No one ever gets kidnapped for a good reason but some kidnappers in the world are just doing it to try to score a quick buck. Kidnapping for ransom is centuries old. The first kidnapping for ransom in American history dates back to 1874. Sometimes it works out and everyone gets safely and sometimes the results are far more tragic. But every once in a while the whole thing is just weird. Really weird. Check out these 10 bizarre cases of kidnapping for ransom.
10. J. Paul Getty Wouldn’t Pay His Grandson’s Ransom
If you spend much time on the internet, you have no doubt come across Getty Images which is arguably the biggest repository of stock photos on the internet. Along with that, the Getty family is behind The J. Paul Getty Museum and Getty Oil. The head of the family, J. Paul Getty, was once the richest man in the world and people knew it.
In 1973, Getty’s teenage grandson, John Paul Getty III, was kidnapped in Rome. The younger Getty was held for five months while they tried to get $17 million in ransom from the family. What they must not have been aware of at the time they kidnapped the young man was that the elder Getty was notoriously stingy and paid for as little as possible. He didn’t get rich by spending money; it seemed. So when the ransom demand came in, he simply refused to pay.
Word is Getty thought the kidnapping was a hoax at first, so not paying made sense. But as it became clear that it was the real deal, he didn’t change his tune. Getty was quoted as saying “I have 14 other grandchildren and if I pay one penny now, then I will have 14 kidnapped grandchildren.” Harsh but probably not wrong, either.
As time passed, the negotiations went nowhere, and the kidnappers grew frustrated. They eventually cut off the teen’s ear and mailed it to a local newspaper to prove how serious they were. The ransom was bartered down to $3 million and Getty still wouldn’t pay. Instead, he was willing to pony up $2 million as it was the maximum he could use as a tax writeoff.
For the remaining million, the elder Getty was willing to loan it to his son, the boy’s father, at 4% interest. The money was paid, and the boy was released.
9. Bobby Brown was Kidnapped by a Gang Over a Drug Debt
Celebrities seem to live entirely in the public eye so it’s rather surprising to learn something secret about them many years after the fact. That’s the case with the story of how Bobby Brown, singer and husband of Whitney Houston, was once kidnapped, had a ransom paid, and was released, all before anyone knew anything about it.
Brown was kidnapped back in 1993. He’d had a music career for some years at that point but he’d only been married to Houston, who would go on to become a huge star, for a short time. In 1993, she had just released the movie The Bodyguard and was arguably one of the biggest celebrities in America.
Brown, who had a history of drug problems, apparently owed $25,000 to dealers. He was kidnapped by a gang known as the Preacher Crew over the debt and they decided to make it worth their while by demanding $400,000. Houston followed the demands of the kidnappers and didn’t inform law enforcement. Instead, she got the money together and delivered it to the kidnappers herself, who held up their end and gave her husband back.
8. Two Men Tried to Ransom Charlie Chaplin’s Corpse for $600,000
Kidnapping is different from stealing only in the sense that the target of one is a living being and the target of the other is not. You could hold the Mona Lisa for ransom but people wouldn’t say you kidnapped the painting so much as stole it. And somewhere in the middle of the two is what happened when criminals tried to get $600,000 ransom for Charlie Chaplin.
Three months after Charlie Chaplin died back in 1977, someone dug up the man’s grave and made off with his remains. That’s bizarre and weird all on its own but then, to put the cherry on the weird sundae, the grave robbers then called Chaplin’s widow seeking to ransom the corpse.
In most kidnappings, the leverage is that you have a living person that the ransom payers want back. You threaten their lives in order to convince people to pay money. So right away this kidnapping was missing a key point. No doubt Chaplin’s widow would have wanted his remains but $600,000 is a lot of money. And the threats the kidnappers made were against Chaplin’s children, who were still alive but also decidedly not kidnapped, making them somewhat toothless..
Oona Chaplin, Charlie’s widow, apparently though the whole thing was stupid. She had no interest in paying and the local police were actually on the ball. They tapped her phone and had a man monitoring every one of the 200 local phone booths when the kidnappers called. Two men were arrested and Chaplin’s remains were found.
7. The Manager of the Animals Was Kidnapped by the Yakuza
Back in the 1960s, the Animals enjoyed some serious fame with songs like “House of the Rising Sun.” Sure, they didn’t get as big as the Beatles, but who did? The band also had some incredible ups and downs in the career, though arguably little that was as notable as the time their manager was kidnapped by members of the Japanese Yakuza and then freed himself before the band fled the country.
Turns out that when the band booked a tour in Japan back in the 1960s, an event that would ultimately lead to the band falling apart, what no one realized at the time was that they had been booked by promoters who worked in organized crime.
The manager wrote an IOU to the criminals for $25,000 and a note that it was written under duress, hoping they couldn’t read English to know what he’d done. He released them and the manager got the band and fled the country so quickly they left their instruments behind.
