Venezuelan businessman kidnapped

FOUR foreigners and one national were attacked at gunpoint Thursday night. Shortly after,one of the foreigners was later kidnapped by three armed and masked men who stormed a house at Darcy Road, Second Boissierre, Maraval, police sources told Newsday yesterday.

Up to late evening, however, the whereabouts of 60-year-old Venezuelan businessman Jose Jesus Bomparte Cipriani were unknown and the people who snatched and carried him off are yet to make a ransom demand. American national Jerry Johnson was relieved of $1,500 cash, Venezuelan Caroline Heyen was robbed of her handbag containing personal documents, including a return plane ticket to her homeland, while Trinidadian Martin Schneider had his cellphone stolen. Johnson’s South African wife Marion Johnson and Scottish-born David McDowell were also in the house at the time of the robbery and kidnapping. However, they were not robbed. 

The American Jerry Johnson, wife Marion, and McDowell live and work in Maracaibo, Venezuela, police revealed.  The four non-nationals came to Trinidad Tuesday and were due to leave yesterday. Police reports are that around 10.30 pm Thursday, Cipriani was sitting in the living room of the large two-storey house, owned by Schneider. Police said the three armed men jumped the front wall and a back gate, before entering the house. The armed men subsequently robbed Johnson (Jerry), Venezuelan Heyen, and Schneider then snatched Cipriani and escaped. A report was made and a party of officers from the St Clair Criminal Investigations Department (CID) under Insp Thorpe, arrived on the scene. At the Maraval house yesterday, Marion Johnson told Newsday that they were all at the house when the three men jumped the wall and the gate.

“They all had guns and he (Cipriani) was sitting on a chair,” the woman said, gesticulating.  She said the armed men also told them to “be quiet.” Marion Johnson said she could not say why anyone would want to snatch Cipriani, but disclosed that he had several businesses in Venezuela, and that they came to this country to shop. Police, meanwhile, said they received no leads up to late evening, but they were working along certain lines. Cpl Dennis and members of the AKS are continuing investigations.