Tiger kidnapping
type of kidnapping
A tiger kidnapping or tiger robbery involves two separate crimes. The first crime usually involves an abduction of a valuable person or thing. Instead of demanding money, the captors demand that a second crime be committed on their behalf. The second crime could be anything from robbery to a murder to the planting of a bomb. A person or item held hostage is kept by the captors until their demands are met. The goal of the captors is to have their risky/dirty work performed by another person. The victims of a crime like this are less likely to report to authorities since they just committed a crime themselves.
Origins
The practice began as a twist on a tactic used by the Irish Republican Army, which kidnapped people in order to coerce others into placing car bombs. The term originated from the similar way that criminals observe and "stalk their prey before pouncing".
The first recorded crime that can be described as a tiger kidnapping occurred in 1972, but the term was coined in the 1980s and gained more widespread use in the following decade.
“Tiger kidnapping” enters the record as type of kidnapping. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Tiger, kidnapping and type can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Tiger kidnapping” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Tiger, kidnapping and type provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7801532. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1972.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tiger kidnapping” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.