Kidnapping for Ransom

The unlawful seizure and detention of a person specifically to extort money or another benefit for that person's release, an aggravating circumstance that in many legal systems elevates an ordinary kidnapping to a more severely punished offense because the abduction is undertaken as a coercive financial transaction against a third party rather than for another motive such as a custody dispute or a sexual offense. The crime is prosecuted with particular rigor in most countries given the direct threat to the victim's life that a ransom negotiation carries, and United States federal law under 18 U.S.C. 1201 specifically identifies a demand for ransom as one of several circumstances establishing federal jurisdiction over a kidnapping.