US$50,000 ransom demanded for San Juan man

JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the kid­nap­ping of a 23-year-old Aranguez, San Juan man, af­ter a US$50,000 ran­som de­mand was made for his safe re­lease.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, rel­a­tives in­formed them that Cody Nar­ine, of John Du­lam Street, was at Tyri­co Bay just af­ter mid­night yes­ter­day with oth­er peo­ple, when he dis­ap­peared, leav­ing be­hind his cell­phone. The next time any­one heard from or saw him was dur­ing a video call where the ran­som de­mand was made.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the home yes­ter­day, po­lice of­fi­cers were in­ter­view­ing Nar­ine’s rel­a­tives. Nar­ine is the grand­son of the founder of the dou­bles fran­chise Don­kee and Au­die’s.

Nar­ine’s cousin, Ron­nie Nar­ine, told Guardian Me­dia that the fam­i­ly was strug­gling to cope with his kid­nap­ping but were com­fort­ed by a proof of life video call.

“He liv­ing, he liv­ing. He called. He looked good but he fright­ened on the video. I don’t know what they’re do­ing. They asked for mon­ey. I don’t know the sum of mon­ey or what­ev­er, but Aun­ty Susie tell me they asked for mon­ey and thing, I don’t know noth­ing about that. He said he al­right, but that’s a lie.”

He added that rel­a­tives told them there were no marks of vi­o­lence on his body.

Up to press time last night, Nar­ine re­mained in the hands of his cap­tives, who re­port­ed­ly spoke Span­ish.

While leav­ing the area, a vil­lager mur­mured that Nar­ine’s kid­nap­ping was linked to guns and drugs. How­ev­er, po­lice have not con­firmed any drug link to his kid­nap­ping.

In May 2024, the daugh­ter of the own­er of Sauce Dou­bles was kid­napped in El Do­ra­do, Tu­na­puna.

An­isha Ho­sein-Singh, a 27-year-old moth­er of one, was grabbed by armed men around 5.50 am on May 18, whilst set­ting up the Sauce & Sons dou­bles stand along the East­ern Main Road, El Do­ra­do, Tu­na­puna. She was picked up by a dri­ver around 10 pm on May 22 near the Ca­roni Cre­ma­tion Site.

Dur­ing a con­fronta­tion with po­lice, four men be­lieved to be in­volved in that kid­nap­ping, were killed at Up­per St Michael’s Road, St Au­gus­tine.