The Global Advisor Kidnap & extortive crime | January 2025 Asia-Pacific
Celebrating 30 years in partnership
Kidnap rates in India continued to decline in the fourth quarter of 2024 compared with the same period in 2023, sustaining the downward trend recorded in other quarters in 2024. Maharashtra state, which accounted for the largest number of recorded incidents in the final quarter of 2023, saw a significant decline in recorded cases, with Uttar Pradesh overtaking it as the state with the highest number of kidnaps in the fourth quarter of 2024. Reported incidents continued to occur regularly throughout the country, with less sophisticated criminal groups routinely targeting local business owners and their child dependants. Perpetrators continued to primarily target victims previously known to them, though cases of opportunistic and targeted kidnaps continued to occur less frequently. Numbers of kidnaps in Pakistan remained broadly consistent with rates recorded in the fourth quarter of 2023. While the majority of incidents occurred in Sindh and Punjab provinces, in line with the previous quarters of 2024, there was a 200% increase in kidnap incidents reported in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces in comparison with the same period in 2023. Separatist and extremist groups in these provinces escalated kidnap operations against both security forces and local employees operating at outdoor worksites in the extractive sectors, including mining. This increase in kidnap rates came amid heightened disruptive and anti-governmental activity by these groups in the final quarter of 2024. Recorded kidnaps in Afghanistan increased between October and December 2024 compared with the same period in 2023. The majority of kidnap cases occurred in rural Kandahar province, bordering Pakistan, where criminal gangs targeted child dependants of local nationals
for financial gain. Control Risks also recorded rare cases in Herat province, bordering Iran. Criminal groups continued to capitalise on the porous borders and rural landscapes of this region, which allowed them to operate with limited interception by security forces. Detention remained the most prevalent threat to foreign nationals from the US and other Western European countries. The Taliban continued to sporadically target foreign travellers perceived to threaten or criticise their authority and as a means of engaging in hostage diplomacy to secure diplomatic leverage and extract political and economic concessions from victims’ home governments. Following a significant escalation in political turmoil and domestic insecurity in Bangladesh throughout 2024, numbers of kidnaps increased by 75% in the final quarter of 2024 compared with the same period in 2023. Criminal gangs in Dhaka, Khulna and Rajshahi provinces targeted local business owners and employees for financial gain. Control Risks also recorded sporadic incidents of riverine kidnaps in Chittagong province perpetrated by Myanmar-based separatist groups, targeting primarily local fishers and agricultural workers.
77 % of abductions happened in transit/outdoors 91 % of abductions resolved in less than 8 days 14 sectors affected
Key developments October to December 2024
Kidnap numbers in Asia Pacific (APAC) region fell by 27% over the fourth quarter of 2024 compared with the same period in 2023. Reported cases in India continued to decline, in line with a wider downward trend established throughout 2024. As in the third quarter of 2024, Pakistan recorded the highest number of cases in Asia Pacific in the fourth quarter of 2024, remaining the region’s kidnap hotspot. Incidents of kidnap and political detention in Afghanistan increased in comparison with the third quarter of 2023, targeting both local and foreign nationals. Kidnap rates in Bangladesh increased by 75% compared with the same period in 2023, following significant domestic insecurity over the third and fourth quarters of 2024.
06
Copyright © Control Risks – Please refer to the disclaimer at the end of this document.
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker