Word: ransomes
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...Price of Fat Dogs. Deutschmarks never change hands in the ransom deals. Ulbricht & Co. prefer to tap the cornucopia of West German industry for trucks and spare parts, and coffee, butter and citrus fruit, which East Germany considers "luxury" consumer goods. With time, a pricing system has evolved. Young prisoners such as Zippel and Trochim can be sprung for 15,000 Deutschmarks ($3,750), while the dicke Hünde (fat dogs) convicted of subversion and espionage pull down as much as $10,000 apiece...
...criminals go, George Skalla was even edgier than most. He and a friend, Cal Bailey, 44, had come up with what seemed a surefire scheme. For between $2,000,000 and $8,000,000 in ransom, they planned to kidnap Leonard Firestone, 58, one of five sons of the late rubber magnate Harvey Firestone, from his $250,000 home in Beverly Hills. The plot was dangerous enough, but Skalla's real worry was Bailey, an ex-con who had turned respectable and had acquired a $75,000 house and four children. Bailey took over the show, threatened to kill...
Some legal experts are beginning to criticize the bondsmen's role. "These powers would be abusable enough in the hands of proper and responsible police authorities," says Washington Lawyer Ronald Goldfarb, author of Ransom, a new study of bail problems. "The same powers in the hands of bondsmen are shocking and frightening." Bondsmen argue that they need their special privileges in order to prevent wholesale bond jumping and to keep their fees within the grasp of the average prisoner.* But in view of the present Supreme Court's concern for the rights of accused, the whole subject...
...Washington, the wary reaction was that Castro might be playing another of his vicious little games-possibly putting out another ransom feeler, as he did with the Bay of Pigs prisoners, or possibly laying a trap to lure anti-Castro Cubans into exposing themselves. The U.S. called the offer "vague and ambiguous," said that Castro ought to use diplomatic channels for his offer, then later announced that it would accept any and all refugees if Castro was really serious about it. President Johnson even indicated that he would ask Congress for a $12.6 million appropriation to help get the program...
...write an end to the tale, a sort of Miami Beach Rififi, Florida Insurance Millionaire John D. MacArthur, 68, agreed to pay $25,000 as ransom for the $140,000 DeLong ruby, stolen last October in the great jewel robbery at Manhattan's American Museum of Natural History. MacArthur packed the cash in a bundle of $100 and $50 bills for Freelance Writer Francis P. Antel to deliver to the usurers who had held the 100.32-carat ruby as collateral on a loan. He then drove out to a phone booth near Palm Beach and found the stone perched...