Police smash 'bomb vest' kidnap ring
Police have arrested members of a criminal gang that used high-class prostitutes to lure businessmen to bogus meetings then held them to ransom strapped into fake bomb vests.
The kidnappers used fake bomb vests which they said were loaded with explosives Photo: Alamy
By Fiona Govan, Madrid
8:24PM BST 21 Apr 2013
Eight suspects, including the suspected ringleader, were detained in Spain and another eight arrested in France, said a statement by Spanish police on Sunday.
The gang are suspected of two separate kidnappings in November 2012 from which they netted some 3.3 million euros.
The first took place in a Paris Hotel when the gang lured six businessmen from Morocco with the promise of lucrative contracts in information technology products. The businessmen were then held captive in the hotel until they collectively handed over one million euros in cash to their captors.
Shortly after the same perpetrators posed as the security team of an Arab prince and organised a gathering of 15 jewelers and watchmakers at an upmarket Luxembourg store with the premise that his boss wanted to make huge purchases.
Instead the gang held the businessmen at gunpoint and made off with 1.3 million in watches and jewelry and further 1 million euros in cash.
They then strapped their victims into vests which they claimed were full of explosives.
”To prevent the businessmen from raising the alarm, the kidnappers used fake bomb vests which they said were loaded with explosives which would go off if they left the premises,” the Spanish police statement said.
The suspected leader of the group, a man of Algerian origin who escaped from a prison in Avignon, southeastern France in October 2012, was found hiding out in Malaga on Spain’s Costa del Sol.
He was detained after being stopped in a routine road side police check when officers noticed he was wearing one of the high-end watches stolen in the Luxembourg heist.
