Nigeria: Kidnaps break up families, keep children out of school
GARBA MOHAMMAD, ABRAHAM ACHIRGA and GIULIA PARAVICINI, of Reuters, report…
Lockbit cybercrime gang disrupted by Britain, US and EU
London, UK Reuters Lockbit, a notorious cybercrime gang that holds its victims’ data to ransom, has been disrupted in a rare international law enforcement operation by Britain’s National Crime Agency, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, Europol and a coalition of international police agencies, according to a post on the gang’s extortion website on Monday. […]
Second Vatican official says Pope OK’d ransom payments for nun
Vatican CityAP A second high-ranking Holy See official told a Vatican court on Friday that Pope Francis had authorized spending hundreds of thousands of euros in ransom payments to try to free a nun who was kidnapped by al-Qaida-linked militants in Mali. Archbishop Edgar Pena Parra, the Holy See’s number three, told the Vatican […]
Ransom freed some missionary hostages in Haiti, workers say
AP An unidentified person paid a ransom that freed three missionaries kidnapped by a gang in Haiti under an agreement that was supposed to have led to the release of all 15 remaining captives early last month, workers for their Ohio-based organisation have confirmed. The person who made the payment was not affiliated with Ohio-based […]
Gangs in Haiti are targeting schools and students – UNICEF
Port-au-Prince, HaitiAP UNICEF warned on Tuesday that schools in Haiti are increasingly at the mercy of gangs, with children becoming targets of robbery or ransom. The agency said that at least seven schools in the capital of Port-au-Prince have been forced to pay unidentified gangs in exchange for security in the past two months and […]
Kidnappers in Nigeria demand ransom to release 80 schoolchildren
Kaduna, NigeriaReuters Kidnappers are demanding a ransom of one million naira each to release around 80 children snatched from a boarding school in northern Nigeria last month, according to a pastor involved in the negotiations for their release. The attack on the Bethel Baptist High School in the state of Kaduna was the 10th mass […]
Kidnapped Nigerian students freed after ransom paid – school, parent
Kaduna, NigeriaReuters Six students and two officials who were kidnapped last month from a school in Nigeria’s Kaduna state were released after relatives paid ransom money, a school official and parent said on Friday. Kidnappings by armed men, commonly referred to in Nigeria as “bandits”, have become endemic in northern Nigeria, disrupting the education of […]
Colombia’s police advise Haiti on tackling kidnapping crisis
Havana, CubaReuters Colombia, once the kidnap capital of the world, reduced kidnappings by 95 per cent over the past two decades. Now the anti-kidnapping unit of its national police hopes to help Haiti tackle its own epidemic of abductions for ransom. Lieutenant Colonel Carlos Eduardo Tellez Betancourt told Reuters his team of four specialists had […]
Seven Catholic clergy, including two French citizens, kidnapped in Haiti
Port-au-PrinceReuters Five priests and two nuns were kidnapped in Haiti on Sunday, a Catholic priest said, with two French citizens among the hostages in the Caribbean nation increasingly riven by kidnappings and violent crime. The clergy members were kidnapped in the commune of Croix-des-Bouquets, northeast of the capital Port-au-Prince, said Father Gilbert Peltrop, secretary general […]