I read it, thanks for linking. Ranked intelligence officers typically get exchanged, and sometimes the hostage they’re exchanged against is indeed a random person seized for the purpose of having someone.

That’s lamentable, as it’s nothing close to justice - the maximum sentence they get to serve is a few years (the time of negotiations). There’s no elegant solution. One half-solution would be banning the travel of civilians into a country which might be plotting to seize someone for exchanging. Most countries recognize that people sometimes have valid reasons to visit hostile countries (e.g. family members living there) and don’t practise it.

Meanwhile, hired crooks with no fixed relationship with the hiring government, they typically get abandoned by their clients.

If guilt is proven and the captain gets convicted, subsequent steps depend on whether he has a military rank in FSB or GRU. If yes, eventually we’ll hear of whom Russia is willing to give in return for his release. However, if he gets convicted and is a random civilian hired for dirty work, they won’t even wave him goodbye.

And of course, whether he gets convicted depends on whether evidence can be found.

However, making companies pay (seizing the ship and goods until arrangements are found) is a different story. It happens so rarely that I can’t predict the outcome.