Syrian security dismantles gang kidnapping businessmen and extorting their relatives in the Damascus countryside

Syrian Internal Security Forces announced the arrest of an organized gang of eight individuals in the Damascus countryside, who specialized in kidnapping businessmen, traders, and facility owners, and extorting their relatives in exchange for financial ransoms.

In a statement, the Internal Security Forces explained that the operation followed several reports, resulting from precise security monitoring and surveillance, which led to the arrest of gang members and the seizure of various weapons in their possession, including a PKC machine gun, automatic rifles, pistols, grenades, and assorted ammunition, as well as the confiscation of several vehicles found to have been purchased with funds obtained from kidnapping operations.

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The forces added that interrogations of the detainees and confronting them with evidence revealed their involvement, along with accomplices at large, in executing four kidnapping operations targeting owners of commercial and industrial companies and facilities.

According to the statement, gang members admitted to receiving ransoms totaling more than $135,000, in addition to negotiating with the relatives of one recent kidnapping victim for $100,000 in exchange for his release.

The Internal Security Forces confirmed that appropriate legal procedures were organized against the detainees, noting that searches for the remaining accomplices are ongoing, with the aim of referring all those involved to the competent judiciary to take the necessary legal actions against them.