LEP ransom fund

From Artemis Fowl

The LEP Ransom Fund is a cache of the People's gold kept in reserve in case a LEPRecon officer is ever taken hostage.

[edit] Relevance

The fund had never been needed to be used before Artemis Fowl II kidnapped Recon captain Holly Short and outsmarted the fairies using a copy of The Book, managing to get the ransom of gold. However, Holly managed to negotiate down the price of her freedom with Artemis after a deal was made between them: if Holly would heal his estranged and depressed mother, Artemis would be willing to only take half of the ransom. It was successfully done, but later on, the cart full of half the ransom returned to the People was noticed to be missing a few bars of gold. As fate would have it, the convict Mulch Diggums's escape from the LEP had led him to the spot where the gold was being guarded. The guards, however, weren't attending to their posts, and Mulch couldn't resist snatching a few bars and then proceeding on his merry little way to freedom. It was only discovered later that this gold was missing.