I think I’m surprised this doesn’t happen more often. Maybe I underestimate how good the police are at prevention of this crime.
Doing a kidnapping and getting a ransom is probably not too hard, but being on the run forever afterwards might not be worth it to most. People with money can hire their own bounty hunters/or plain criminals to go after them afterwards. Or just announce a bounty high enough (in dark channels, your high profile security company has access to) so people will do the hunt for free.
Most people like to boast about their action - so competent here means keeping quiet about it forever and coming up with a good excuse for why they have that money.
Indeed, selling drugs is apparently easier. And I can imagine the cartels don't want to risk their daily buisness, by kidnapping the wrong person from the west, as that would mean more heat on their buisness. But they surely do kidnappings and worse. Mostly in their fight for local control as far as I know.
Last summer, a 25 year old crypto influencer got kidnapped and his body was found in my neighborhood a few months ago. [1]
[1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/kevin-mirshahi-ident...
In Toronto it happens quite often, not everyday, but way more often than you'd believe.