This is a crazy story out of New York about a 24-year-old Chinese student at Northeastern University who was kidnapped and held for $3.5 million ransom by a vicious Queens gang. Luckily, the FBI was able to track him down and rescue him:
FBI tracks down kidnapped Chinese college student abducted for ransom by sleazy Queens gang.
It didn't take long for a rich Chinese student to become a big man on campus - flashing a lot of cash, picking up big bar tabs and running with a fast crowd.
His free-spending ways caught the eye of a vicious Queens gang, which took him hostage for four days and demanded $3.5 million from his family.
The 24-year-old was terrorized, zapped with a stun gun and warned he would be killed if his rich father didn't cough up cash.
The rare case of stranger abduction ended when the FBI swooped in and rescued the young man - found blindfolded, his head wrapped in duct tape.
The unnamed first-year student, who is the son of a real estate tycoon, arrived at school and gravitated towards other Chinese immigrants. Which is cool, unless you start hanging out with this cat Xin Lin -- who happened to be the ringleader of the kidnap plot.
He met a guy named Xin Lin and his crew at karaoke bars and started making weekend treks from Boston to Queens to hang out.
Lin was no true friend, though. The feds say he was the ringleader of the kidnap plot.
On Sept. 7, he invited the student to breakfast and then suggested a jaunt to a bar.
Four men in the VIP lounge, two with knives, grabbed the student and Lin, who pretended to be a target, officials said.
To make it convincing, Lin even took a fake punch. But he was a bad actor - and the Northeastern student suspected his buddy was part of the scheme.
He knew he was right when the blindfold his captors put on him slipped, and he saw Lin sitting in the front seat of the car.
Bastard. Good to hear the victim's okay, but the moral of the story is to be careful who you make "friends" with. And watch where you're flashing that cash. You might find yourself in the middle of a kidnapping plot.
