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Business Daily

Kidnapping for ransom

Business Daily

BBC

Business

4.4816 Ratings

🗓️ 11 March 2026

⏱️ 18 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We look at the rising threat of kidnap for ransom. In West Africa, it's a growing criminal industry.

But how should any of us respond if or when the worst happens to us and a loved one is taken?

If you'd like to get in touch with the team, our email address is businessdaily@bbc.co.uk

Presented and produced by Ed Butler

Business Daily is the home of in-depth audio journalism devoted to the world of money and work. From small startup stories to big corporate takeovers, global economic shifts to trends in technology, we look at the key figures, ideas and events shaping business.

Each episode is a 17-minute, daily deep dive into a single topic, featuring expert analysis and the people at the heart of the story.

Recent episodes explore the weight-loss drug revolution, the growth in AI, the cost of living, why bond markets are so powerful, China's property bubble, and Gen Z's experience of the current job market.

We also feature in-depth interviews with company founders and some of the world's most prominent CEOs. These include Google's Sundar Pichai, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, and the CEO of Canva, Melanie Perkins.

(Picture: Security officers stand guard next to a bus carrying freed worshippers at the Government House in Kaduna on the 5th of February 2026. More than 160 Christian worshippers were initially feared kidnapped during coordinated attacks on three churches in Kurmin Wali, Kajuru area, on the 18th of January. Credit: Getty Images)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

0:06.8

Hi there, I'm Ed Butler.

0:08.6

Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC.

0:11.2

Today, we're looking at the growing global scourge of kidnapping.

0:15.7

The day that they came to him, they came around 12 midnight,

0:19.9

and then they tired their hands at the back.

0:22.5

He don't know them. He's so, so afraid. He's so afraid on that day.

0:28.2

More and more people like this man, tens of thousands of them at sort, are being taken and kidnapped

0:33.1

for ransom every year. Who's behind this criminal industry? And is it getting worse?

0:39.2

It's definitely accelerating, globalizing. It's long been a problem in places like Latin America

0:45.1

or in Africa. But we have also technologically driven kidnapping and extortion in Asia at the

0:52.2

moment. That's where we see, I think, a awful lot of growth.

0:55.3

The economics of kidnapping.

0:57.2

That's Business Daily from the BBC.

1:04.4

The sound there of African villagers being beaten.

1:08.6

This was a video taken last year by a criminal gang in northern Nigeria

1:12.7

in order to persuade relatives or lawmakers to part with their cash.

1:18.4

They told my wife, if you don't want us to kill your husband, bring money. They used to

1:25.0

beat us when they want to negotiate with our people.

1:28.2

When they are beating us, even the one that used to teach us what we will be saying,

1:32.1

tell them you need money or else they will kill you.

1:36.1

Those are the words of one kidnap victim, at Ayoya,

...

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