Ask a simple question, get a simple answer: the FBI exists to stop kidnapping and is singularly effective at this. If you kidnapped a soccer mom for ransom their budget for resolution is denominated in millions of dollars per day until it makes national news and then effective infinite after that point.

Among other things this destroys the infrastructure and well of expertise that sophisticated businesses require to function. If you could get a billion in cash, what would you DO with it? Your infinitely resourced adversary has every financial institution and bank teller in the country trained to detect you. If you are a sophisticated criminal organization and can launder millions, why sell the laundry to a kidnapper? Sell it to someone who will not get everyone involved burned to the ground.

Abundance of rich people and relentless police response in case of high profile kidnappings drops the risk to so low that rich peope in the US can show off their wealth in ways rich people from other counties would be mortified by.

Better law enforcement. This sort of business happen in countries with corruption off the charts.

Or those that have a collapsed state I worked for a Huge Arab firm in the London office and one our guys in Beruit got grabbed - we got him back.

Not sure if it was just cash or "we know where your mum lives be terrible if anything happed to that street".

Speaking of Beirut.

"Four Soviet diplomats were kidnapped in September 1985 by a fundamentalist group called the Islamic Liberation Organization. Russia quickly dispatched its Alpha group, tasked with counter-terrorism hostage-rescue operations, to Beirut. Once the team learned that Arkady Katkov, a consular attaché and one of the four hostages, was killed, they responded quickly by tracking down and locating one of the kidnappers’ leaders (or relative it’s not clear). In order to send a clear message to the terrorists, Alpha group members castrated the hostage, cut him down into pieces and sent him to the hostage takers. They also threatened to kill more of the kidnappers’ relatives if the Soviet diplomats were not free."

https://blogbaladi.com/how-russia-responded-to-the-kidnappin...

> we know where your mum lives be terrible if anything happed to that street

I was totally expecting that line to be:

> we know where your mum lives and she'll be very angry when we tell her what you're up to

Because the US isn't a feudal state where the phrase 'a king's ransom' is used literally.

And that's a good thing.

The people rich enough to pay such ransoms either have security or they're on the down low.