History Main / RansomDrop

* ''Series/CriminologistHimuraAndMysteryWriterArisugawa'': One of the episodes begins InMediasRes with the detectives accompanying a kidnapped actor's wife as she's told to get on a train and drop the ransom for her husband out of the window. The ambiguity of the instructions is a clue that there's more to the kidnapping than it seems. [[spoiler:The wife actually killed the husband before he was supposedly kidnapped, so the kidnapper took the corpse and tricked her into believing that he survived.]]

* In ''Series/CriminologistHimuraAndMysteryWriterArisugawa'', one of the episodes begins InMediasRes with the detectives accompanying a kidnapped actor's wife as she's told to get on a train and drop the ransom for her husband out of the window. The ambiguity of the instructions is a clue that there's more to the kidnapping than it seems. [[spoiler:The wife actually killed the husband before he was supposedly kidnapped, so the kidnapper took the corpse and tricked her into believing that he survived.]]

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'': In [[Recap/CastleS1E9LittleGirlLost "Little Girl Lost"]], the 750,000-dollar ransom is delivered by a local relative of one of the kidnapped girls.

* ''Series/ScreamTVSeries'': Mayor Maddox is instructed by his blackmailers to bring $100,000 to an old storage unit outside town. He only brings $10,000. Nose breakage ensues.

* ''WesternAnimation/WinxClub'': In [[Recap/WinxClubS1E5DateWithDisaster "Date with Disaster"]], Stella is kidnapped and replaced by a shapeshifted Darcy who is frantically looking for Stella's Solaria ring. After the girls realize she's an imposter, Darcy flees. This might look as if the ImposterForgotOneDetail but is later revealed to have been a trap to lure the girls to the same fake restaurant Darcy and her sisters are holding Stella captive. There, they demand the aforementioned ring in exchange for freeing Stella. Now, the trope is PlayedWith because the heroines aren't aware the situation is a ransom drop, but the villains did plan it out that way.

* ''Film/DirtyHarry''. After kidnapping a young girl, Scorpio demands a $200,000 ransom to be delivered to him [[ComeAlone by one man]] holding a yellow bag. Inspector Callahan volunteers to be the courier, and is given instructions to race from one public phone booth to another so Scorpio can see if he's being followed. Problems encountered by Callahan include an attempted mugging, and the wrong person picking up the payphone before he reaches it. Callahan wears a HiddenWire and sends instructions to his partner Gonzales [[spoiler:which is just as well as Scorpio has no intention of letting Callahan or his kidnap victim live.]]

** In the prologue, The Voice and his organization successfully and smoothly pull one of this as their CharacterEstablishingMoment.

* ''Film/{{Unknown|2006}}'': The kidnappers order the ransom to be stashed in a public locker. Though the police are surveilling the area with cameras, they fail to realize that the locker has no bottom and the ransom fell through into the station's basement where it was picked up.

* ''Series/MyNameIsEarl'': The list item was stealing some antique silverware from the local library. Having been unable to melt it down for the silver content they try to ransom it back to the library, but a bum picks up the bagful of cash from the garbage can where it was to be dropped - and just as well too since he gets a faceful of blue dye for his troubles.

* ''Series/{{Ransom}}'': The CR team uses this as a means of making contact with the bad guys responsible for kidnapping people their clients know about. These exchanges sometimes involve improvising to make things easier such as making Niko turn on his brother Yannis by appealing to his hatred for being beaten up.

* In ''Series/{{Soap}}'' Burt & Danny have to exchange a paper bag filled with ransom money to get Danny's wife back. While waiting for the kidnappers to show up they "practice" but they both switch the bags, so Burt-as-the-kidnapper ends up with the empty paper bag he originally had.

* ''Series/{{Ransom}}': The CR team uses this as a means of making contact with the bad guys responsible for kidnapping people their clients know about. These exchanges sometimes involve improvising to make things easier such as making Niko turn on his brother Yannis by appealing to his hatred for being beaten up.

* The ''{{Franchise/CSI}}'' shows do this a few times. Once on ''{{Series/CSI NY}}'' the drop gets blown and a different plan has to be made.

This is where it all goes wrong for Will and Kate in "Frontier Desperados".

* In ''Anime/TheBigO'', Roger Smith delivers ransoms on several occasions. He presents a BriefcaseFullOfMoney, which is armed and also rigged to fly away with the money if he subsequently finds that the ransomed person is a fake. And if attacked by the kidnappers, he's backed up by a HumongousMecha.

* Classic ''TabletopGame/{{Traveller}}'' supplement ''The Traveller Adventure''. When the people who kidnapped Lisa Fireaux realize that the {{PC}} group includes the Vargr character Gvoudzon, they demand that he drop off Lisa's ransom. If he does so, they kidnap him as well, keep the ransom and don't release Lisa.

