Prince Harry: Plot to kidnap Harry on gap year lead to security shake-up

Police were ordered to beef up security planning for royal visits over fears Prince Harry was nearly kidnapped in Argentina during his gap year, the files reveal.

The prince, then aged 20, was at the centre of an abduction scare in which gunshots were fired.

Security had to be increased at the polo ranch in Lobos, 60 miles from Buenos Aires, where Harry, pictured, was staying as part of a visit in November 2004 to Argentina described in Cabinet Office records as his ‘ongoing education’. The Argentine government was apparently alerted to the kidnap threat by a murder suspect in the local underworld. The Security Ministry responded by sending a squad of 15 armed police officers to patrol the perimeter of the El Remanso ranch, and they fired shots into the air after two shots were heard being fired in the area.

A Cabinet Office meeting on the security of the Royals the following week ordered that: ‘Given the recent publicity about the possible kidnapping threat to Prince Harry, the Metropolitan Police should where appropriate seek advice on the possible risks of kidnapping in countries being visited by members of the Royal Family.’

Another concern was a lack of RAF aircraft for royal and ministerial visits – because too many planes had been diverted to Tony Blair’s invasi ons of Iraq and Afghanistan. Aircraft from No 32 Squadron, based at RAF Northolt, were ‘increasingly engaged in theatre on MoD tasks’, an official noted in August 2004, a year and a half into the disastrous invasion of Iraq, adding this was ‘a trend likely to continue’.

An official group considering the problem concluded that Royals and ministers had been ‘resorting to chartering individual civilian aircraft via a broker’ despite the added costs and ‘security problems’ of hiring planes that terrorists could have planted a device on.