*The victim's name has been changed to protect his identity.
An East London business owner who was kidnapped outside of his home earlier this month spoke exclusively to Algoa FM News about how he had been beaten up and released after paying a ransom amount of R300 000.
Forty-seven-year-old Arhaan Ganguly* says foreign nationals in the Eastern Cape live in constant fear of being kidnapped.
Ganguly*, an Indian National, has called South Africa his home for the past 20 years.
On the 15th of March this year, he was nabbed from right outside his house in Amalinda by four Xhosa-speaking men, whom he believes are all in their thirties.
He said the four men tied him up and taped his eyes shut with sellotape before he was covered with a blanket and shoved into a car.
Ganguly* told Algoa FM News that they drove for about 30 minutes when they finally stopped at a house.
He says once in the house, he was roughed up and instructed to phone someone who could pay them a million rand for his freedom.
He called his friend, who negotiated with the kidnappers and managed to bring the ransom down to R300 000.
The friend was ordered to deliver the money, in cash, along the R72 near Port Alfred.
Ganguly's* friends and family managed to get the money together and the exchange happened about 10 hours later.
The business owner says unfortunately, his experience is not an isolated incident as police confirmed to The Citizen last year, that there is a rise in kidnappings of foreign national business owners.
He says on the day, he was with an Ethiopian and Bangladeshi foreign national who was also kidnapped allegedly by the same group of men.
Furthermore, after his release, he said his kidnappers informed him that he would be joining several other foreign nationals in the Eastern Cape in paying a monthly ransom to avoid being kidnapped again.
Even though his case is being investigated by the Hawks, Ganguly* says police have not taken his statement, over a week after his ordeal.
Meanwhile, Captain Yolisa Mgolodela of the Hawks recently issued a statement saying a 34-year-old Ali Rizwan, who was arrested in Cape Town last week by the Eastern Cape (EC) Kidnapping Task team with the assistance of Western Cape Serious Organised Crime Investigation, will be transported to the EC, where he has been linked to several kidnapping cases around the province.
This after Captain Mgolodela had confirmed the kidnapping of a Chinese National in January, who was taken outside his meat butchery in Mdantsane, and brought back four days later, after paying a ransom of R155 000.
Upon asking for a comment from the Hawks regarding the kidnapping of Ganguly*, Captain Mgolodela failed to respond to phone calls, after setting up a meeting to respond to inquiries relating to this spike in kidnapping incidents involving foreign national business owners.
Ganguly* says he will be moving his family out of the country for safety reasons next week.
Just last week, the kidnapping of a young biokineticist from Gqeberha sent shockwaves through the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro.
Twenty-six-year-old Riana Pretorius was found a week after her abduction and was returned to her family in the early hours of Friday morning.
Details of her rescue and whether or not her family paid the R2 million ransom, have not yet been disclosed by Captain Mgolodela.
In October last year, Gqeberha businessman Ashraf Laher was hijacked and kidnapped by several gunmen who accosted him on Durban Road, while he was in his Ford Ranger bakkie.
The vehicle was found abandoned in Sidwell later, with no sign of Laher.
Two months later, in December, 18-year-old Almonre Antovian Ashley Roman disappeared after he was dropped off by a family member at Pick 'n Pay in Despatch.
Captain Mgolodela later confirmed that a ransom demand of R220 000 was made for his safe return.
Algoa FM News has sent several queries to Captain Mgolodela to get an update on Roman's disappearance, but no feedback was provided.
