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Parents offer kidnappers more money for son's safe return

Categories: In the news

Kidnapping adults for ransom money is something you hear only happening in Iraq or Mexico (a place where kidnapping is so feared, criminals are making money via virtual kidnappings, where the demands are made via phone with a recording of a child saying "Help me mommy" playing in the background) but is extremely rare in the United States.

However, statistics are of little comfort to the family of Robert Wiles, who was last seen on April 1st at the National Flight Services at Lakeland Linder Regional Airport, where he worked for his family's flight maintenance company as a business development manager. Two days after the twenty-six-year-old's disappearance, his father received a ransom note that demanded money and threatened Robert with harm if the terms of the note weren't met. According to the FBI the family tried to follow the terms laid out by the kidnappers but have heard nothing more since the initial note.

Robert's family is offering $50,000 for their son's safe return and another $200,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible, hoping to discover leads to the whereabouts of their son.

"We're willing to work with them and do anything to get him back. We just want Robert back," Thomas Wiles said.

Co-workers and family remain baffled as to why Wiles might have been targeted and the FBI is following leads both inside and outside the U.S.

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