When I have an excuse to do so, I will share my personal corporate kidnapping story that happened in Cochabamba, Bolivia during my days with Bata Shoes. It persuaded me to change jobs and work with a safer company (Mercer).
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Who are you? JFG? You canât just leave us hanging like that!
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Ok. It is a long story and you have to read it all to fully appreciate my involvement.
In the 1980âs I was the Global Director of Pensions and Insurance for the Bata Shoe Organization. At that time, Bata had about 90,000 employees scattered among 85 countries. The insurance part of my job was a risk management position which included managing their property and casualty programs as well as employee benefit programs.
Bata operated in many countries where the prospect of kidnapping was high so we had a global K&R policy and an action plan when a kidnapping happened. I was part of the head office team that responded when kidnappings occurred.
Our company manager in Bolivia and his housekeeper were kidnapped in December 1984. The kidnappers shot and killed the housekeeper to show us they were serious with their subsequent ransom request. Our external security advisors (two ex-CIA guys who had spent their CIA years in South America) were dispatched to Bolivia to handle the on-the- ground negotiations with the kidnappers. There was a lot of drama, which I wonât get into here, but the end result was that our ex-CIA guys got our Bolivian company manager back safely; the Bolivian police ultimately caught the kidnappers.
That is just the prelude to my story.
The kidnappers were thoroughly interrogated after they were caught and their full story came out in a police report that was provided to the kidnap response team (including me) and the Bata family. The report stated that the kidnappers had originally planned to carry out the kidnapping a month earlier (November 1984) as they knew someone from head office would be visiting on a particular date and having dinner with the company manager at his home. They figured kidnapping the company manager AND a HO person would give them more negotiating leverage. According to the police report, they were actually hiding in the bushes outside the company managerâs home when the head office visitor arrived for dinner. However there were two unanticipated people with him that night so the two kidnappers aborted their plans as they thought the greater numbers made the kidnapping too risky. They waited for a month and kidnapped the company manager and his housekeeper instead.
The head office person they had been expecting that night was me. Fortunately two other people from Canada happened to be visiting Bata Bolivia at the same time and accompanied me to my dinner with the company manager. Otherwise it would have been me and the company manager who would have been kidnapped.
I did some soul-searching after reading the kidnapping report, reflecting on how close I had been to being kidnapped. I had travelled to many interesting countries with Bata in my years there but figured I did not want to travel to any more of the higher risk countries.
I had a lot of other interesting adventures during my Bata years but the others were more pleasant!
Alan
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That is one hell of a story.
Its crazy (in hindsight) how much âluckâ plays a factor in some of these issues. A few minutes, or even a few days can change your entire life story.
The reason why I know someone from Bolivia was because a very long time ago (when my parents were in Romania) I was dating the Bolivian Ambassadors daughter in Bucharest (this was back in the early 2000s so Bolivia was a bit more stable then)
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Wow. What a story. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for separately sharing with me offline a news account of the kidnapping which was helpful in jogging my memory of these events! I have made some edits to my story that I had forgotten!
Alan
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Just a postscript.
The Bata team got word of the Bolivian kidnapping the Friday evening before Xmas and the negotiations transpired over the following week or so.
I was at my parents with my wife and kids for Xmas festivities the day that our security guys were scheduled to drop off the ransom money and pick up Tony Van Es, our Bolivian manager. Our team drew straws as to who would have to phone Mr. Bata (the owner) as to how this saga ended. (He was in St. Moritz at his chalet for his annual family skiing holiday). I got the short straw. I got a call around midnight from Bolivia with the good news that Tony had been recovered safe and sound. Will never forget how relieved I was to wake up the boss with the good news.
Having said that, I was very sad about the murdered housekeeper. I met her briefly at our dinner with Tony the month before the kidnapping. She was a lovely young Bolivian woman.
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What an incredible story, thanks for sharing.
That was interesting. Any more stores you want to share?
There are many adventures from my Bata days: it was an interesting place to work because it was a private company and it operated extensively in developing countries. It was a great place to be for a 30-something like me who loved to
travel and was unafraid to take some chances (that now look unwise in retrospect.)
I can think of many other stories but will wait for the right moment to share them. Many canât be told here though as I am not anonymous.
A few that could be told:
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the time that Sendero Luminoso blew up our Peruvian factory and my encounter with the Peruvian police,
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the shakedown in Lagos Airport by the birthday girl,
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the surprise weekend safari that our Kenyan manager provided and the resulting âcharged by an elephantâ story in the Masai Mara that my grandchildren love,
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the harrowing plane ride to the Bata factory in a drug-lord controlled part of Colombia (and the execution in broad daylight of our HR manager there),
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the baboon encounter in the Drakensberg Mountains on a weekend between meetings in SA,
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the discussions with my Palestinian host in Jordan,
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the liquor scam in Pakistan and various South and South-East Asia stories.
Thanks for the kind reception on the Bolivian story as it was a very emotional event for me.
Alan
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Although I went several times to Lagos in my Bata years this shakedown actually occurred in the early 1990âs when I was working with Mercer in London and doing some work for a client in Nigeria. It is a short story so will relate it now.
As an aside, Bata had full time employees in the countries where graft was rampant whose job, among others, was to get you safely through third world airports where you could be apprehended for fictitious infractions and/or needed to bribe officials. I remember well the efficient young Bata Nigeria âfixerâ (Ceci was his name).
However Mercer did not have a fixer in Lagos and I got nailed by the âbirthday girlâ. But I knew how to handle such situations from my Bata experiences and dealt with her smoothly and humorously.
When I gave her my passport to stamp to be permitted to leave the country she simply suspended her hand in the air with the stamping device.
She said âdo you know what day it is today?â
I said âNovember 3â.
She said with a sweet smile âyes, but it is also my birthdayâ while her hand with the exit stamp continued to hover in mid-air.
I smiled back and handed her a US5$ bill and simply said âhappy birthdayâ.
She smiled back, said âthank youâ and stamped my passport.
All very amusing to me as everyone knew the rules.
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Execution of HR manager!?
It was a dangerous part of Colombia. Someone walked up behind the Bata Colombia HR manager in a local bank branch and shot him in the back of the head.
Whoa!
What other businesses was Bata in besides shoes?
Asking for uno amigo.
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