European Governments Paying Millions To Terrorists For Kidnap Victims

[From article]
Al Qaeda has secretly collected at least $125 million in kidnapping ransoms from European governments looking to buy back hostages from Africa and the Middle East, a report claimed Tuesday.
The hefty cash payments date back to 2008, including $66 million in the past year alone, according to the New York Times.
Despite official denials, the money comes “almost exclusively” from European governments that funnel it through a network of intermediaries, often disguising it as “development aid,” sources told the Times.
The paper also cited thousands of pages of internal al Qaeda documents that laid out the inner workings of its kidnapping racket.
[. . .]
The scheme has been so successful that while kidnappers demanded about $200,000 per hostage in 2003, that amount has recently ballooned as high as $10 million.
The Times quoted Nasser al-Wuhayshi, leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as saying that ransom money accounts for up to half his operating revenue.

http://nypost.com/2014/07/30/al-qaeda-raised-125m-in-kidnapping-ransom-money-since-2008/

Euro governments paying secret ransoms to al Qaeda
By New York Post Staff Report
July 30, 2014 | 1:18am