Greek Tycoon Freed

Dealing with kidnappers Columbian Drug Cartel-style:

QUOTE

On 12 November 1981, a group from M-19 (Columbian insurrectionists) kidnapped Martha Nieves Ochoa Vasquez, one of three daughters of Don Fabio Ochoa. Kidnapping for ransom is endemic in Colombia, but until then the drug barons and their families had been immune. They reacted savagely to the new attack. The Ochoa family declined to pay a ransom, instead issued a communiqué – handed out on street corners and even dropped from helicopters. It said, in brief, that “223 Mafia bosses have met to discuss the issue of kidnapping…and agreed to put a fund totaling 446 million pesos [then trading at 100 to the US dollar] to pay for the execution of perpetrators…and to provide 10 soldiers each for the purpose of executing this sentence in public, either by hanging or by firing squad.” Where the perpetrators themselves could not be found, it went on, “our people will act on their colleagues or nearest relatives”.

Not surprisingly, the ploy worked. The MAS (Muerte a Secuestrados – Death to Kidnappers) squads ran riot, shooting suspected guerillas and just about anybody who got in their way, including old ladies and young children. Even mere sympathizers of M-19’s ideals were abducted, tortured and often shot. M-19 capitulated. On 17 February 1982, Martha Nieves was returned, unharmed, to her family.

The kidnapping of Julius Caeser:

QUOTE

Julius Caesar was captured by pirates off the island pf Pharmacusa [near Miletus]. They kept him prisoner for nearly forty days, to his intense annoyance; he had with him only a physician and two valets, having sent the rest of his staff away to borrow the ransom money. As soon as the stipulated fifty talents arrived and the pirates duly set him ashore, he raised a fleet and went after them. He had often smilingly sworn, while in their power, that he would soon capture and crucify them; and this is exactly what he did.

Suetonius The Twelve Caesars c. 120 AD