Archive for category Kidnap And Ransom

Kidnap And Ransom: Contractor From California Kidnapped In Iraq

Feb 6

Posted by Matt in Industry Talk, Iraq, Kidnap And Ransom | 1 Comment

   I do not know who Issa works for, but I am sure it is one of the big companies that provide linguists to the DoD. It will be interesting to hear the official statement from the DoD on this one, and it sounds like they have been kind of hush about this.  Also, if you follow the link below, they have some video on the whole thing.

   Now what would really piss me off, is if the guys that captured Issa were any of the folks recently released from detention.  Over the last year or so, Iraq has been releasing hundreds of League of the Righteous members, and it would not surprise me if the guys running this show were one of those clown shoe wearing jihadist dorks that have just gained their freedom.-Matt

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11942902 BG1Kidnap And Ransom: Contractor From California Kidnapped In Iraq

El Cajon man kidnapped in Iraq

Friday, February 5, 2010

Officials identified an El Cajon resident Friday who went missing in Iraq while working as a civilian contractor, just as video of the man was released by his alleged abductors.

Issa Salomi, 60, went missing on Jan. 23 in Baghdad. He was working with the U.S. Forces as a civilian employee, according to the Department of Defense.

A video found on an Iraqi web site Friday showed Salomi sitting in front of a flag with what appeared to be Arabic writing on it.

In the two-minute video, Salomi details demands from his abductors, including the punishment of employees of the Blackwater company, which is accused in crimes against Iraqi citizens.

A search and recovery effort was underway to find Salomi, the DOD said.

Story here.

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Industry Talk: Peter Moore Reunited With Family As Argument Rages Over Deaths

Jan 2

Posted by Matt in Industry Talk, Iraq, Kidnap And Ransom | No Comments

   You know, the way these security contractors were just killed and thrown away by these captors is just deplorable. It is just like how they did the guys at Crescent, and with Nick Berg. The enemy didn’t sign on to the Geneva Convention, and they could care less about your life.  Fighting to your death is probably your best option……if you even can fight to the death.  If not, and for whatever reason you do get captured, may god have mercy on your soul.  I think in that case, hope and constant dedication to any means of escape are things that will get you through.  The Code of Conduct could be somewhat of a guide, along with the industry best practice for surviving hostage situations.  Other than that, just don’t get captured. -Matt

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Peter Moore reunited with family as argument rages over deaths

January 2, 2010

Sean O’Neill, Crime and Security Editor

Peter Moore arrived back in Britain last night as criticism continued to grow of the Government’s handling of the Iraq hostage crisis.

A chartered aircraft carrying Mr Moore landed at RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire, shortly after 5pm. He was later reunited with his stepparents, Fran and Pauline Sweeney, at an undisclosed location.

Mr and Mrs Sweeney, from Lincoln, said that they were “thrilled to have Peter back safely”. They asked for the chance to spend some time with him.

“We have a lot of catching up to do and would like to have time with Peter on our own,” the couple said.

Mr Moore, 36, was flown from Baghdad to the Jordanian capital Amman yesterday morning, then transferred to an aircraft operated by the security company International SOS for his return to Britain. He was accompanied by consular staff from the British Embassy in Baghdad and was met at the RAF base by an official from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

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Kidnap and Ransom: Iraq Contractor And Hostage Peter Moore Released Alive!!

Dec 30

Posted by Matt in Iraq, Kidnap And Ransom | No Comments

   This is fantastic news and quite a shocker.  It is hard to believe that this poor guy has been alive all this time, and suffering in captivity.  The other men were not so lucky, but this is remarkable and truly a miracle.  What a gift to the family and friends of Peter, and my heart goes out to you all. -Matt

Edit: 12/31/2009 -From what Long War Journal has reported, it looks like there was a trade to get Peter released.  I do not like the idea that we released this murdering thug, and I think we will regret doing this.

