A WOMAN who was abducted by a gang after she dropped her child to a creche was forced to hand over €130,000 to a so-called “tiger kidnapping” gang yesterday.
The Bank of Ireland employee went to her local Coolock bank, took the money out and left it in a gold-coloured car in a nearby estate before raising the alarm.
Her husband was also taken hostage and was taken to the Carrigmore estate area of Tallaght. He was tied up and only managed to free himself after several hours. The couple are in their 30s.
The incident is the first so-called “tiger kidnapping” since February when another Bank of Ireland worker was forced to hand over €7.5 million in cash after members of his extended family were kidnapped.
Yesterday’s incident began when the man was kidnapped at the couple’s home in Duneemer Estate in Lusk in north Co Dublin.
He was bundled into the back of a van and held hostage in Tallaght.
His wife was then taken hostage and driven to the Coolock branch at 11am.
Garda Supt Mark Curran said: “Although this is a very traumatic crime nobody was injured and all the people are in safe hands as we speak.”
Gardaí are looking for the occupiers of a white van which was seen in the vicinity of the couple’s home at 9am.
They are also interested in speaking to any potential witnesses who might have been in the vicinity of the Bank of Ireland in Coolock village, the Greenwood Avenue area where the money was dropped off, or the Carrigmore estate where the woman’s husband was subsequently found.
In a statement, Bank of Ireland said its internal security processes were activated and all supports would be offered to the couple.
The bank has launched its own investigation.
“Tiger kidnappings”, so called because gangs kidnap the relatives of people they target, reached their peak three years ago in a series of raids which led to changes in protocols for bank officials in Ireland.
In March three men were convicted of carrying out a €2.28 million “tiger kidnapping” on the family of a Securicor worker in March 2005.
The trial was one of the longest in the history of the state taking 67 days.
