In Lviv, police arrested criminals who kidnapped a man and demanded $25,000 from him.
The detainees, one of whom had previously been convicted and recently released from a correctional facility, have been charged with illegal detention and extortion. If found guilty, they face up to twelve years in prison with confiscation of property.
It has been established that on January 9, two criminals, threatening with physical harm, forced a 40-year-old Lviv man to get into their Infiniti car and demanded $25,000 from him for his release. According to the victim, he did not have such an amount, so at the kidnappers’ direction, he called his relatives and acquaintances asking them to lend him money.
For some time, the criminals drove their victim around the streets of Lviv, then stopped in the area of Park 5 and brutally beat him. During a phone call to his wife, the man managed to convey that he was in trouble, and the woman sought help from the police.
The search and arrest operation involved operatives from the criminal police, investigators, and officers from other departments of Police Department No. 1 of the Lviv District Police Department No. 2, as well as operatives from the Criminal Investigation Department and other police services of the Lviv region. With their efforts, law enforcement personnel located the Infiniti car used by the kidnappers, freed the victim, and arrested the perpetrators under Article 208 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine.
The identities of the detainees have been established – they are two Lviv residents aged 34 and 35, one of whom had previously been convicted and recently released from a correctional facility. Investigators from the territorial police unit, under the procedural guidance of the Frankivsk District Prosecutor’s Office, have charged them with a crime under Part 4 of Article 189 (Extortion) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine and Part 2 of Article 146 (Illegal detention or kidnapping) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The maximum penalty the suspects face is up to twelve years in prison with confiscation of property.
Pre-trial investigation is ongoing, and the court has imposed pre-trial detention without bail for the suspects.