“The US has released the leader of an Iranian-backed Shia terror group behind the kidnapping and murder of five US soldiers in Karbala in January 2007.

Qais Qazali, the leader of the Asaib al Haq or the League of the Righteous, was set free by the US military and transferred to Iraqi custody in exchange for the release of British hostage Peter Moore, US military officers and intelligence officials told The Long War Journal. The US military directly implicated Qais in the kidnapping and murder of five US soldiers in Karbala in January 2007.”

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Iraq hostage Peter Moore released alive

30 December 2009

IT consultant Peter Moore is freed in Iraq two and a half years after he was kidnapped along with four other men by militants in Baghdad, the Foreign Office announced today.

The government confirmed today that Moore has been handed over to British authorities in Baghdad.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Moore is “in good health despite many months in captivity” and is “to put it mildly absolutely delighted at his release”.

The foreign secretary added said that he had a “very moving” conversation with Moore adding that the former hostage was in a “remarkable frame of mind”.

Moore, aged 36, was in a group of five British men snatched by gunmen outside a government building in Baghdad in May 2007. He was installing asset tracing software at the Finance Ministry at the time.

Hostages Jason Creswell, Jason Swindlehurst and Alec Maclachlanwere shot dead and their bodies returned to Britain earlier this year. Security guard Alan McMenemy is also believed to have been killed.

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Military News: Questions Raised About Royal Navy–Did They Stand By as Pirates Snatched British Yacht Couple?

Nov 22

Posted by Matt in Kidnap And Ransom, Maritime Security, Military News | No Comments

     Boy, thats a pretty heavy charge, and I wonder what the Royal Navy has to say about this?  Thanks to David for sending me this one by the way, and we will see if there is any kind of a backlash from the public on this.  Especially if the pirates execute the Chandlers because the ransom was not paid.

   On a side note, the tactics and strategy that the pirates used in this particular case is interesting.  They captured one boat, used that as the new mother ship, and went after other vessels in the process.  This could potentially be expanded to be even more profitable, because they are able to stay out longer, cruise around as if a harmless merchant vessel, and collect any number of boats in the process.  If unknowing vessels are traveling near a recently captured vessel, how are they to know if pirates are on board?  So it is absolutely feasible that pirates could use these boats as ‘wolves in sheep’s clothing’ in order to grab even more sheep.  In the history of naval warfare and piracy, this is nothing new, but we must recognize the tactics and strategies and constantly re-evaluate our own strategies and tactics to deal with this. -Matt

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How the Royal Navy Stood and Watched as Pirates Snatched British Yacht Couple

BY RICHARD PENDLEBURY

November 20, 2009

MID-OCEAN, a degree or two shy of the equator, two ships are steaming south, apparently in convoy.

One is a Singaporean flagged container vessel of 25,000 tonnes, the Kota Wajar. The other is a British military tanker, flying the blue ensign of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Service. Neither was built for battle. Nor in normal circumstances would they be foes.

But a whiff of gunpowder is palpably in the air. Aboard the tanker, RFA Wave Knight, Royal Navy gun crews have closed up for action, their 30mm cannon and machine guns primed and ready.

A few hundred yards away on the Kota Wajar, Somali pirates, who had recently hijacked the vessel, possess a variety of small arms including rocket-propelled grenades.

These are high stakes, indeed, because both ships are on course to rendezvous with a British yacht drifting helplessly in the Indian Ocean.

Aboard this 38ft yacht, and held at gunpoint by a pirate advance party, are Paul and Rachel Chandler, a retired couple from Tunbridge Wells, Kent.

The Kota Wajar, in its new role as a pirate ‘mother ship’, is to scoop them up and carry them back to captivity and a multi-million-pound ransom in Somalia more than 200 miles to the north-west.

