fender bender on an empty road or a fast dead-end stop turns into SUVs screeching up on all sides with big men and big guns coming at you fast. But it can also be done “softer” in the form of a distraction or lure; the promise of a tryst that ends with a spiked drink.

RESPONSE & QUICK CALCULUS

Your ability to act in the moment is based on your capacity to see gaps and take advantage of them. You probably won’t know exactly what is happening when masked men in the street run up with guns in the moment. Is it a robbery? Assassination? Kidnapping? What kind of kidnapping? Is it for you or someone else?

Everyone on the internet comments sections likes to say they’ll go John Wick, but reality is never so clear-cut. You have to make the call. But run like hell, fight like the devil, shoot like a snake, and generally making it a bad damned day for them is always an option.

Some have expressed concern they will confuse an arrest attempt with a kidnapping, but even in the worst days of Saddam’s Iraq, political arrests were paired with badges and a superficial sheen of legitimacy on top — even if was Uday Hussein signing the warrant. National police also like to take people in places with access control like airports, courthouses, and border crossings, especially in locales with guns in the mix.

Your best odds of escape and evasion happen before kidnappers have complete control. This is not to say that when you are in custody all hope is lost, but your opportunities will generally narrow.

A COMPLEX PROBLEM

Kidnapping is not a problem with equal distribution nor easy overall solutions. Take Kidnap for Ransom: One of the problems is that good stats are hard to come by. It’s a global issue, and not all nations are forthcoming with information, especially those that are negatively affected by reports of high numbers.

Furthermore, not all of these crimes are reported to authorities at all, because often ransoms are paid instead. Insurance companies selling kidnap insurance have their own set of numbers, but of course they’re also selling policies.

Though it’s no guarantee, paying the ransom absolutely increases the odds of survival. If these groups just killed hostages anyway, then no one would pay at all. But paying also reinforces the behavior of the criminals, adding to the problem. That said, it is a government’s job to fight a systemic crime, not the burden of the individual; I pass no blame or shame on anyone who pays for the return of a loved one, regardless of the outcome.

LOOSE ROUNDS

If a powerful enough team, like a state-sanctioned one, wants you — they’ll get you. A kissing cousin is being imprisoned for political reasons under some thin criminal pretense. No individual can overcome this sort of threat themselves, but you don’t have to make it easy, either.

No one wants to be like your crazy Facebook aunt who sees Saudi sex traffickers sneaking around every corner when she parks at Petco, but Kidnap for Ransom and Express Kidnapping are problems that increase with economic instability.

Take some time to think through your risk factors, don’t take unnecessary risks, and stay safe.

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