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Kidnap Gang Jailed For 66 Years For Birmingham Blackmail
7 November 2014, 18:08 | Updated: 30 March 2016, 13:50
A blackmail gang, who tried to extort hundreds of thousands of pounds from a Birmingham businessman, has been jailed for more than 66 years.
The group – who also tried to threaten the man into dropping the case by firing a shotgun at his premises - were convicted of conspiracy to rob and witness intimidation offences at Birmingham Crown Court earlier this week and were sentenced today.
The victim’s ordeal started on 3 January, when he was kidnapped outside his family’s city centre massage parlour, after being bundled into a white van by four men who then drove him to a nearby house.
Once inside – while cable tied with a blanket over his head - his kidnappers assaulted him and demanded up to £200,000 protection payment from him, saying if he did not cooperate he would be killed.
He was then dropped off at a supermarket in Stechford and the victim later decided to report his ordeal to the police.
The offenders continued to contact the victim with demands for money and the victim eventually agreed to place £20,000 in a bin in a car park of the Star City leisure complex on 7 January.
Undercover officers were deployed to the area and saw a silver Audi – registered to Daniel Wood – turn up in the car park. Wood began to search the bins but could not find anything and got back in his car. A BMW – containing Tobias Uter and Mahmood Abouakkour then pulled up near the bins and Abouakkour began to search for the money bag.
Grabbing it, he got back in the BMW and tried to leave the car park when they were swarmed by police. They threw the money bag from the car but - along with Wood – they were arrested.
