The Russian authorities were yesterday urgently searching for the missing son of software tycoon Eugene Kaspersky, who reports said is held by kidnappers demanding a ransom of 3 million euros (US$4.4 million).
The interior ministry has not officially announced that Ivan Kaspersky, 20, has been abducted in what would be one of the highest-profile kidnappings in Russia in recent years.
However, press reports yesterday said that the student had been kidnapped by unknown abductors, saying the authorities had hoped to keep the matter secret until the news was leaked to a tabloid Web site on Thursday.
Kaspersky, 45, co-founded Kaspersky Lab in 1997, building on a decade of research into computer viruses. The company has emerged as one of the world’s leading anti-virus software firms.
His fortune is now valued at US$800 million by Forbes magazine, making him the 125th richest man in Russia.
The Kommersant daily said Ivan Kaspersky, a mathematics student at Moscow State University, was taken on Tuesday morning close to the office where he is currently doing work experience as a programmer.
It quoted a source as saying the kidnappers then phoned Eugene Kaspersky in London on his mobile phone, making the 3 million euro ransom demand and warning him not to contact the police.
He then flew to Moscow and requested help from his personal contacts in the Federal Security Service (FSB). The authorities kept the matter top secret to protect the security of Ivan Kaspersky.
However the lifenews.ru Web site reported the kidnapping on Thursday, apparently after one of Ivan’s fellow students let slip the news in a conversation overheard by a journalist.
“That the information is now in the press is very bad,” an official in the missing-persons department of Moscow police told the Izvestia newspaper which also confirmed the kidnapping. “This can only be of harm to the kidnap victim.”
The kidnappings of children of prominent businessmen is not uncommon in Russia, although Ivan Kaspersky appears to be the most prominent victim yet.
In 2009, criminals held the son of a vice president at state oil firm Rosneft, Mikhail Stavsky. He was freed unharmed after a three-month ordeal.
Viktoria Kisluk, the 16-year-old daughter of a top manager at Russia’s biggest private oil firm Lukoil is still missing after vanishing in the Moscow region last month.
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Russian hackers last year targeted a Dutch public facility in the first such an attack on the lowlands country’s infrastructure, its military intelligence services said on Monday. The Netherlands remained an “interesting target country” for Moscow due to its ongoing support for Ukraine, its Hague-based international organizations, high-tech industries and harbors such as Rotterdam, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) said in its yearly report. Last year, the MIVD “saw a Russian hacker group carry out a cyberattack against the digital control system of a public facility in the Netherlands,” MIVD Director Vice Admiral Peter Reesink said in the 52-page
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS