Ransom | featured news

The San Francisco Chronicle says it received an email from an anonymous person claiming to be holding a California woman who was found safe Wednesday.

Kidnappers used to make ransom notes with letters cut out of magazines. Now, notes simply pop up on your computer screen, except the hostage is your PC.

A multimillion-dollar, kidnap-and-ransom industry in West Africa's dry north is funding al-Qaida-linked gunmen dubbed "gangster-jihadists."

The Secret Service said Wednesday it is investigating the reported theft of copies of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's federal tax records during a break-in at an accounting office in Franklin. Someone claiming responsibility demanded $1 million not to make them public....

Somali pirates who have been holding a hijacked ship for nearly two years killed a Syrian hostage crew member and wounded another to protest delayed ransom payment, a pirate leader said....

The government sent top investigators Thursday to hunt for Washington Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos, whose abduction has shaken Venezuela's elite athletes and focused attention on the nation's sharp rise in kidnappings for ransom....

It is a happy ending to a very long and torturous saga. The British couple Paul and Rachel Chandler are enjoying their hard-won freedom at the residence Monday of the U.K. High Commissioner (or Ambassador) in Nairobi, Kenya.

Somali pirates freed a Greek- flagged tanker carrying 2 million barrels of oil on Monday and witnesses said four pirates were killed in a clash between rival groups over the ransom.

Somali pirates who are demanding $7 million in ransom for a British sailing couple say boats from other countries are plundering ...