BEIRUT: While hardly a day passes in Lebanon without a car being stolen, a house being burgled or a pocket being picked, figures suggest that in recent times there has been a sharp rise in more serious crimes in the country, including kidnapping, extortion and even murder.

The General Directorate of the Internal Security Forces said on Jan. 12 that two Lebanese men, both aged about 26, had been arrested in Beirut after sending a fake parcel bomb to a property in an affluent neighborhood in Ashrafieh and then demanding money not to detonate it.