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Maritime Security: ‘Duncan Falconer’ and the Company FSI Maritime

Nov 21

Posted by Matt in Industry Talk, Kidnap And Ransom, Maritime Security | No Comments

“In Somalia, you know what the threat is: they sees ya, they chases ya, they shoots at ya and they climbs on board. That’s their technique. How do you mitigate that? Well, we’ve got intelligence sources from many recent incidents in the area; after that, it’s training the crew, preparation and reaction. Preparation is all the things you do before leaving port – training the crew, putting bars on windows, locks on the strongroom, mesh up to stop people climbing and so on.” But, he says, non-lethal force can only accomplish so much.

“At the end of the day, if you have 40 guys with RPGs and machine guns, they’re going to take your boat. And so your other option is lethal. This is where you have four or five men, with AK47s, and shoot anyone that comes near.” -Duncan Falconer

***** 

   What a background, and ‘Duncan’ has certainly been busy over the years.  What I found interesting about this article, is that if you track the history of guys like Duncan, you can see the trend lines for the industry as a whole.  Guys go where the money is, and as you can see from this story, kidnap and ransom, along with maritime security are the two big gigs that Duncan has been involved with. Obviously Iraq and Afghanistan have been big as well.

   The focus here though is on FSI Maritime, and Duncan’s quote up top.  It is the voice of reason coming from a professional.  For those of you that continue to tell shipping companies not to defend self or use armed guards, doom on you.  Force is the only thing these thugs understand. -Matt

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Fighting words

November 20, 2009

By Nick Ryan

Duncan Falconer has drawn upon his former life as a special forces soldier to become a best-selling author. Warren van Rensburg

After 10 years as an elite soldier, Duncan Falconer left the British Armed Forces to use his expertise to combat and negotiate with pirates and terrorists around the world. In his downtime he writes bestselling books. Nick Ryan meets the multi-talented man of action.”Kidnapping is the big business,” says Duncan Falconer. “You’ve got to understand that 86 per cent of the planet is below the poverty line. All these poor countries with a high criminal element – most of Africa, South America, etc – the Colombians taught us many years ago there was a lot of money to be made in kidnapping. Iraq – there were kidnapping rings set up all over the place: they weren’t kidnapping westerners, they were kidnapping rich Iraqis.”

Welcome to the sometimes deadly world of the private military contractor. PMCs, sometimes also known as private security contractors (PSCs), are modern-day mercenaries, earning vast sums protecting corporate interests in all the war-torn corners of the world. There are, or have been, tens of thousands of PMCs operating in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan, sometimes with controversial results – such as the slaying of 14 innocent Iraqis by the American outfit Blackwater, in Baghdad in 2007 (for which five men are facing charges in the USA); or the infamous video available on YouTube, showing PMCs from one British contractor shooting at passing cars from the back window of their vehicle.

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Kidnap and Ransom: ‘The Snatchback’, Gus Zamora, and Rescuing Children in Foreign Lands

Oct 23

Posted by Matt in Kidnap And Ransom | No Comments

   What’s interesting about this story, is the method that Gus Zamora uses in order to snatch these children, to get them back to their parents.  The planning, the risk of getting arrested in another country, the emotions of the family and the amazing successes of Gus and his company are a fascinating study.  He hasn’t been arrested, and he has a pretty amazing track record of success. I highly recommend reading this entire story and listening to the audio tape of one of his snatches.

   On a side note, it looks like Gus worked for CTU at one point, and it would be interesting to hear from those folks about this article?

   My question for Gus, is if he has ever thought about going after Joanne Chesimard?  There is a pretty sizable bounty on her head, and that cop killer needs to be brought back to the US.  -Matt

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The Snatchback

November 2009

by Nadya Labi

The Atlantic

ON A HUMID Thursday afternoon in February, I am riding in a rented van in Central America with a man who abducts children for a living. The van’s windows are tinted, and Gustavo Zamora Jr. is speeding east on a two-lane highway toward Siquirres, a town buried in the lush abundance of eastern Costa Rica. Gus is planning to snatch Andres, a 9-year-old American boy who has been claimed by too many parents. Sitting behind me is one of them: Todd Hopson, a 48-year-old lawyer from Ocala, Florida, who considers himself the boy’s father, by rights of love and U.S. law. Ahead of me in the front passenger seat is Gus’s 22-year-old son and partner, Gustavo Zamora III.

