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Police are investigating whether an ‘insider’ might have been involved in the kidnapping of a British man in Ecuador.
Former honorary British Consul, Colin Armstrong OBE, was kidnapped by a group of 15 men dressed in fake police uniforms and driven away in his own BMW on Saturday morning.
He was rescued on Wednesday but the police investigation is still ongoing – and it’s now thought an insider might have played a part in the kidnapping.
He’s said to be ‘safe and healthy’ after the ordeal, with police issuing a picture of him smiling for the camera and wearing a police t-shirt and hat.
Colin was kidnapped alongside Katherine Paolo Santos, a Colombian partner and pole dancer described by Ecuadorian police as his ‘romantic partner’.
Just hours later, she turned up at a home believed to belong to Colin’s son Nick wearing what she told police was a vest filled with explosives. She said the vest would explode if a ransom fee wasn’t paid.
Colin Armstrong was kidnapped last week (Picture: Handout/Agripac/AFP)
Katherine Paolo Santos was also taken
Bomb disposal experts in protective gear removed the vest and realised the vest was fake.
Ecuadorian police have already made nine arrests and confiscated a huge haul of guns, grenades, detonators and drugs.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and British intelligence officers were also involved in the investigation, MailOnline reports.
But they’re now investigating whether Colin’s kidnappers had help from someone with insider knowledge.
General Freddy Sarzosa Guerra, the police’s director of investigations, said: ‘This is being investigated as a kidnap for money and the motive was an economic one.’
She turned up at the home of Colin’s son with a fake explosive vest strapped to her
Colin splits his time between several homes both in Ecuador and his country estate in Yorkshire, so questions are being asked as to how the kidnappers knew where he would be last Saturday.
According to police sources, evidence found during raids this week suggest that last weekend’s kidnapping was planned in meticulous detail.
Gang members arrived at Rodeo Grande, where the Armstrong family crest hangs next to the gate along with the family motto ‘Trans Mare Video’ – ‘I see beyond the sea’ – in the early hours of Saturday morning.
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Staff members who tried to stop them were beaten as they made their way to the room where ‘Mr Colin’, as he is known by his employees, was sleeping.
A short video made by a member of staff in the aftermath of the raid, showed blood stains on sheets and on the floor of one room.
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Colin Armstrong was rescued on Wednesday but the police investigation is still ongoing.