Four employees of Grange Telecom, a British telecommunications company, were found murdered following a failed rescue attempt by Chechen authorities. The men had been decapitated. The men, Britons Peter Kennedy, Darren Hickey, and Rudolf Petschi, and New Zealander Stanley Shaw, were abducted during a shootout in October which also resulted in the wounding of several bodyguards. The men were in Chechnya working on installing telecommunications equipment for the Chechen government. Despite warnings from the British government about the dangers of traveling in Chechnya, the company felt the risk to its workers was low because the men were working for the Chechen government.