Royals Who Were The Target Of Kidnapping Plots

Thanks to all the bodyguards who surround them pretty much constantly, it is very difficult to kidnap a royal. However, that does not mean that there are not people out there willing to give it a good try. Fortunately, these plans almost always come to nothing, and in many cases, no actual kidnapping attempt is ever made. However, that doesn't mean these situations aren't scary, or that there wasn't a chance the criminals involved might have pulled it off if something had gone differently.

The possibility of being kidnapped is taken very seriously by modern royals. According to Marie Claire, Meghan Markle underwent "princess training" before she married Prince Harry – and it included a very realistic kidnapping simulation. Members of the British special forces war-gamed a kidnapping with her, complete with live ammunition. The point was to make it as realistic as possible, with one expert noting, "Even though Meghan will have known the enemy was not real, I guarantee that she will have been petrified."

Of course, that fear is nothing compared to the very real terror royals must feel knowing that out there at any time are people who might try to abduct them. But who would even think of attempting it, and what would their motivation be? Here are some royals who were the target of kidnapping plots.

Royal kidnapping threats are definitely not a thing of the past. And while the British royal family might be the most well-known to most people, there are plenty of other royals out there who are under threat today as well. Case in point, Princess Catharina-Amalia, daughter of King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima of the Netherlands. While that country might have a very chill reputation due to its relaxed marijuana and sex work laws, the princess – who as the eldest child is heir to the throne – sadly discovered there are some criminal elements there that are not at all laid back.

In September 2022, the 18-year-old princess enrolled at the University of Amsterdam, and The New York Times reported she just wanted the same college experience that any other Dutch teenager would look forward to. Instead, within a month, she had to leave her dorm and effectively barricade herself back in a royal palace due to threats against her safety, including, according to The Telegraph, possible kidnapping attempts by organized and very dangerous criminal gangs.

Queen Máxima explained how much this affected her daughter. "It means that she doesn't live in Amsterdam and that she can't really go outside, and these consequences are very difficult for her," said at a press conference. "So for her, it's not the student life that other students have." The queen started crying as she said, "It's not nice to see your child not so happy. She can go to [classes], but that's it ... I think she is very brave."

The planned abduction of Norway's Crown Prince Haakon was an extremely convoluted saga. In 1999, according to Royal Central, the head of the Kosovo mafia, Princ Dobroshi, was incarcerated in Norway on heroin trafficking charges. Dobroshi clearly did not want to be there, considering he'd already escaped once two years before, and while on the run went so far as to surgically alter his appearance in the hopes of avoiding recapture. But the law caught up to him eventually. This time, Dobroshi had a different plan on how to get out of prison.

It would involve kidnapping the 26-year-old heir to Norway's throne, Crown Prince Haakon. Assuming the country's government would do anything to get back such a high-value target, Dobroshi would demand to be traded in a prisoner swap. Considering the abduction was planned by the Kosovo-Albanian mafia, there was a good chance they would have pulled it off, had police not stumbled on evidence of the plot unexpectedly.

However, there was still a problem. Beefing up security around the prince himself was easy, but he was dating a single mother named Mette-Marit Høiby. Mette-Marit and her young son were soft targets, and her home would be an ideal place for the prince to be kidnapped from, since it didn't have any special security. So the police basically insisted the couple speed their relationship up, and Mette-Marit and her son moved in to the prince's apartment at the palace. Fortunately, it all worked out, as the couple got married in 2001.

The effects of the violent subjugation of foreign people and cultures by Western colonizers are still felt long after those countries gain their independence. While the Dutch might not be as famous for their extensive worldwide colonization as some countries, they were just as bad as anyone. And this would lead to many tragedies in the 1970s.

The New York Times reported, in a 1975 article, that Indonesia won independence from the Netherlands in 1950. But countries are not always composed of a single culture, and sometimes even after a colonizing country leaves, these factions do not get along. This was the case for a group called the South Moluccans, who were descended from enslaved Africans the Dutch brought to the islands centuries before. After independence, the group was in such danger from Indonesians that 12,000 of them fled to the Netherlands. The government there also promised that they would get their own country.

Of course, this never happened. As the feet dragging by the Dutch continued into the 1970s, young South Moluccans who had been born in Europe and were now reaching adulthood, decided to take matters into their own hands. Time reported that over the course of five years, South Moluccan terrorists murdered innocent civilians at the Indonesian consulate in Amsterdam and its embassy in The Hauge, and on a passenger train. In 1974, a group planned to kidnap Queen Juliana and other Dutch royals by breaking through a palace gate in an armored vehicle. Fortunately, the plot was thwarted.

Napoleon Bonaparte came to power in the disorder following the French Revolution. But it wasn't just his archenemies the British who weren't fans of Napoleon; there were plenty of his own countrymen who wanted to see him gone. This meant that Napoleon was the focus of assassination and kidnapping plots throughout his reign. According to Napoleonic Guide, sometimes kidnapping was Plan B if an assassination failed, like when one group failed to kill him in a way that is very reminiscent of the attempts made by the CIA to kill Fidel Castro: They tried to swap out his snuff box for one with poison in it. When they couldn't manage that, kidnapping him became their new plan, but that went nowhere as well.

But the most serious plot to kidnap Napoleon was in 1804. It even got a name – the Cadoudal Plot. Britannica records that the goal was to get the old French royal family on the throne – ideally, one of the ones that hadn't already lost their heads, one would think. While this plot was also foiled, PBS says it was no thanks to Napoleon's chief of police, Joseph Fouché, who somehow missed a lot of the threats against his boss. It makes you wonder, especially since within a few years, Fouché was openly plotting against Napoleon himself. But even for those who were convicted of being part of the kidnapping plot, Napoleon could be forgiving: Britannica says that he pardoned one of the conspirators, General Jean Moreau.

The English royal family knew they were in danger during World War II. Not only was Buckingham Palace bombed, but there was a very good chance Germany would successfully invade the U.K. and they would become targets of kidnapping or worse. And even though Elizabeth, the Queen Consort, famously released a statement promising, "The children will not leave unless I do. I shall not leave unless their father does, and the King will not leave the country in any circumstances, whatever" (via British Heritage), there were plans to at least get the royals to safety within England if the worst happened.

Hitler hoped that if he kidnapped the royal family, Britain would have no choice but to surrender. In his book "The King's Private Army: Protecting the British Royal Family During the Second World War," Andrew Stewart writes about the detailed plans of both Hitler to abduct the royals, and British security forces trying to stop him from succeeding.

Stewart told the tabloid The Daily Mail, "According to German sources, Hitler devised a plan for bombers to launch a dive-bomb attack on Central London. Then paratroopers, dropped from low-flying aircraft, would land in the grounds of Buckingham Palace and capture any members of the Royal Family they could find." But, he notes, they were under strict orders not to kill any of the royals, as this would mean Hitler's plan to use them as leverage would be ruined. The plan to protect the king, Operation Rocking Horse, was never needed, since Hitler's invasion of England failed.