PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (AP) - Armed men abducted a 71-year-old gas station owner in Trinidad yesterday, making him the oldest kidnapping victim in the Caribbean country's history, police said.
Alvin Nunes' abduction came a day after Trinidad's youngest kidnapping victim, a three-year-old asthmatic girl, was released unharmed to her family, Corporal Reuben Alleyne said.Three men approached Nunes at his gas station and one of them pointed a gun at him and ordered him into their car, Alleyne said, citing witnesses' accounts.
Officers were briefly led on a car chase by the abductors, who escaped, police said. Authorities later found the car abandoned.
A ransom had not been demanded for Nunes, police said.
On Saturday, kidnappers released the three-year-old girl along a road after taking her from a pre-school in southern Trinidad on Thursday. An undisclosed ransom had been demanded in the case, but none was paid, police said.
Five people have been detained in connection with the girl's abduction, but no one was charged.
A steep rise in ransom kidnappings has alarmed business owners in Trinidad and Tobago, a two-island nation of 1.3 million residents. There were fewer than 10 in 2001, but a record 51 occurred last year. There have been at least 11 since January in this former British colony, police said.
The kidnappings have occurred in Trinidad, the larger and more industrialised of the two islands. Several people have also been charged with faking their own abductions to embezzle money from relatives, authorities said.
