Lotto booth owners in kidnap ordeal

NALINEE SEELAL

A Carapichaima businesswoman, abducted with her husband shortly before midnght on Wednesday, yesterday thanked the Almighty for sparing their lives and said it was an ordeal which will forever be etched in her mind. Lutchmin Rampersad, 52, who runs two Lotto booths in Chase Village, said she now understands what a traumatic situation can do to a person.

Rampersad said on Wednesday, she and her husband Terrence went to a birthday party for her niece at the Town Restaurant in Port of Spain and on their return home, shortly before midnight, two men approached and made them get into the back seat of their SUV.

The kidnap was witnessed by a security guard at a business place nearby.

Rampersad said after they were bundled into her husband’s SUV, the kidnappers began shouting at her and her husband demanding to know how much money they had in their bank accounts, what type of electronic devices they had in the house and how soon they could find $30,000 for their safe return home. Rampersad said they began answering all the questions and at one point the kidnappers came up with a plan to release her so she could get the money to pay for her husband’s freedom.

The dazed woman said she was driven to a makeshift camp close to the shooting range at Gran Couva, where she saw two other people tied up. She was also tied up and gagged by the kidnappers, who returned half an hour later and drove her to a spot near the Ato Boldon Stadium, where they freed her.

She flagged down the driver of a car, who called police, and she was taken to the Couva Police Station. The mother of one said, “All this time I was only thinking about my husband and praying to God for his safe return and asking myself, why we were targeted.

She said her husband appeared more shaken than her. At around 4 am, her husband Terrence, who was being kept hostage in a shack at Santa Flora, managed to escape and made his way to the M2 Ring Road, where he alerted police who were in a marked vehicle. The Anti-Kidnapping Unit (AKU) under acting Snr Supt Ajith Persad, head of the Port of Spain CID, are investigating the kidnappings.