Fourth man jailed for kidnapping accountant in Wolverhampton
Maninder Singh, 37, was sentenced to 13 years and three months at Wolverhampton Crown Court.
A fourth man has been jailed for the kidnap of an accountant in Wolverhampton, who was ambushed as he walked to his car in the city centre in broad daylight.
Maninder Singh, along with three other men, bundled the man into a van on the evening of 10 October 2022.
They took him, bound and blindfolded, to a shop in Coseley where they threatened him with violence and held a gun to his head.
He was kept captive for around seven hours with his ordeal only ending after the men persuaded one of his work colleagues to leave £19,000 in a bag at a bus stop as a ransom.
The men then left him in the van, which they later claimed was stolen, in Coseley where he managed to get out and call police.
Using CCTV, automated number plate recognition (ANPR) and mobile phone data, investigators pieced together what had happened and discovered a group chat called 'Robbers Gang' on one of the men's phones, which had been created just two days before the kidnap.
On Tuesday (16 April), Singh, 37, of Trysull Road, Bradmore, was jailed for 13 years and three months, at Wolverhampton Crown Court, after pleading guilty to conspiracy to kidnap and conspiracy to blackmail.
The three other men involved are currently serving jail terms of between 13 and 16 years after being convicted in July last year.
DC Dan David, from our Major Crime Team, said: "This was a terrifying ordeal for their victim, which left him fearing for his life.
“It was carried out with the sole aim of extracting a large sum of money but instead, each of these men involved is now serving a significant time behind bars.”