The sorts of people generally assumed to be susceptible to kidnapping are aristocratic heiresses and the relatives of football stars; or unlucky business types snatched to jungle hideouts by foreign guerrillas. But in Britain, the business of kidnapping is less glamorous and more democratic. It is also booming: in London, where the crime is concentrated, the number of kidnappings investigated by the police has risen 16-fold in three years (see chart). Last month, London's Metropolitan Police dealt with n cases of kidnapping, more than it encountered in the whole of 1998.
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