* Chapter III of ''VideoGame/MaxPayne3'' is Max and Pasos attempting to deliver a large ransom to secure the release of Fabiana, who was kidnapped at the nightclub in the previous chapter. The drop by Max and Pasos with the kidnappers was supposed to have been made at a football stadium in the middle of the night, but apparently word got out and some third party got wind that a ''lot'' of money was about to change hands there -- thus, a firefight breaks out that Max and Pasos have to escape from.
* Early in the original ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'', the boss's daughter is kidnapped. Claude is sent to drop off the ransom, which is picked up by the kidnappers via boat. Unusually for a GTA game, everything goes exactly as planned -- the kidnappers take the money and point Claude towards the garage where the girl is being held (in the trunk of a car).

* Done in ''VisualNovel/FourTwoEightShibuyaScramble'' when Hitomi Osawa is told by the kidnappers of her twin sister, Maria, to the statue of Hachiko in Shibuya. It gets botched when the kidnappers attempt to get her killed, leading to an escalation in the city when the [=UA=] virus is released. This forces the Japanese government to quarantine the city.

* WebVideo/ALZIProduction's [[Recap/ALZIProductionBatgirl Batgirl]]: In the second season's sixth episode, this gets {{invoked}} by one of the "False Faces" gang members. He says he wants to see a ransom drop money. This gets {{defied}} by his accomplice (and the fake victim's husband), who rebukes that it's better to make a bank transfer.

* ''Series/ThePinkertons'': A young woman's husband is abducted and his kidnappers demand a ransom. She's instructed to leave the money hidden in a farmyard's trough. She hires the Pinkertons to oversee the process but then everything goes to hell because they are spotted by the criminals.

* ''Series/{{Ransom}}'' has the CR team use this as a means of making contact with the bad guys responsible for kidnapping people their clients know about.

f* ''Film/{{Unknown|2006}}'': The kidnappers order the ransom to be stashed in a public locker. Though the police are surveilling the area with cameras, they fail to realize that the locker has no bottom and the ransom fell through into the station's basement where it was picked up.

* ''Series/MyNameIsEarl''. The list item was stealing some antique silverware from the local library. Having been unable to melt it down for the silver content they try to ransom it back to the library, but a bum picks up the bagful of cash from the garbage can where it was to be dropped - and just as well too, since he gets a facefull of blue dye for his troubles.
* In ''Series/{{Castle}}'', the ransom is delivered by a local relative of one of the kidnapped girls.
* ''Series/CriminalMinds''. One episode has a kidnapper order the abductee's twin sister deliver the cash on a parking lot at night. Unfortunately, he has no desire to get the money, but to kidnap the twin (which he's [[StalkerWithACrush obsessed over]] and is using the kidnapped sister to bait). The [[FBIAgent BAU]] is able to figure this out and [[BigDamnHeroes arrives just in time]] to scare the kidnapper away.
* ''Series/TheDickVanDykeShow'' had an episode where the script was stolen and a ransom demanded. Dick is asked by a tramp for some money and asks if he should first put it in the trash can (as earlier agreed); the tramp is disgusted, thinking Dick van Dyke just wants to humiliate him.
* ''Series/PowerRangersLightspeedRescue'': In "The Great Egg Caper," Artie gets the demons to put $20,000 in a recycling bin while he drops them the monster egg with a remote-controlled helicopter. The "egg" he drops is just a bouncy ball, and the recycling bin is tied to the jet-ski Artie is driving, allowing him to speed off with the money. 
* ''Series/TheProfessionals''. In "The Acorn Syndrome", Bodie hides in the boot of a car to follow the man driving it to a ransom drop. Unfortunately the kidnappers have the driver change cars, and Bodie barely gets out of the boot in time to attach a TrackingDevice to the second car before it drives off.
* ''Series/{{Ransom}}'' has the CR team use this as a means of making contact with the bad guys responsible for kidnapping people their clients know about.
* ''Series/{{Ripcord}}'' has an episode called "Ransom Drop". Ted [=McKeever=] can't understand why Dana Oliver demands his company prove they can drop a crate of eggs by parachute without cracking a shell. When Ted's team demonstrates its capabilities, she reveals the reason for her strange request - she wants Ted, Jim and Chuck to airdrop a top-secret and extremely fragile missile instrument to ransom her father who is being held prisoner in the mountains by technology-savvy kidnappers.
* One episode of ''Series/BarneyMiller'' has the kidnappers demanding that a police officer drop off the ransom while running in the park, which the victim's family decides to pay. Wojo ends up running for a good few miles before the kidnappers actually show up to claim the ransom and release the victim.

* The ''{{Franchise/CSI}}'' shows do this a few times. Once on ''{{Series/CSI NY}}'' the drop gets blown and a different plan has to be made.

