GANGLAND FEUDS BLAMED FOR BIG RISE IN KIDNAPS

Kidnappings are increasing at an "unprecedented" rate with a sevenfold
increase in the past three years to nearly two a week, a British
intelligence report has found.

The number of kidnappings reported to the National Criminal
Intelligence Service (NCIS), a government agency established to deal
with serious crime, has increased from roughly 25 in 1998 to about 195
last year.

A specialist intelligence unit has been set up to deal with a big
growth in kidnaps overseas that are being masterminded by British
criminals or that have links with UK gangsters. In the last half of
2001 there was about one such kidnap per week, the NCIS report into
the work of its kidnap and extortion section revealed.

The intelligence agency believes the huge rise in kidnaps, which has
grown from five cases reported to NCIS in 1993 to nearly 200 in the
past year, is being fuelled partly by crime gangs seizing their
opponents in disputes over guns, drugs and territory.

In many cases, including incidents in which members of the public are
held and ransoms demanded, the kidnap victim has been tortured and
beaten. In the cases to which the NCIS was alerted none of the victims
was killed.

The NCIS report, which is due to be published next month, warns:
"During the year there has been an unprecedented rise in kidnap
investigations. Importantly, there has been a considerable and marked
increase in reported criminal vendetta kidnaps to police forces
throughout the UK.

"This type of kidnap involves criminal groups in a dispute over drugs,
firearms or territorial infringements. Having failed to negotiate the
release of a member of the group who has been kidnapped, the matter is
reported to the police.

"It continues: "Another growth area relates to the international
dimension of kidnapping. During the last half of the year, there has
been an average of one overseas kidnap per week with a direct or
indirect impact in the UK. As a result the [kidnap and extortion]
section has created a portfolio of operational and intelligence units
who specialise in dealing with such issues in other
jurisdictions."

The new units have been providing foreign police forces with
information and assistance on kidnap, blackmail and contamination
cases in which products are poisoned and money is demanded. The NCIS
is currently working with 46 countries on this issue.

In a foreign kidnap case dealt with by NCIS, criminals based in the UK
arranged for a Ghanaian businessman to be kidnapped in Amsterdam and
taken to a hideout in Belgium. The NCIS was contacted when a ransom
demand was made to his family living in Ghana.

In a 13-day operation the Belgian hideout was discovered and the
businessman, who had been tortured, was freed. The kidnappers were
arrested in London and throughout Europe.

London-based Chinese gangsters, known as "Snakeheads", have been
responsible for a big rise in kidnap cases in the past.

The criminals are paid up to UKP 10,000 per person to smuggle illegal
immigrants from their homeland to the UK, but once they enter Britain
they are held hostage until their relatives pay a ransom.

A series of successful raids by Scotland Yard's kidnap unit has
drastically reduced the number of "Snakehead" cases, but detectives
believe that some of the gangs have now moved out of the capital.