Dagestan+-+Sources

Security Forces Turn to Kidnapping in the Russian Caucasus. 17 August 2007. (Accessed through Jane's Information Group) "However, these traditional kidnappings are on the decline and the number of them have dropped by seven per cent across the region between 2005 and 2006. But at the same time the number of kidnap-style seizures by the security forces is increasing. While the majority of these are essentially arrests carried out in presumed hostile territory, a sizeable minority of victims are not passed on to the regular judicial authorities and are instead taken to closed interrogation facilities, often outside the region." "Those people seized in Dagestan, for example, tend to be sent for interrogation at the Khankala army base in Chechnya where they are technically subject to military law. As it is outside the jurisdiction of the Dagestani courts, no formal notification of the detainees' whereabouts need to be posted in their home republic. Likewise, many snatches in Ingushetia are carried out by officers of the North Ossetian department of the Federal Security Service (Federalnaya sluzhba bezopasnosti: FSB) and taken across the republican border to Vladikavkaz."" "Given the high levels of corruption and criminality within the security forces and the lack of oversight over these operations, it is perhaps not surprising they are also increasingly used to seize innocent victims for ransom. According to sources within the central ministry of the interior in Moscow, one in five of all kidnappings in the region is possibly carried out by members of the security forces for mercenary reasons, with victims released on payment of ransoms of up to USD50,000."
 * "The Russian North Caucasus is again in crisis, with an upsurge in violence in both Dagestan and Ingushetia. Under pressure from Moscow and local leaderships to demonstrate resolution and decision, many local security agencies have turned to increasingly arbitrary and violent methods, especially the zakhvat (snatch), a method of arrest which verges on the kidnap."