Four nabbed for beating, kidnapping indebted man

Jiading district police have arrested four people for kidnapping a man who owed them money, local media reported Thursday.

The four suspects, all unidentified men, will be charged with illegal imprisonment, said Xu Bo, a press officer with the Jiading District Public Security Bureau.

The suspects waylaid the victim, surnamed Jiang, near the intersection of Nanquan and Qixia roads in Pudong New Area around 1 pm on February 28, according to a report on chinanews.com.

After beating Jiang, they forced him inside a suitcase in the trunk of their car.

The suspects kidnapped Jiang because he owed them money, said a press officer surnamed Lu from the Jiading district traffic police. Lu declined to disclose the size of the debt.

Jiang's family called the police with a description of the car, Lu said.

The vehicle, which had Shandong province license plates, was heading north out of the city when it was stopped by traffic police on the G15 highway in Jiading district.

The G15 highway, which passes through Shandong province, is one of the main north-south highways in eastern China. It runs from Shenyang, Liaoning province in northeastern China to Haikou, Hainan province in southern China.

Traffic police officers searched the vehicle and found Jiang inside the suitcase with cloth wrapped around his head.

Lu said police caught the suspects about 45 minutes after receiving the kidnapping report. The press officer declined to reveal how police tracked the vehicle.