SHAH ALAM: It was close to midnight and the kidnappers were busy discussing how they were going to get the ransom of RM845,300 that they had demanded for a five-year-old boy.

Unaware to them, a team comprising Bukit Aman’s Special Task Force on Organised Crime and the Selangor Criminal Investigation Department was listening to their conversation from outside the Corus Paradise Apartment in Port Dickson and waiting for the right time to strike.

At 12.05am, the armed policemen wearing helmets and tactical gear, broke the door of the apartment and barged in, catching the five suspects inside by surprise.

Among them was a 16-year-old boy.

The abducted boy was found in one of the bedrooms. He appeared in a daze, leading police to believe that he could have been drugged or sedated.

Selangor CID chief Senior Asst Comm Datuk Mohd Adnan Abdullah said the five men were arrested at the apartment while another man was nabbed at a house in Jalan USJ1/9, Subang Permai in Subang Jaya, two hours later.

“A week after the child was kidnapped on Jan 22, an SMS was sent to the father, a businessman, demanding ransom in three different currencies – US$100,000 (RM363,155),A$100,000 (RM282,135) and RM200,000.

“They threatened to kill the boy if the demand was not met,” he said at a press conference yesterday, adding that they used the handphone of the boy’s mother, taken during the abduction, to send the SMS.

He said all the suspects had been remanded until Feb 6.

SAC Mohd Adnan declined to comment when asked if the parents knew some of the suspects.

He said only one of the suspects had a past conviction for burglary.

“We are trying to find out the mastermind behind the kidnapping. Most of the suspects are unemployed and the teenager is believed to have dropped out of school,” he added.

He said the case was being investigated under Section 3(1) of the Kidnapping Act 1961, which carries the mandatory death penalty upon conviction.

-The Star