Argentine Police Probe
Kidnapping Of Foreign
Businessman
Police were
investigating the"
supposedly kidnapping"
of a foreign businessman
who arrived in Buenos
Aires last week "to
visit his girlfriend,"
the Federal Police of
Argentina (PFA) said
Wednesday.
The businessman,
identified as Mathew
Lam, "arrived from
Chile" and his
commercial partners
reported his missing, a
PFA spokesman said.
He has British
nationality and lives in
the Chilean capital of
Santiago, the spokesman
said.
According to his
partners in Chile, "they
received, at least,
three phone calls from
the businessman who told
them it was necessary to
collect half a million
U.S. dollars to pay for
his ransom because he
was kidnapped," said a
detective investigating
the case.
They said that when Lam,
the owner of a company
that imports toys, left
for Argentina, he told
them he would visit his
girlfriend in Buenos
Aires.
Lam's partners said they
lost contact with him
until Sunday when he
called them to say he
was "kidnapped by a band
of orientals," who were
demanding 100,000
dollars for his release.
On Monday, Lam called
his partners again to
tell them that "the
amount of the ransom had
rose to 300,000
dollars."
After that, he called
for the third time to
ask for 500,000 dollars,
saying he was kidnapped
by four or five men near
a street in downtown
Buenos Aires.
The case was under
investigation by the
Anti-kidnapping Division
and a federal
prosecutor, the police
said.
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