Modern kidnappings of celebrities or their relatives
Kidnappers interested in getting a large ransom or a political effect often target celebrities or their relatives. Here are some of the people affected by these crimes:
Beatriz Adriana - The Mexican actress's son was kidnapped and found dead in Tijuana. While rumors abounded that her son's death was due to a drug debt, no evidence of that was ever found.
Vicente Fernandez - The famous Mexican singer's son, Vicente Fernandez Jr. , was kidnapped and later released alive.
John Paul Getty III, kidnapped in Italy in 1973. His grandfather, the then world's richest man, American multi-billionaire oil tycoon, J. Paul Getty, refused to pay his $3 million ransom until one of the boy's ears was cut off and sent to a newspaper.
Georgiy Gongadze, a prominent Ukrainian journalist kidnapped and later found beheaded in 2000. His disappearance has triggered a major political and diplomatic scandal also involving United States and other Western countries. No details of the crime revealed yet.
Charles Lindbergh - The aviator's two-year old son, Charles Jr., was kidnapped in 1932, and was killed. This was among the most famous of modern kidnappings of celebrities' relatives. See Lindbergh kidnapping.
William Randolph Hearst - His granddaughter Patty Hearst was kidnapped by the SLA in 1974. Her father gave $6 million in food to the poor of the Bay Area as ransom, but she was not released. She became part of her captor's group and was later convicted on bank robbery charges.
Thalía - The Mexican Diva's sister, the also famous actress Laura Zapata and another unidentified sister, were kidnapped. They were both released alive.
Nikoloz Tskitishvili - The basketball player, a star in his home country (Georgia), had strangers call to his house and threaten to kidnap his brother and mother after it became known he signed a million-dollar contract with the NBA's Denver Nuggets. As a consequence, he moved all his family to Denver.
Johnny Tapia - The world boxing champion saw his mother raped and kidnapped when he was 8 years old. He was hiding when he witnessed the assault. His mother's body was found on a road days later.
Alejandra Guzman - The Mexican singing diva has received several calls threatening to kidnap her ten year old daughter, because of which she has hired extra security. She always takes her daughter with her on the road.
Jorge and Juan Born, (1974), scions of the Bunge y Born business were kidnapped in September by the Montoneros and only released after the payment of a $60 million ransom.
Yuri - She was going to be kidnapped, but the plans folded when one of the would be kidnappers left the criminal band that would have committed the act, and told her cousin about the plans.
Cesar Rosas - the wife of the member of Los Lobos, Sandra, was kidnapped on October 23, 1999, and never found again. Gabriel Gomez was accused and sentenced for her kidnapping and murder.
Riddick Bowe's wife, Julie and his five kids were kidnapped for five days by Bowe himself.
Eric Peugeot , son of Raymond Peugeot , an automobile industry millionaire, was kidnapped at the age of four in 1960 in Paris. He was returned after payment of a ransom, and his kidnappers arrested a few years later.
Also of notice is that Dominican actor Andres Garcia announced he doubled his security guard numbers, afraid he and his family could get kidnapped too. On the same line, Manny Pacquiao, world boxing champion at the Flyweight, Jr. Featherweight and Featherweight divisions, has had to hire six security guards who constantly surround him and his family in his home country of the Philippines, after receiving kidnap threatening calls from several groups.
This crime is flourishing in poor countries, where the economic situation can drive people to desperate measures.
Faked kidnappings
Author Agatha Christie, whose disappearance in 1926 was feared to be a kidnapping. When she re-appeared with no explanation, a real-life mystery began which remains to this day.
Jules Croiset ; Dutch Jewish actor faked being kidnapped by neo-nazis.
Aimee Semple McPherson: evangelist who maintained she was kidnapped while all evidence pointed to the contrary.
Seka Aleksic , faked his kidnapping in a car in 2004.
Assumed kidnap conspiracies that turned out to be fake
Jorge Ursino , the alleged illegal immigrant transporter from Arizona faked his own kidnapping to collect money, making headlines.
Other kidnappings
Edgardo Mortara a six-year-old Jewish child kidnapped by Pope Pius IX in 1858 on the claim that a passing housekeeper had secretly baptized him. The child was never returned to his parents notwithstanding the humanitarian pleas of President Ulysses S. Grant, Emperor Franz Josef, and Napoleon III.
Marian Parker - On December 14, 1927 William Hickman kidnapped and murdered twelve-year-old Marian Parker, the daughter of a Los Angeles banker. A few days after being paid a small ransom, Hickman was arrested and tried. On October 19, 1928 became the first American kidnapper to be executed for his crime.
Robert (Bobby) Cosgrove Greenlease Jr. - the six-year-old boy was kidnapped and immediately murdered September 28, 1953 in Kansas City, Missouri by Bonnie Heady and Carl Hall . They then demanded and were paid a $600,000 ransom from the boy's father, a wealthy automobile dealer. Notable in the case was that more than half of the ransom money was stolen by a corrupt police officer and never recovered.
Joseph Bonanno, (1964). The crime family leader was kidnapped by his own enforcer, along with his lawyer. Forced to make economic and retirement agreements with other mafia bosses, he and his lawyer were let go alive.
Gerrit Jan Heijn, (1987), Dutch top executive of Ahold, brother of Albert Heijn; kidnapped and killed in 1987 by Ferry E.; after that Ferry E. pretended that his victim was still alive and asked and received ransom; he was caught after spending one of the banknotes of the ransom, of which the numbers had been recorded; he served a prison sentence and is free now; it was frowned upon that after his release he received over 300,000 euro back-payment of disability benefits for the time he was in prison (rules have changed now, this would no longer be possible).
Delimar Vera Cuevas1997, five week old baby kidnapped by a woman who set her house on fire to take her away, casually found by her natural mother at a birthday party six years later.
Humberto Alvarez-Machain, suspect in the murder of Enrique Camarena, kidnapped, allegedly by Americans, to bring him to trial in the United States.
