The Gang That Couldn't Kidnap Straight

About the only growth industry in Italy these days is kidnaping. So far this year there have been 42 cases (compared with only nine in 1970). Since ransom demands often run more than $1 million, rich Italians are now looking nervously over their shoulders for the dread rapitori. Like any other booming industry, however, kidnaping has brought in a number of inefficient entrepreneurs, who, if they continue at their present stumbling pace, are likely to queer the whole business.

The best--or worst--example is a gang that last week snatched, for a few minutes anyway, Prince Luigi d'Angerio of Sant' Agata. Driving home from a late-night party with his wife Giuseppina and his son Alfredo, the dignified D'Angerio, 65, noticed a pair of headlights following them through the dense fog near Monza. Suddenly, an Alfa Romeo passed D'Angerio's little Fiat, and tried to force it off the road. The inept driver had pulled in front too quickly, however, and Alfredo, who was driving the Fiat, had no choice but to ram the Alfa in the side.

Hooded Prince. Angry figures emerged from the damaged Alfa. Waving pistols, they threatened to fire unless the prince got out of the car. Unimpressed by the threat, Alfredo slammed the Fiat into reverse--only to smash into a second Alfa that the kidnapers had brought along as their backup car. Finally, two of the gunmen forced the prince into the less damaged of the two Alfas. Although he was hooded, D'Angerio could tell that they were going too fast, and he yelled at them to slow down. They refused and, unable to spot a curve because of the fog, the driver smashed the car into a steel guard rail. Both kidnapers and kidnaped staggered out. Although one gunman pointed a pistol at D'Angerio and demanded that he follow along, the prince trotted the other way. With a thoroughly modern sense of noblesse oblige, he told newsmen later, "I uttered a rude word in Neapolitan and made an internationally understood gesture with my right arm before disappearing into the fog." The kidnapers were not so lucky. One of them left his wallet and identification in the wrecked car, which the police hope will lead to the capture of the whole bunch.

Even if the caper had succeeded, it might have been for naught. The gang apparently assumed that the prince could pay a princely ransom. Though D'Angerio is a descendant of the Anjou kings of France, he is not rich and is only the manager of a small textile factory. "Quite honestly," he sighed, "I don't know how my family could have scraped together a decent ransom."

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