No word from kidnappers after Penal abduction

Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­[email protected]

Rel­a­tives of Michael Ale­jan­dro Es­pana Ram­nath, who was ab­duct­ed while re­turn­ing to his home in Pe­nal on Tues­day night, had not heard from his cap­tors up to last evening, po­lice said.

The 34-year-old, who op­er­ates the Best Friends Burg­er Cart with his fa­ther along the SS Erin Road, Pe­nal, was ab­duct­ed around 11 pm, a short dis­tance from his home.

Po­lice said Ram­nath and his 65-year-old fa­ther had com­plet­ed sales around 10.45 pm and were trav­el­ling home in sep­a­rate ve­hi­cles. Ram­nath was dri­ving a grey Toy­ota Hilux, while his fa­ther fol­lowed in a white Nis­san Almera.

As they reached the Agri­cul­tur­al Cen­tre along Ram­jat­tan Trace at about 11 pm, a white ve­hi­cle — its make, mod­el and reg­is­tra­tion num­ber un­known — pulled in front of Ram­nath’s van, block­ing his path. Two men dressed in black and wear­ing masks ex­it­ed the ve­hi­cle, one of whom was armed with a firearm. They opened the dri­ver’s door and forcibly re­moved Ram­nath, plac­ing him in­to their ve­hi­cle.

The armed sus­pect then con­front­ed Ram­nath’s fa­ther, re­port­ed­ly speak­ing in Span­ish, and de­mand­ed mon­ey. Fear­ing for his life, the el­der­ly man hand­ed over his wal­let con­tain­ing $4,000, be­lieved to be the day’s sales. The sus­pects then drove off with Ram­nath.

The fa­ther sub­se­quent­ly made his way to the Pe­nal Po­lice Sta­tion around 11.55 pm. Both ve­hi­cles were lat­er con­veyed to the sta­tion as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ued.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the fam­i­ly’s home on Thurs­day, no one ap­peared to be present. Neigh­bours were re­luc­tant to speak about the in­ci­dent, though one res­i­dent de­scribed it as a wake-up call for the com­mu­ni­ty.

“The area is usu­al­ly very peace­ful. When I first heard about it, I thought it was a hoax,” the res­i­dent said. “But see­ing the heavy po­lice pres­ence made it re­al. It was shock­ing and fright­en­ing.”

The res­i­dent added that the in­ci­dent has placed neigh­bours on height­ened alert, prompt­ing greater vig­i­lance.

Ram­nath was last seen wear­ing a black po­lo shirt with the mono­gram “Best Friends Burg­ers” print­ed on the left chest, black jeans and grey slip­pers. He is ap­prox­i­mate­ly 170 cm tall, brown in com­plex­ion, medi­um-built, with a round face, pug nose, small eyes and short hair. He is of mixed Venezue­lan and Trinida­di­an de­scent.

Of­fi­cers at­tached to the An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Unit, South West­ern Di­vi­sion and South­ern Di­vi­sion are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.