In the Lviv region, an indictment has been sent to court against four men accused of kidnapping a 17-year-old boy and extorting money from him. This was reported by the Pustomyty District Prosecutor’s Office.
According to the investigation, the minor had previously worked together with three of the accused in Lviv at one of the commercial enterprises, while the fourth man was a martial arts trainer there. After leaving his job, the boy returned to this workplace, but three of his former colleagues began to demand repayment of a fictitious debt in an amount equivalent to almost UAH 200,000.
When they failed to obtain the money, three men aged 20, 23 and 24 went to a house in the centre of Lviv where the so-called ‘debtor’ was temporarily living. They invited him into a car supposedly ‘to talk’, but instead drove him out of the city, forcibly putting a plastic bag over his head so that he could not see the direction of travel. The boy was taken to a rented house near Lviv, where a 49-year-old accomplice was already waiting for them.
In this house, according to the investigation, the kidnapped victim was held by force, threatened with death, punched and beaten with a metal pipe, while they continued to demand money. To prevent him from escaping, they locked him in a wardrobe in one of the rooms, and tied his hands and feet with cable ties and tape.
After roughly a day and a half, the boy managed to seize his chance when one of the ‘guards’ was asleep: he quietly left the room, found his phone and reported the kidnapping. Law enforcement officers quickly established the location of the house from which the call had been made and freed the captive. Two men were detained on the spot under Article 208 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine, and their two other accomplices were detained later.
All four are charged with unlawful deprivation of liberty of a minor and extortion under martial law (Part 2 of Article 146, Part 4 of Article 189 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). They are currently being held in custody. The pre-trial investigation was conducted by Police Department No. 3 of Lviv District Police Directorate No. 2 of the Main Directorate of the National Police in Lviv region.
Pursuant to Article 62 of the Constitution of Ukraine, a person is presumed innocent of committing a crime and may not be subjected to criminal punishment until his or her guilt has been proven in the manner prescribed by law and established by a guilty verdict of a court.