“That’s too far for a switch,” the elder Zamora, 53, is saying, pointing to a hotel 10 miles outside of Siquirres. His plan is to use two vehicles for what he calls the “recovery,” or “snatchback.” Once he gets Andres, he intends to drive a white Toyota SUV to a switch point, where he will abandon the SUV and put Andres in the van. That way, any witnesses to the snatchback will report seeing the SUV headed west in the direction of the capital, San José—while in fact Gus and Andres will be in the van headed southeast toward Panama. But this hotel won’t work. “We definitely can’t come all the way back down this way,” Gus says. “I want to make time.”

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Podcasts: NPR-Behind The Business Plan of Pirates Inc.

May 6

Posted by Matt in Kidnap And Ransom, Paracargo, Podcasts | No Comments

     I posted the initial story awhile back under ‘paracargo’, with a photo of some cash being dropped to a boat to pay off the pirates.  That part was fascinating to me, but this part of the operation is equally fascinating.  Matter of fact, the whole thing should be a case study at some maritime institute for modern day piracy and kidnap and ransom negotiations on the high seas.  -Matt

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Podcast Here. 

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pirate 540Podcasts: NPR Behind The Business Plan of Pirates Inc.

David B. Hudson/U.S. Navy/AP

A container is parachuted to a ship being held by Somali pirates on Jan. 9. It’s believed the container held ransom money for the ship and its crew — the usual way pirates collect “pay” for their “work” in the piracy business model. 

Behind The Business Plan Of Pirates Inc.

by Chana Joffe-Walt

All Things Considered, April 30, 2009 · 

Piracy off the coast of Somalia has become an international problem — and an international business. Navy SEALS rescued an American merchant captain earlier this month after Somali pirates raided the Maersk Alabama as it was making its way around the Horn of Africa to deliver aid.

But the issues of criminality and the potential for violence aside, a closer look at the “business model” of piracy reveals that the plan makes economic sense.

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Kidnap and Ransom: Rural Mexican Villages Dig Moats to Repel Raiding Gangsters

Mar 24

Posted by Matt in Kidnap And Ransom, Mexico | 1 Comment

“We have support of the federal forces,” said an official of the dirt-street village. “Security is what we’re lacking.” 

    This is sickening to read.  When a town has to resort to these types of measures to defend themselves from this kind of crime, then you know things are really bad. The protection of this town would be an excellent project of a PMC, if given the contract.  Just saying.  -Matt

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260xStoryKidnap and Ransom: Rural Mexican Villages Dig Moats to Repel Raiding Gangsters 

Rural Mexican villages dig moats to repel gangsters

Ditches don’t always deter raids, but federal troops can’t be spared

By DUDLEY ALTHAUS

Houston Chronicle

March 22, 2009, 3:43PM

Julian Cardona For the Chronicle

Ruben Solis, a farmers’ leader, says these moats that villagers dug around Cuauhtémoc were “a means of preservation” for the town. The sentinels at the checkpoints to the village, however, have been removed. ?

CUAUHTEMOC, Mexico — Little town, big hell.

That proverb about turmoil in small communities has never seemed truer than in this gangster-besieged village and a neighboring one in the bean fields and desert scrub a long day’s drive south of the Rio Grande.

Since right before Christmas, armed raiders repeatedly have swept into both villages to carry away local men. Government help arrived too late, or not at all.

Terrified villagers — at the urging of army officers who couldn’t be there around the clock — have clawed moats across every access road but one into their communities, hoping to repel the raids.

“This was a means of preservation,” said Ruben Solis, 47, a farmers’ leader in Cuauhtemoc, a collection of adobe and concrete houses called home by 3,700 people. “It’s better to struggle this way than to face the consequences.”

