You need to be vigilant in London especially if you have a purebred cat companion. It’s rare but it does happen: cat abduction with menaces. The criminals know that a cat lover will pay up because they have a strong emotional attachment to their cat.
Also, in England most cat owners let their cats go outside unattended. On this occasion a beautiful blue, female British Shorthair (see above) slipped out the home in North Kensington, London. Not long after her owner, Mr Meadows, 62, had posted fliers publicising that his cat was lost he received a phone call demanding £5,000 for the cat’s return. The criminal sounded menacing.
Later, on receiving a second phone call, the demand was for £2,000. He agreed to pay and Mr Meadows, together with a friend, met three criminals in a car park in Brentwood. At the meeting he managed to renegotiate the ransom money to £1,500.
He has his cat back and he is livid. This was not a case of someone finding a lost cat. This was cat abduction (theft) and a demand for money. He has told the police. What chance they find the culprits? It is a very small chance.
It actually makes me concerned because I live in London and if this happened to me and my cat I’d be very angry and distressed. I don’t know how it would end up.
There is an increased amount of gang crime in England. I believe some of it is due to Eastern European gangs allowed into England under the EU right to freedom of movement rules. Eastern European countries recently joined the EU.
Conversely, in some states of the USA there are environmental-protection laws in place that makes it mandatory to destroy any non-native species of animals being released. And along with these laws it makes it clear that the person “cleaning up” the environmental mess that another person makes by letting those non-native animals roam free, that they can then charge the person releasing those non-native animals any amount of money that they see fit for their time and expenses in having to destroy and dispose of those non-native animals. So not only does the person not get their cat back, but they get charged the cost of having to destroy their free-roaming cat.
It is an interesting law I found when researching why TNR is illegal in so many states. There doesn’t even have to be a bounty placed on cats. Those killing other’s cats can charge them for their time and costs to do so. $1000 per hour should about cover it, don’t you think?
Cat thefts have been going on in Britain for ages as you probably know. My mother used to have Siamese cats and I recall one of hers being stolen. It probably will give others ideas but I don’t think it is a very good criminal activity. It is not profitable enough and too uncertain and unpredictable.
I just hope the story doesn’t give other people ideas or that the culprits don’t try to exploit another pet owner in the same way.
I really wish Mr. Meadows had contacted the police straight away as I’m not hopeful the police will catch the culprits.
The owner states that Maggie slipped out the front door.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/thieves-abduct-north-kensington-familys-cat-and-demand-5000-for-safe-return-10336750.html
She does sound like an especially nervous cat, and if she’s normally indoor only she might have panicked and simply have dashed into someone’s else home if the door was open. Unbeknown to me at the time, that’s exactly what Sophie did when she sneaked outside two days after we moved house. Yet when we’d lived in the flat, she never showed any interest in going out. She could even be trusted to sit by an open front door without ever wanting to cross the threshold. Of course once she’d had that first taste of freedom it was a different matter 😉
There’s something that doesn’t smack right with this.
Did this beauty sneak out or was she indoor/outdoor. I feel that she must have been allowed out. Only by my experience, strictly indoor cats will stand in the doorway of an open door but never go out.
So, he paid a stiff price to have his purebred returned because the outside world is a dangerous place and he took the risk. Idiot!