The internet is full of little gems.
I found this one of interest.
SnipAlong with a few colleagues, Radcliffe convinced their company to set up a subsidiary focused on hostage response. The subsidiary, which they named Control Risks, would hire security experts – mostly former military and police – to handle negotiations. The cost of hiring the consultant was included in the policy and borne by the insurance company. In 1982, Control Risks became an independent company.
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Through the debates and policy changes, the K&R industry not only survived but thrived. Then came September 11 2001, which changed the terms of the whole discussion. Rather than challenging the K&R industry as a whole, governments increasingly sought to draw a clearer distinction between criminal groups, to whom ransom could legally be paid, and terror groups, to whom it could not. The US and UK governments both maintained lists of Foreign Terrorist Organizations who could not receive ransom payments. In industry parlance, these groups were designated as “proscribed”.
This attempt to draw distinctions between criminal and terrorist organisations raised many tricky questions. It was clear that K&R policies could not reimburse policyholders who paid a ransom to a terrorist group. But could security consultants handle negotiations? Could they help families to raise and assemble the funds? And what about the families themselves? Would they be held legally liable for paying ransom to terrorists? “It’s all a grey area,” Milne acknowledged.
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Adapted from We Want to Negotiate: The Secret World of Kidnapping, Hostages, and Ransom, published by Columbia Global Reports and available to buy at guardianbookshop.co.uk
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/jan/25/business-of-kidnapping-inside-the-secret-world-of-hostage-negotiation-ransom-insuranceIt is quite a long cite, but interesting and well worth the read. It could also explain a lot about Amaral's hang ups regarding government interference, kidnap and his other hang ups as well as "Control Risks".
At more than one point I think the indication is that word from a kidnapper was awaited. I don't think that would have occurred if there hadn't been "proof of life".