Former FBI Director Consults Bulgaria on Kidnapping Cases

Bulgaria's Interior Minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov (L), discussed Tuesday Bulgaria's kidnapping cases with former FBI Director, Louis Freeh. Photo by BGNES

Bulgaria's Interior Minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, received Tuesday advice from former FBI Director, Louis Freeh, about the country's mounting, unsolved, high profile kidnapping cases.

Freeh is on a visit to Bulgaria as a private consultant and is said to have offered confidential recommendations to Tsvetanov.

In his official statements, the former FBI Director informed the arrests rate in abduction cases in the US, where kidnapping is a federal offense, is 75%. The crime is punishable by life behind bars if the victim has died or suffered serious injuries. In some cases kidnapping even calls for the death penalty.

Freeh further said the cash reward for cooperation with the authorities, used in the US, is a successful practice, often leading to arrests because the perpetrators are turned over by people from their insider circles.

Freeh pointed out that to criminalize the act of paying a ransom would be a very difficult task because in such cases the life and the well-being of the victim comes first, and is more important than the detention of the abductors.

The former FBI Director stated that Bulgaria should rely on its experience and track record of preventing similar crimes.

Louis Joseph Freeh was the 10th Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, serving from September 1993 to June 2001.

Freeh began his career as an agent of the FBI, and was later an assistant United States Attorney and a United States District Court judge, the position he held when appointed FBI director. He is now a lawyer and consultant in the private sector. He acquired Italian citizenship on October 23, 2009.

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