B.C. is home to some of the world's dumbest, and drowsiest, kidnappers

In April 2006, after police freed 23-year-old Graham McMynn from a gang of kidnappers in Surrey, B.C., deputy Vancouver police chief Doug LePard offered a message for anyone considering a similar caper. "[I]t is a dumb crime," he told reporters. "It is not a good money-making enterprise." The facts bear him out. Since 2005, at least six residents of the Vancouver arearanging in age from eight to 28, and in lifestyle from rich to just reasonably well-to-dohave been abducted for ransom. That the kidnappers haven't collected a single fat dime will come as little comfort to their victims, or to Vancouverites in general.

In many other parts of the world, kidnapping is frighteningly common and profitable. In Brazil, as Isabel Vincent reports in this week's Maclean's, clever criminals can cash in on someone they haven't even kidnapped. Collect enough personal information about a "victim," they've discovered, and they can easily convince a desperate family member to fork over a wad of cash without the palaver of getaway cars, blindfolds and money drops.

In countries like Brazil, kidnapping is seen as a "legitimate form of crime," says Neil Boyd, a criminologist at Simon Fraser University"in much the same way that marijuana grow-ops are seen on the west coast." And while Boyd doesn't see any huge upward trend in kidnappings in Canada, he says immigration from cultures where it's more accepted may explain why an all-but unheard of crime is gaining some modicum of popularity.

Luckily for Canada, it seems to be gaining popularity only among idiots.

McMynn was hauled out of his Volkswagen Golf at gunpoint on April 4, 2006, leaving his bewildered girlfriend to flag down another motorist and call the police. What followed were nine bizarre, disquieting days of silence from the kidnappers. During that time, by McMynn's account, he was threatened with death andapparently in jestrape. Beheading was also mentioned. The kidnappers had time to watch hockey and smoke pot, and to force McMynn, a self-described neophyte, to do likewise. When he coughed, he says, they laughed uproariously.

When the topic of money finally came up, McMynn suggested his father could likely muster $100,000 with little problem, but that $1 million would require some doing. The family lived on a lavish Southlands estate, but thanks largely to various problems with Revenue Canada, it had cash flow issues. Spooked by media reports to that effect, the captors asked McMynn whether his father's insurance might cover a ransom payout. They asked several times for the number of his family's second telephone line, but, McMynn testified last month, never seemed to write it down. Amazingly, even after two television appeals by the McMynns, in which they insisted they had plenty of money, the kidnappers hadn't made contact with them, or with police, by the time they were nabbed.

This grave oversight becomes less baffling when you consider that one of the men accused in McMynn's abduction, Tuan Anh Nguyen, had been out on bail awaiting trial in connection with an even more inept kidnapping.

On August 27, 2005, after a barbeque at his parents' home in Coquitlam, 23-year-old Gabriel Mak arranged for the purchase of some marijuana in a nearby parking lot. Stepping inside a Jeep Cherokee to inspect the goods, he instead found himself kidnapped at gunpoint, his eyes duct-taped shut and his hands zip-tied. Asked about ransom, Mak informed his four captors that they had vastly overestimated his family's wealth. (The sum total of the group's detective work, Crown prosecutors later theorized, was observing Mak and his father perusing the goods at an upscale car dealership.) He suggested they take a drive past his parents' modest homestead as evidencewhich they did, returning nonplussed.

The kidnappers soon relocated to another apartment on the east side of Vancouver, duct-taping Mak's eyes shut againpoorly. He retained enough vision to see his lone guard nestle down on the floor for a doze, at which point he freed himself from his zip-ties and duct tape and simply walked out the front door.

Not yet apprehended by police, and undaunted by this unmitigated travesty of a criminal enterprise, three quarters of the same team, including Nguyen, dusted off their kit and made another try exactly two weeks later. On the night of Sept. 10, 28-year-old Cameron Jones and his girlfriend, Michelle Jansons, awoke to find four masked, gun-toting men at the foot of their bed. Jones had a hood thrown over his head and was hustled into the back of an SUV, which proceeded to meander aimlessly through the greater Vancouver area. Eventually he found himself alone but for a single kidnapper, who promptly fell fast asleep in the backseat, snoring like a wildebeest for the benefit of his blindfolded captive. Jones managed to extricate himself from the hood, used a coat hanger to open the tailgate, and hopped away in search of assistance. When police arrived on the scene, they found one Julio Madrid still asleep in the back of the truck.

James Morton
1100 - 5255 Yonge Street
Toronto, Ontario
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