Posh Spice Kidnapping Foiled

Police in London arrested nine people in a series of raids this weekend, thwarting an apparent attempt to kidnap Victoria Beckham, a.k.a. Posh Spice, one of the five original Spice Girls and the wife of British soccer star David Beckham.

Five of the nine suspects remain in custody on unrelated theft charges while authorities continue their investigation.

The British tabloid News of the World tipped Scotland Yard off to the plot Saturday after two of their reporters infiltrated the gang of would-be kidnappers. The paper reported that the group, which includes five Romanian men and one Albanian, planned to snatch Beckham and the couple's two young children and hold them hostage for 5 million pounds.

It's not the first time the Beckhams, one of Britain's highest-profile couples, have been the target of criminal plots. In 2000, police stymied a reported attempt to kidnap Victoria while her husband played in a soccer match against Scotland, and that same year a man was arrested for cutting the brakes on David's Ferrari.

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Song Stories

“Helen Wheels”

Paul McCartney | 1973

A rollicking good-time hard rocker, "Helen Wheels" was not about a woman but about Paul McCartney's Land Rover, the anthemic chorus voicing the vehicle's reckless joy as "she" took to the road. The song was added to the U.S. version of Band on the Run but was issued only as a single in McCartney's native U.K. "I like that because it's a British road song and there's not many of those around," said McCartney. "It's always Route 66. But Carlisle? How many songs have got Carlisle in them?"

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