China scrap dealers resort to kidnap
Updated on 25 November 2008
The global economic crisis has hit the scrap metal industry, which in China provides much of the recycled material in our electronic goods.
Buyers are defaulting on payments, and as the business climate turns sour, the appearance of kidnapping as an apparent negotiation tactic means many scrap dealers now fear for their security when they are inside China.
Channel 4 News spoke to one British trader who says he was kidnapped in the Chinese port of Ningbo for three days, while Chinese businessmen demanded $320,000 from his employers as compensation over a scrap deal that went wrong.
