Interpol has joined the search for accomplices of a Chinese national believed to have masterminded the kidnapping of a fellow countryman in Athi River.
This even as three police officers arrested in relation to the January 8 kidnapping were Wednesday arraigned at the Mavoko Law Courts where detectives sought custodial orders to finalise investigations.
DCI boss Mohamed Amin said Interpol will focus its operations in China in pursuit of the mastermind’s accomplices in the abduction.
“Investigations revealed that the named suspect who is still at large was a former staff at the victim's company, and had been in constant communication with the arrested officers. Indeed, forensic analysis placed the four at the scene of the crime,” he added.
The officers were arrested a week after the victim was waylaid on his way to work in Athi River before showing up later at his place of work, panic-stricken as he narrated his ordeal in the hands of the kidnappers.
Detectives forensically established that the suspects drove the victim to Mua Hills in Machakos.
“Detectives established that five men including a Chinese national (the mastermind), a taxi driver and the three police officers had executed the kidnapping,” Amin said in a statement on Wednesday.
“Upon arriving at the Mua Hills, the mastermind called the victim's family back in China demanding an unestablished amount of ransom which was wired to a bank account in China,” Amin said.
The top detective disclosed that the victim was only released after the gang's accomplices in China confirmed that the victim’s family had complied and wired the ransom.
He said detectives managed to trace a taxi used by the suspects to Rongai on January 12 and arrested the owner.
“He, however, informed the police that on the day in question, a friend of his had borrowed his car while he (owner) took his kids to school on the reporting day,” Amin said.
He said a second vehicle used in the kidnapping was also recovered and is detained at Mlolongo Police Station.