6. Three Men Kidnapped an Entire Bus Load of Children To Try to Get $5 Million
The town of Chowchilla, California has a population of just under 20,000 people today which was decidedly less back in 1976 when three men kidnapped 26 children and a bus driver on a school bus and held them for $5 million ransom.
The plan was to use the money to pay off debts and then live large for a spell, and maybe that would have happened had the kidnappers not completely botched the job. After taking the bus, the three men transferred the kids to vans and drove them 100 miles away before stashing them in a moving van trailer that they’d buried in a quarry.
The men were unable to call in a ransom demand because phone lines were tied up as a result of the kidnapping. So, for reasons that may never fully make sense, they figured they’d take a nap and try later. The problem with that was that they’d slept so long that when they woke up, they learned from the news that the kids had all escaped from the trailer. All three men were eventually captured and given life sentences.
5. A Norwegian Hijacked a Plane and Demanded Beer
Airport security has been tight around the world for years and the idea of a plane being hijacked is an absolute nightmare scenario. The fear on the ground is palpable and we can only imagine how terrifying it would be for those trapped on a plane knowing what will probably happen to them.
In 1985, a Norwegian man hijacked a plane with over 100 passengers on board, intent on being taken to speak with the Prime Minister. Right away that sounds like a complete madman and a situation destined to end badly. Holding the lives of so many people in the balance is a risky proposition for any negotiators on the ground and trying to work with a hijacker towards a safe resolution is definitely not something for the faint of heart.
The hijacker was a 24-year-old man who managed to get a gun on board, potentially due to a lack of security back in the ’80s. Fortunately for the passengers on board, it was only a four-hour process they had to endure as negotiators were able to get the man to turn over control of the plane and let everyone go in exchange for meeting his demands for beer. They gave him beer during the course of the entire hijacking and eventually he gave up after all the passengers had been let go and the police refused to give him more beer unless he traded his gun for it.
4. A Kidnapper Asked for Financial Advice from his Victim
Some people want to be rich and famous just for the sake of being rich and famous and there’s not much else to it. That may be the case with the man who kidnapped Li Ka-Shing’s son and held him for $1 billion Hong Kong dollars.
Ka-Shing is one of Asia’s richest men and has a fortune of around $35 billion US. His eldest son was kidnapped in 1996. His kidnapper demanded $2 billion HK and showed up with a bomb to collected it. Ka-Shing only had the $1 billion in cash, which is about $127 million US, and handed it over.
Once the deal was made and the son was released, the kidnapper actually called Ka-Shing to ask him for financial advice regarding how to invest his newfound fortune. The billionaire apparently told him to try turning over a new leaf.
3. An Italian Went to Syria to Fake his Own Kidnapping Then Got Kidnapped
A fake kidnapping is a solid plot for a tense action thriller, but maybe not for real life. That was learned the hard way by some Italian businessmen who thought they could scam their government out of some quick cash by claiming they’d been kidnapped by jihadists in Syria in 2016. The plan might have worked, maybe, if they hadn’t actually gone to Syria and actually been kidnapped and held for three years as a result.
Three men convinced Alessandro Sandrini that he just had to travel to the border of Syria and Turkey so they could fake the kidnapping. Then they’d set him up in a luxury villa with women and drugs until the Italian government paid his ransom. Fun! Except that, when they got Sandrini to his destination, they sold him to an actual group of jihadists who held him hostage. A second Italian also fell for the same deal and both were freed in 2019.
The three men who arranged the kidnapping were charged but so was Sandrini.
2. Students Kidnapped the Head of Jeremy Bentham
Generally speaking there’s no such thing as a good kidnapping but if there was, this would probably be it. The remains of the philosopher Jeremy Bentham can be found at University College London, according to the man’s final wishes where he’s on display in a glass box.
It’s actually just Bentham’s body on display with a fake head because his real head, which is also there, looks decidedly worse. Also, it was once stolen by students from King’s College, a rival school. So like how in college movies when one team steals the other’s mascot only this time it was a preserved head.
The students demanded £100 ransom for the head, which was to be donated to charity. The university cheaped out and gave them £10, which was accepted and the head was returned.
1. The CEO of Aldi Claimed His Own Ransom Money as a Tax Deduction
If you’re not familiar with Aldi, the company runs a multi-national chain of grocery stores in Europe, Asia, Australia and the United States (including Trader Joes) and had sales of about $134 billion in 2021, so they’re doing alright. In 1971, one of the founders, Theo Albrecht, who was also one of the richest men in Europe, was kidnapped.
The kidnappers, a lawyer who had heavy debts and one accomplice, held Albrecht in a Dusseldorf office. They demanded ransom directly from Albrecht who apparently began to haggle with the men. It took 17 days for a deal to be reached – they would release Albrecht for $7 million Deutschmarks, or about $3.5 million US. The money was delivered and Albrecht was released while the kidnappers were eventually caught and jailed.
As for Albrecht, he claimed the ransom money he spent on himself as a business deduction for tax purposes and apparently was allowed to do so. Curiously, about half of the ransom money was never found.