Would you pay $1,500 to be abducted in broad daylight and tortured? Welcome to the bizarre world of ‘extreme kidnapping’
Adrenaline junkies are being warned that the upsurge in popularity of ‘Extreme Kidnapping’ could lead to dangerous confusion for the police and public.
Charging $500 for a four-hour ‘econo-kidnap’, the Detroit-based business has hit the news in recent weeks after the apparent broad daylight abduction of a New York couple turned out to be all a masochistic game.
Simulating a dramatic kidnapping experience complete with electric shocks and water-boarding, people pay anywhere up to $1,500 to be held overnight, with the firm even offering customized plans that even include the possibility of all-girl abductors.
Scroll Down for Video
Founded by sometime rapper and entrepreneur Adam Thick/Mr. Scrillion, Extreme Kidnapping was founded 10-years-ago, but now finds that 80-90 percent of its business comes from outside Michigan – mainly from tourists who fly in.
Only the paying customer or customers are allowed to be kidnapped and Thick suggests his clients come to Detroit to act out their fantasy because they will save ‘a ton of money’.
‘In terms of the industry – kidnapping for entertainment – it’s a niche,’ he said to MLive.Com. ‘If you’re another company trying to set something up like us, you can’t really compete with us. There’s really not much room (in the market) for a business like this.
‘You can have a couple, but it’s not the type of business where you would probably have five of them operating at one time.’
Clients pre-arrange the backstory of their kidnapping and even request the level of fear and intimidation they are exposed to – including the opportunity to be water-boarded
Inspired by the David Fincher movie ‘The Game’, Extreme Kidnapping offers clients of the deluxe top of the range experience a torture menu.
The list asks if you are happy to be slapped, water-boarded, stunned by an electric gun and even suspended from the ceiling, while kindly also enquiring if the paying customer suffers any allergies.
Of course, along with the simulated masochistic experience there is a safety word which is agreed beforehand and Extreme Kidnapping even goes as far as to arrange a backstory as to why the client is being abducted.
Suggested story lines include a secret agent on a mission gone wrong, the heir to a large fortune taken for ransom or simply mistaken identity.
Torture techniques used in Extreme Kidnappings scenarios include being made to listen to particular music again and again.
GQ Magazine recently ran a profile on the Detroit firm and their reporter was subjected to Eurythmics ‘Sweet Dreams’ twenty times in a row until it became ‘a really, really annoying mantra’.
Other, more frightening noises were also played, such as a barking dog and huge amounts of water being sloshed and moved around.
The willing abductee found his thighs duct-taped together while his private parts were uncomfortably squeezed between them.
He was exposed to the threat of being burnt by a blow-torch which never materialized and was left for hours on his own in silence.
‘Finally my kidnappers came back down and led me back to the chair. Romeo ripped off my eye mask and I got hit with the floodlights,’ says the article in GQ.
‘Adam sat behind them. This is when my fake kidnapping turned into the world’s lamest improv class.’
Running through the fake identities pre-arranged, Adam acts as a frightening kidnapper – but then pulls the rug from under the one-time willing participant.
He claims that the fake kidnapping has now gone awry and is in fact now a real kidnapping – and that the reporter has fallen victim to a scam he has repeated many times before.
However, once the ruse is bought by the now panicked client, Adam quickly relents and winds the scenario up – driving the customer back to their hotel or home and kicking them out of the SUV they were abducted in.
‘It’s more or less a thrill entertainment of a kidnapping scenario,’ said Shanel Hill, a professional abductor for the Detroit-based company called Extreme Kidnapping.
‘Some people come to us because they want to lose control,’ Hill said to ABC News.
However, some law enforcement experts say that the all-too-real kidnappings could create real-life danger.
The alleged abduction of a married couple in New York made headlines earlier this month after a man had a plastic bag placed over his head and another masked man forced his wife into a minivan at gunpoint in broad-daylight.
While it turned out to be a hoax staged to celebrate a birthday, NYPD spent days seriously investigating the incident.
‘What you’ve done is create a situation where both the police, the victims and the fake bad guy could be harmed,’ ABC News analyst and former FBI special agent Brad Garrett said.
Watch Video Here: