Operation Jacknap, Jack Teich
Operation Jacknap, Jack Teich
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

Operation Jacknap
A True Story of Kidnapping, Extortion, Ransom, and Rescue

Author: Jack Teich

Narrator: Richard Poe

Unabridged: 6 hr 35 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 11/03/2020


Synopsis

The incredible true story of one of America’s largest ransom cases—and the massive FBI and police manhunt to bring the radical captors to justice.

The New York Times described what happened to New York businessman Jack Teich as a “front page horror.”

Two hundred FBI agents and Nassau County police officers combined forces to form a dragnet, hunt for his kidnappers, and rescue him.

Teich lay handcuffed and chained to the walls of a closet in the Bronx with a medical bandage wrapped around his head to cover his eyes. His captors demanded that his wife, Janet, drop a bag with $750,000 (the equivalent of four million dollars in today’s currency) in a locker at Penn Station, making the Jack Teich ransom one of the highest in U.S. history at the time.

FBI and Nassau County police detectives spent over a year before finally uncovering the meticulously planned kidnapping ploy hatched by radical mastermind Richard Warren Williams. The FBI internally dubbed the Jack Teich kidnapping operation “Jacknap.”

The real-life crime drama that followed proved stranger than fiction, involving a tense across-the-country manhunt, a trailer in California stuffed with tens of thousands of ransom dollars hidden inside, a contentious jury trial that dominated NYC headlines for months; a guilty verdict that was overturned twenty-one years later on a controversial technicality; a retrial stymied by a mysterious fire that incinerated court records; and a civil verdict ruling that the kidnapper pay Jack Teich back the ransom money, plus interest.

Operation Jacknap tells the incredible true crime story that continues even now. Indeed, as of this writing, no one knows where the majority of the ransom money is located.

Inside, Teich also details his offer of a reward to anyone helping track down the still missing money and kidnappers.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Ronnie

The victim of a 1974 kidnapping writes about his experiences. There's a lot of pain in this relatively short (168 pages) account.......more

Goodreads review by Marcia

Jack Teich, a Long Island businessman, husband and father, was kidnapped and held for 750,000 ransom. This is the true story, written by the victim, detailing the abduction, terror, abuse and antisemitic underpinnings of his excruciating ordeal. Police and FBI play important role in this heartfelt,......more

Goodreads review by Lisa

I enjoyed this book. It was very interesting but I also had a personal connection. The family lived next door to my husband and my in-laws are mentioned in the book and were involved with giving Janet and the kids moral support. Very interesting to read something close to home......more

Goodreads review by Gerry

This is a well written and quick moving firsthand account of a horrible crime and the aftermath. The book describes the such a crime can affect a family but also provides thoughtful commentary on criminal justice and the heightened racial tensions in 1970s. What is particularly telling is how the au......more