The kidnap scams were serious in Taiwan in the late 1990s after a very famous local singer's 16 year daughter was kidnapped, tortured and latter killed. This led to a massive country wide man hunt at that time, and is still now one of the most talked about cases due to how the case was handled by the authorities and media.

My local friends says during that period all the parents were so scared and pretty much had their children on watch 24x7.