Sentence examples for hefty ransoms from inspiring English sources

Hefty ransoms were paid to free them.

Kidnappings have recently increased here, partly because several Western organizations have paid hefty ransoms to free their employees.

Increasingly brazen pirate activity and hefty ransoms have driven up insurance costs and forced some ships to go around South Africa instead of through the Suez Canal.

Rival gangs of Sunni Muslims, who are the majority in Syria, and Alawites, a heterodox sect from which Mr. Assad draws much of his leadership, carry out tit-for-tat kidnappings, sometimes imposing hefty ransoms.

"Lots of Western countries are paying enormous sums to the jihadists," he said in a telephone interview from northern Mali, crowing about the hefty ransoms militants have collected in the region.

The kidnappers, who collected hefty ransoms while Mr Estrada was in power, have bought faster speedboats with some of the money and are hard to track in the jungle-covered islands of the Sulu archipelago.Yet while the war on the Abu Sayyaf continues, Mrs Arroyo's government is quietly seeking deals with other Muslim groups, armed and otherwise, in Mindanao.

Ablaha's brother was kidnapped by Al Qaeda in 2007; he was freed only after the family paid a hefty ransom.

The concern was that the Taliban might use them as bargaining chips in a prisoner swap, or opt to charge a hefty ransom for their release.

He remains in captivity in Hobyo, a pirate den on the Somali coast, because the pirates holding him refuse to let him go without a hefty ransom.

Four months ago, four French journalists held by Isis in Syria were freed after, it was claimed, François Hollande's government paid a hefty ransom.

In Mr. Harp's case, he spent months in captivity and was freed only after paying a hefty ransom, which local newspaper reports put at more than $50 million.