But shortly after midnight last Sunday, villagers said, as many as 15 SUVs loaded with pistoleros attacked nearby San Angel, population 250, and kidnapped five people. Four victims were returned unharmed a few days later. The fifth hostage, a teenage boy, was held to exchange for the intended target the raiders missed, villagers said.

“We have support of the federal forces,” said an official of the dirt-street village. “Security is what we’re lacking.”

After the earthworks were dug in both villages, volunteers manned checkpoints at the remaining open entrances. Those sentinels, however, were removed when it was decided they couldn’t stop a serious attack, anyhow .

“We aren’t able to confront this sort of thing,” Solis said. “We have a few shotguns, some .22 rifles, a few pistols — nothing compared to what they have.”

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Kidnap and Ransom: How Do You Pay a Pirate’s Ransom?

Dec 13

Posted by Matt in Kidnap And Ransom, Maritime Security, Somalia | No Comments

 How do you pay a pirate’s ransom?

By Robyn Hunter

BBC News

03/12/2008

Pirates in Somalia are making a fortune by hijacking ships and demanding ransoms to set them and their crews free – one official estimates the total this year to be around $150m.

There are conflicting reports about how much they want for the Saudi oil tanker they seized last month, the Sirius Star, and its cargo of two million barrels of oil, but how do you negotiate and deliver a pirate ransom in the 21st Century?

From what can be gleaned – how the negotiations run their course and how the ransoms are paid – what goes on would be worthy of a Hollywood action movie script.

“No matter what process is taken, they always go through a middleman,” advises BBC Somali service analyst Said Musa. “And trust is at the heart of everything.”

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News: FBI Seeks Information About Former Agent Bob Levinson, Missing in Iran

Jul 16

Posted by Matt in Iran, Kidnap And Ransom, News | 1 Comment

   This is an interesting one, because Bob has been missing since last year.  I am glad that the FBI is getting involved on this and putting out the word.  Hopefully they will get some movement on this.  It is possible that this could be an isolated case, but more than likely this is a product of the ‘tit for tat’ hostage taking that was going on last year.  We detained Iranian agents in Iraq, Iran detains some Brits and others, and so on and so forth.  I just hope that Bob gets released, if that is the case.  It could be possible that he is the victim of some random crime there.  Who knows, and FJ will keep an eye on this one.  -Head Jundi 

News: FBI Seeks Information About Former Agent Bob Levinson, Missing in Iran

For Immediate Release

July 15, 2008

Washington D.C.

FBI National Press Office

(202) 324-3691

FBI Seeking Information about Missing Retired Special Agent Robert Levinson

Retired FBI Special Agent Robert Levinson has been missing since March 2007 and is believed to be in Iran. As Mr. Levinson is a retired Special Agent, the FBI has an interest in his disappearance. Through the FBI’s legal attaché offices worldwide, the FBI is working with the Department of State to gather information regarding his safety and whereabouts.

The FBI has obtained information that Mr. Levinson arrived on Iran’s Kish Island on March 8, 2007, had several meetings at the Maryam Hotel, and then checked out the next day. However, Mr. Levinson did not fly to Dubai on a previously scheduled flight. There is no record of Mr. Levinson leaving Kish Island. Nor is there any record of Mr. Levinson using his passport or credit cards after March 9, 2007.

“This is a matter of great concern for the FBI. Bob had a long and distinguished FBI career, and he has a wife, four daughters, three sons, one grandchild, and another on the way, all awaiting his return. Plain and simple, our goal is to bring Bob home to his family,” said FBI Assistant Director in Charge Joseph Persichini, Jr., Washington Field Office.

Anyone with information about Mr. Levinson’s disappearance should contact their local FBI field office, or if outside the U.S., the legal attaché at the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate. You can also submit information on the web site.

 FBI Web Site

Help Bob Levinson Web Site

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