NEWS

Three held for $1mln kidnapping

Attica police were questioning six people yesterday in connection with the kidnapping in October of a Piraeus businessman’s son, who was set free 63 days later after his family paid $1.15 million in ransom. By late last night, two men and one woman had been kept for further questioning as detectives believe they were directly involved in the October 2 abduction of Ioannis Zonas, 34. Zonas, who was kept blindfolded and handcuffed, was released unharmed in a field near Pallini, on the eastern outskirts of Athens, on December 4 after his family paid the ransom. The gang originally demanded 1 billion drachmas. Police sources said the three detainees were a 42-year-old Greek suspected of participation in extortion gangs, an Iranian motorcycle garage owner and a Greek woman believed to be an accountant. Police suspect a convict in the Halicarnassus Prison on Crete of masterminding the kidnapping. Following a tip-off from American narcotics officers, police in Preveza in late October seized 205 kilos of Colombian cocaine which had been hidden in a local hotel after being set ashore on a remote beach by a launch from the Tonga-flagged Saturn motorship.

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