The 20 Countries Where People Get Kidnapped the Most

The proportion of global kidnappings from Latin America has halved since 2005, but Mexico still leads the pack, according to RiskMap 2014, a new report from Control Risks.

Asia and the Pacific had the most recorded kidnaps-for-ransom in 2013, up to 35% of global cases from 31% in 2012. Risks remain in Africa, especially in Nigeria where " the overwhelming majority of incidents taking place in the oil-producing Niger delta."

"A large number of cases continued to be reported in the Middle East, fuelled by the unstable security environment created by the Syrian civil war," according to the report. "Kidnapping-for-ransom has become a common problem in Syria and Lebanon, with Lebanon ranking sixth in Control Risks’ global top ten in 2013."

Here are the top 20 countries for kidnap-for-ransom in absolute terms for 2013 (as of September 30):

1. Mexico

2. India

3. Nigeria

4. Pakistan

5. Venezuela

6. Lebanon

7. Philippines

8. Afghanistan

9. Colombia

10. Iraq

11. Syria

12. Guatemala

13. Yemen

14. Libya

15. Egypt

16. Brazil

16. Kenya (tied)

18. Nepal

19. Malaysia

19. South Africa (tied)

To contextualize, Control Risks said that the number of kidnappings in the top ten countries were in the "many thousands." But below Iraq, it's in the "high hundreds in all cases." Control Risks couldn't share any more hard numbers with us for confidentiality reasons. They also added that their numbers, unlike other metrics, "include both reported and unreported cases (in effect, cases handled by private security or by the families themselves who simply pay the ransom)."