Rachel’s family member was in this category – he was an engineer working for a Danish company traveling to check out facilities in Columbia. But people in the hostage situation business know that these targets are often held hostage. The second type of person targeted are ones you might call “unlikely” hostages. It used to be that self-respecting hostage-takers left journalists, humanitarians, and missionaries alone, but that’s not true anymore. It’s part of their job description to go into dangerous places. These people include journalists, humanitarian workers, and religious missionaries. People Targeted for Hostage SituationsĪ common kind of person targeted are the brave people who run towards danger. The FBI doesn’t just send agents around the world to bring home kidnapped Americans – they also retrieve domestic hostages. But it also happens in the United States. For state hostage-taking, Iran, China, Russia, and North Korea are the most dangerous. Most of the hostage situations in Latin America have economic motives.įor political hostage-taking, the Middle East and Africa are the most risky. Now Mexico holds that dubious honor – not the whole country, but certain parts. When Rachel’s relative was taken hostage, Columbia was the hostage-taking capital of the world. Which specific countries are the worst can change, though. Latin America has been at the top of kidnapping hotspots for as long as Rachel can remember. Riskiest Geographic Areas for Hostage-Taking These governments understand that if they hold the Westerners for no good reason, it puts pressure on American, British, and other governments and creates a negotiation point. An example is the Westerners who are in prison in Iran, China, or Russia for no other reason than being American, British, or European.

In this kind of hostage situation, people are imprisoned by a foreign government for being from an “enemy” nation. And if they’re not, the outcome may not be as great. In these types of hostage situations, the hostage is a commodity with a price on their head.Īs long as someone is willing to pay, your loved one will come home. The kidnapper’s goal is just to get someone to pay money for the hostage’s release. These are what most people think of when they think of being taken hostage, and it’s what Rachel experienced when her family member was taken hostage. Economic Hostage-TakingĮconomically-motivated hostage situations are the most common. Their goal is to draw attention to the cause they are fighting for or to gain political concessions from a Western government. In politically-motivated hostage situations, a terrorist organization or freedom fighter group takes both Westerners and locals hostage. This kind of hostage situation is the one that Rachel was most familiar with. Each one has different perpetrators, different criteria for selecting targets, and different reasons for taking these targets hostage. Rachel identifies three different motives behind hostage situations. She wants to understand the crime, to help the people who have been affected by it, and try to influence public policy to make better decisions about hostage situations in the future. This experience started what has become a life-long passion for Rachel to work on hostage issues. After seven months of not knowing if her family member was alive or dead, he finally returned alive. Her family was completely ordinary, and she had never expected anything like this. In 1996, Rachel was in her first year at Cambridge University when she got some unexpected news: A family member had been taken hostage in Columbia.

Rachel’s Experience with Hostage Situations In addition, she co-chairs the European Commission’s group tackling online extremism, and her report “The Business of Resilience” has become the blueprint for corporate security management. She helped found Hostage International and Hostage US, non-profit organizations that helps families while they are going through and getting over having a loved one in a hostage situation. She has worked with corporations, governments, and international non-governmental organizations.

Rachel Briggs has spent the past twenty years as a writer, analyst, and strategist developing security protocols. See Hostage Taking with Rachel Briggs, OBE for a complete transcript of the Easy Prey podcast episode. It’s important to know how and why targets are selected. But money isn’t the only reason you might find yourself in a hostage situation. You may think that if you’re not fabulously wealthy, you don’t need to worry about being taken hostage.

Day 4 of the hostage situation meme