A FORMER local legislator, surnamed Zhang, was abducted in Longgang District on Jan. 11 and quickly rescued after asking a friend to transfer 13 million yuan (US$2 million) to pay a gambling debt. The friend knew that Zhang didn’t gamble and reported it to the police.

    The five kidnappers were recently given jail terms of up to 10 years for abducting Zhang, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported yesterday.

    Zhang was also the director of the board at a collective company in Longgang District from 2004 to 2014.

    He was abducted while driving home at around 10 p.m. He was ambushed by three men, who held him at knifepoint.

    Zhang’s hands were duct-taped and his eyes blindfolded by the kidnappers before he was taken to a closed-down factory’s dormitory in Shengping Village in Longgang District, the news report said.

    Zhang was told that the three kidnappers were paid to abduct him and he was told he would be injected with HIV virus if he didn’t cooperate.

    The kidnappers robbed Zhang of the 5,000 yuan and HK$4,000 (US$516) in cash he was carrying with him.

    Zhang bargained with the kidnappers, claiming that his family could only afford a ransom of 13 million yuan.

    In the early hours of Jan. 12, Zhang was told to make a phone call to his family, asking for ransom. Zhang called his friend, identified as Yu, instead. He told Yu that he owed 13 million yuan from gambling and asked Yu to transfer 13 million yuan into a kidnapper’s bank account.

    Yu became suspicious because Zhang never gambled. He contacted Zhang’s son and learned that Zhang had gone missing.

    Yu assumed that Zhang had been abducted and reported it to police.

    Seven hours later, police found Zhang and two kidnappers in the dormitory. Police arrested the kidnappers at the scene. A third kidnapper fled but was arrested in Hunan Province a week later.

    On Jan. 15, one of the people who ordered the abduction, surnamed Yang, turned himself in to police, prompting another person involved, surnamed Liu, to surrender a few days later.

    Yang and Liu admitted to orchestrating the abduction, saying that they were in debt because their factory went bankrupt. They started planning the abduction in September last year.

    They said they targeted Zhang because they had heard that Zhang made a lot of money as director of the company. The newspaper said Zhang has been cleared of corruption.

    (Han Ximin)