This article offers a comparative analysis of the phenomenon of ransom kidnapping in Italy between the late 1960s and the late 1990s, a period in which hundreds of citizens were abducted and held by Sardinian banditry, the Sicilian Mafia, and the Calabrian ’Ndrangheta. While ransom kidnapping far surpassed political kidnapping in the number of victims it produced, it has received only a fraction of the scholarly attention that has been given to political abductions during the anni di piombo. Tracing the different roots, periods, and development of ransom kidnapping, this article sheds light on the distinct uses that banditry, the Mafia, and the ’Ndrangheta made of this crime; highlights the impact that national economic transformations and the state had on the increase of this phenomenon; and demonstrates how for the Italian underworld, kidnapping was both a reaction to and a means of modernisation. It also argues that particularly in the case of the ’Ndrangheta, kidnapping became a veritable industry.
