Police complicity in kidnapping and extortion activities permeates many societies and spans several continents. The practice is more pervasive in those countries where entrenched flaws in institutional oversight and funding shortages either drive members of the security forces to crime or give them the confidence to believe they can act with impunity.

Mexico

Longstanding concerns regarding the relationship between corrupt Mexican security forces and organised crime groups were reaffirmed on 10 June 2019, when members of the Federal Police kidnapped and raped a Honduran migrant, before handing her over to an unidentified criminal group. The group demanded, and eventually received, a USD 5,000 ransom for the victim’s release. Other recent incidents have further demonstrated the entrenched practices tying police to criminal groups in Mexico. On 24 May 2019, Mexican authorities detained five federal investigators employed by the Attorney General’s office for their suspected involvement in kidnapping activities in Mexico City, and in March of this year, police were arrested in Veracruz State for kidnapping five people in 2016 and turning them over to the Jalisco cartel.

While the cooperation of police with organised crime can be interpreted as a sign of the strength of cartels in Mexico, it is also a reflection of inherent corruption within the country’s police forces. Police in many instances are underpaid, undertrained and underequipped to adequately respond to increasing levels of violent crime. The national homicide rate, for example, increased from 16.2 to 26 per 100,000 between 2016 and 2018. Junior members of the police forces, whose salaries are particularly low, are especially vulnerable to either extorting bribes from members of the public or accepting pay-offs from criminal gangs. In a 2018 survey by Causa en Común, an NGO surveying Mexican police, 43 percent of respondents said they had to buy their own uniforms and 23 percent said they had to pay for ammunition out of their own pockets. Under these circumstances, it is no surprise that Deputy Interior Minister for Human Rights Alejandro Encinas recently acknowledged “that organised crime works with government officials at all levels.”

The Philippines

Since President Rodrigo Duterte came to power in June 2016, there has been a significant increase in policerelated kidnappings in the country. In a recent incident in March 2019, for example, Philippine authorities arrested seven police officers, all of whom were members of a drug enforcement unit, in connection with a kidnapping case from November 2018. The incident occurred in Las Piñas, Metro Manila, where the suspects abducted a local resident after arresting him on allegedly spurious drugs charges. His sister alerted a senior police officer to the abduction after the suspects issued a ransom demand. Law enforcement personnel rescued the victim and arrested the suspects several days later. The suspects had demanded that the victim’s sister pay a PHP 200,000 (approximately USD 3,800) ransom to secure her brother’s release. The perpetrators also threatened to kill the victim and stage his death to look like he had been shot in an anti-drugs operation. 

President Duterte infamously gave police officers and vigilante groups carte blanche to wage an aggressive, unaccountable and extrajudicial “war on drugs” since assuming the presidency. Human rights groups allege that up to 20,000 people have been killed since mid- 2016, although Philippine authorities say the figure is closer to 5,000. Corrupt police officers, often members  of the country’s drug enforcement agencies, use the fear and unaccountability generated by the war on drugs to engage in a variety of criminal activities, including kidnap for ransom. Exact figures regarding the number of police-linked kidnappings are unavailable. However, the practice has become so common that the term “tokhang for ransom,” roughly meaning “drug bust for ransom,” has entered the country’s lexicon.

While most victims of police-related kidnappings are local nationals, several high-profile cases involving foreign nationals have also occurred. The most famous of these was the October 2016 kidnapping and subsequent murder of Jee Ick-Joo, a South Korean expatriate businessman. Corrupt members of an anti-drugs unit kidnapped Jee from his home in Angeles City, Metro Manila, before killing him and disposing of his body inside the Camp Crame building, the Philippine National Police’s central headquarters. Despite Jee’s death, they demanded his wife pay a ransom of PHP 8 million (approximately USD 150,000). She paid PHP 5 million (around USD 96,000) before becoming suspicious and contacting local authorities, who arrested the suspects shortly afterward. At the time of writing, the trial of the police kidnappers is ongoing.

Nigeria

Criminally motivated kidnappings have long been pervasive in Nigeria. According to Nigeria’s Chief of Police, Mohammed Adamu, there were over 685 reported kidnappings in Nigeria in the first half of 2019, and several more went unreported. While kidnappings in the Niger Delta and economic hubs such as Lagos are well documented, the latest statistics indicate that kidnapping is becoming more pervasive across the country. One of the driving factors behind the spread of kidnappings across Nigeria is ineffective and ill-equipped policing. However, as kidnappings continue, it is  also becoming apparent that the security forces are increasingly complicit in this, and other criminal activity, in Nigeria.

In a prominent case in July 2018, for example, four members of the elite Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a special branch of the police created to fight violent crime, were arrested for their involvement in the kidnapping of a popular local cleric in Lagos. The police officers had reportedly demanded a N 7 million (USD 19,400) ransom for his release.

The Nigerian police force has been widely criticised for its alleged involvement in corruption and human rights by several domestic and international advocacy groups. In August 2017, the Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released the results of a survey that found the police to be the most corrupt federal agency in the country. Subsequently, Amnesty International reported in 2018 that the SARS is responsible for widespread torture and extortion of detainees, with victims often held in undisclosed and unofficial locations. While the federal government has embarked on numerous efforts to reform the police service, the lucrative prospects of kidnapping and extortion have continued to attract corrupt police officers. 

Many had hoped that the Police Reform Bill, passed by the Senate in April this year, would pave the way for greater accountability in the police force. Yet the House of Representatives has rejected the bill, with some commentators claiming the proposed amendments — which include changes to federal oversight and criminalising human rights violations by the police — contradict the Constitution. Now, as the politicians debate the bill in the National Assembly, corrupt elements in the police force remain largely unchecked and susceptible to becoming embroiled in criminal activities, including kidnap for ransom.