* The book ''Ransom Drop'' by Mike Sullivan is, not surprisingly, about this.
* ''Literature/TwoLittleGirlsInBlue'': Three year old twins Kathy and Kelly are kidnapped and the leader kidnapper, calling himself the Pied Piper, demands $8 million in exchange for their release. After the $8 million ransom is raised, the Pied Piper instructs the FBI to put $7 million in a bank account and then have Franklin Bailey (an acquaintance of the family) deliver $1 million in cash to a specific location. The feds try to discreetly follow Bailey to the drop-off, but end up losing track of him due to the convoluted instructions of the Piper. Once the money is collected, the Piper calls back to tell the FBI where Kathy and Kelly can be found: sitting in a car in the carpark of an abandoned restaurant. However, when the feds arrive they discover one of the kidnappers dead from a gunshot and only Kelly in the vehicle.

* In ''Film/{{Fargo}}'' the ransom is supposed to be delivered by the kidnapped woman's husband who ordered the kidnapping in the first place. He will pocket his share of the money and deliver the rest to his partners. However, in the last moment [[spoiler: the woman's father decides to deliver the money himself and refuses to hand it over until he sees that his daughter is alive. The kidnapper shoots him dead.]]
* TVMovie ''Film/Velvet1984''. The villains demand a ransom be taken in a bag to a marine park. A guy grabs the bag and throws it into the nearby ocean, where it's picked up by a woman on a jet ski. When questioned, the guy says he was paid to do what he did - he had no idea what the bag contained.
* ''Film/{{Speed}}'' has one of these in a garbage can on a busy street. [[spoiler: The villain cut a hole in the concrete so he can get the bag in the subway below the garbage can.]]
* The main plot of ''Film/TheBigLebowski'' is the ransom demanded for the title character's TrophyWife. The Dude is tasked to drop the money from a bridge into a river. But then things go sideways.
* ''Film/{{Thunderball}}'' requires the British Government to pay SPECTRE a diamond ransom. The ransom is to be airdropped on a certain location at a certain time.
* ''Film/DumbAndDumber'''s plot is kicked off by one of the main characters being a SpannerInTheWorks. When the woman he loves drops off the briefcase with the money, Lloyd sprints through the airport to grab it to give it to her.
* A botched ransom drop is one of the key turning points in ''Film/ManOnFire'', leading Creasy to vow revenge on Pita's kidnappers.
* ''Film/{{Juggernaut|1974}}'': The ransom demanded by the bomber is to be left in a certain locker at a bus station. The police stake out the locker, but the man who comes to pick up the money turns out to have been hired to collect it and drop it somewhere else, with no knowledge that can lead back to the bomber. He also inadvertently screws up the bomber's plan when he doesn't have enough money to pay the excess baggage fee (having spent it already).
* ''Film/{{Ransom}}'', unsurprisingly, has a pivotal scene around this, where the protagonist is made to go from phone to phone to get subsequent directions, instructed to jump into a pool to destroy any electronics he might have on him, etc. When he finally gets to the drop [[spoiler:it turns out the police have been following him the whole time, and the hand-off goes bad very quickly.]]
* In ''Film/AlongCameASpider'', the police officer in charge of the case has to make the hand-off. After being forced to follow the requisite convoluted path, he's made to jump on a train just before the doors close, and then, while it's moving, break the windows and throw the ransom out.
* In ''Film/{{High and Low|1963}} '', the ransom for Aoki's son is being dropped off from a fast moving train as per the kidnapper's meticulous instructions.
* The kidnappers in ''Film/{{Unknown|2006}}'' order the ransom to be stashed in a public locker. Though the police are surveilling the area with cameras, they fail to realize that the locker has no bottom and the ransom fell through into the station's basement where it was picked up.

* In ''Film/SeanceOnAWetAfternoon'', PhonyPsychic Myra Savage makes her husband Billy kidnap Amanda Clayton, daughter of a wealthy industrialist, and then sends Mr Clayton instructions to put £25,000 in a blue BOAC overnight bag and wait in a phone box in Leicester Square for further instructions. Clayton is accompanied by two plainclothes policemen, but Billy uses a disguise and the crowds in the Piccadilly Circus Underground station to grab the ransom bag and board a departing train before Clayton or the plainclothes officers can catch him.

* ''Film/DirtyHarry''. Inspector Callahan is run from one phone booth to another by the Scorpio killer to reveal a tail. Problems he encounters include an attempted mugging and the wrong person picking up the public phone before he reaches it. Callahan wears a HiddenWire and sends instructions to his partner Gonzales [[spoiler:which is just as well as Scorpio has no intention of letting Callahan or his kidnap victim live.]]

* In ''Film/{{Juggernaut}}'', the ransom demanded by the bomber is to be left in a certain locker at a bus station. The police stake out the locker, but the man who comes to pick up the money turns out to have been hired to collect it and drop it somewhere else, with no knowledge that can lead back to the bomber. He also inadvertently screws up the bomber's plan when he doesn't have enough money to pay the excess baggage fee (having spent it already).

* The main plot of ''Film/TheBigLebowski'' is the ransom demanded for the title character's TrophyWife, until it shifts into a GambitPileup.