Bulgaria’s law enforcement authorities are so ineffectual that if they were up against pirates, by now the national flag would be the Jolly Roger.

A side-effect of the credit crunch in Bulgaria has been a revival of the kidnapping industry. There have been a number of such abductions lately, and those that have been the subject of prominent media reports seem to have ended with the abductees back home and those in the kidnapping trade allegedly a bit richer.

The response by those in the charge of the Interior Ministry has verged on the absurd.

We have heard from the minister and the ministry’s chief official about their calls for much longer jail terms for kidnappers, a proposal that certainly is worth supporting but which would have much more credibility if anyone was ever caught.

Further, the ministry says that it would like to see the payment of ransom criminalised. This is patently ridiculous, apart from amounting to a form of taxation on the kidnapping industry. Ministers and other top officials, of course, have their own taxpayer-funded security; perhaps their views on criminalising ransom payments would differ if circumstances differed.

Media reports say that some wealthy people are prepared to sell off their luxury yachts and other property to pay for security for themselves and their families. Understandable enough, although it would be nice if Bulgaria’s state officials took as much interest in the wealthy, and how they came to be wealthy, as do the kidnappers who seek to part them from some of their wealth.

Finally, and equally absurdly, the Interior Ministry has sought to blame the media for taking too much interest in the topic of kidnapping, especially around election time.

It would seem far more sensible for the ministry to be doing its work far better, catching kidnappers without the payment of ransoms, and earning praise where praise is due. It would be better than forfeiting doubloons to the Jolly Roger.