In Irkutsk police and Investigative Committee officers detained a criminal ethnic group that kidnapped a Chinese citizen and demanded a large ransom for his release. The businessman spent five days in captivity, and the criminals were caught red handed during the money handover. It turned out this may not have been the groups first kidnapping of foreigners in the region.

Employees of the criminal police of the regional Internal Affairs Directorate and the Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor’s Office of Russia carried out a successful joint operation. This was not the first kidnapping of entrepreneurs from abroad. It turned out that a criminal ethnic group was operating in the regional center.
A citizen of China spent 5 days in captivity. The entrepreneur was robbed of his mobile phone. It was from this phone that the criminals called China and demanded a ransom from relatives. Audio recordings with the hostage’s voice were sent abroad. According to operational data, for the ransom of the foreign entrepreneur, who was engaged in timber trade, they demanded 400 thousand dollars — more than 13 million rubles. As a result of negotiations, the amount was reduced to 250 thousand dollars, or 8 million rubles.
On the very first day after the kidnapping, a report was filed with the police by an Irkutsk woman, the Chinese man’s common-law wife. Officers of the operational-search unit for combating organized crime and banditry of the regional Internal Affairs Directorate and the Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor’s Office of Russia took up the criminal case. "Later, the kidnappers set the place and time for the transfer of the money, where a relative of our victim arrived. As a result of joint work, the criminals were detained at that location," noted Mikhail Fedyashev, head of the investigative department for the Oktyabrsky District of Irkutsk of the Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation for the Irkutsk Region. For his freedom, members of the international criminal group demanded money from relatives in the Middle Kingdom. The criminals were detained during the handover of the money.
The kidnapped foreign businessman spent five days chained in an outbuilding of a rented house on Ippodromnaya Street. The man was blindfolded, constantly beaten, and starved. The perpetrators turned out to be members of an ethnic group that included an Irkutsk resident, two residents of Novosibirsk, and two citizens of the PRC who were illegally staying in our region. As the detainees admitted, this was not their first kidnapping of foreigners in Irkutsk. How many people in total were kidnapped by these individuals remains to be determined.
A criminal case has been opened against the suspects by the Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor General’s Office for the Irkutsk Region under Article 126, "Kidnapping." The article provides for a penalty of more than ten years of imprisonment.