Italians tried to pretend their very own kidnapping, acquired bought to actual Jihadists

Two Italian males hatched a scheme to stage their very own kidnapping by pretend terrorists in hopes of securing ransom cash from the Italian Government; just for it to go awry once they had been bought to actual Jihadists, based on Italian prosecutors.
According to Italian prosecutors, the 2 males, Alessandro Sandrini and Sergio Zanotti are suspected of individually faking their very own kidnappings with the assistance of a gang of two Albanian males and one other Italian man whom they met of their house city of Brescia, Lombardy.
Prosecutors declare that each the boys had been taken to Turkey 5 months aside in 2016 by the identical gang. The deal was to separate the ransom cash which might be paid the Italian Government after taking the boys to a secret location and staging a pretend ISIS-style kidnapping video.
Police claims that Sandrini’s girlfriend overheard the kidnapping gang promising to maintain Sandrini in a villa full of “drugs, alcohol, and women”.
Sandrini, who’s now underneath formal police investigation, allegedly knowledgeable his girlfriend concerning the plan and promised her €100,000 if she didn’t expose it to the police or the reporters. Prosecutors declare that Sandrini’s girlfriend was being paid €50 every week by the gang to make sure her silence.
An Italian justice system supply mentioned that the gang held Sandrini for nearly every week earlier than double-crossing him by taking him throughout the border into Syria and promoting him as a hostage to members of the Islamist group Turkistan Islamic Party, one of many many Islamist Jihadist terrorist teams lively within the nation. “He became a victim of his own game,” the supply mentioned.
Sandrini has vehemently denied these allegations, telling an area newspaper that his kidnapping “was a real kidnapping from start to finish”.
The gang behind this kidnapping has now been arrested and can also be suspected of making an attempt to stage the pretend kidnapping of Zanotti. Zanotti has earlier claimed that he was kidnapped while shopping for uncommon cash in Turkey. Zanotti was handed over to a different Islamist terror group, linked to Al-Qaeda earlier than he was launched in 2019, similar to Sandrini.
“Sandrini is under investigation and Zanotti will be soon since we strongly suspect he too faked his kidnapping,” the supply mentioned.
In a 2018 video depicting Sandrini’s actual kidnapping, he was kneeling earlier than his armed kidnappers and pleading for assist, in any other case, he can be killed. After his launch in May 2019, Sandrini claimed that he was drugged and kidnapped close to his resort throughout a vacation in Turkey. Upon his return, he was put underneath home arrest for being a suspect in a number of robberies.
Zanotti has not responded to the allegations up to now. He was launched in April 2019, with the then PM of Italy Giuseppe Conte saying that Zanotti appeared in good condition and thanked the Italian intelligence service for his or her “complex and delicate” investigation that secured his launch from the terrorists.
An ex-wife of Zanotti instructed Italian newspaper La Republica that she was shocked to listen to concerning the allegations. “He told us that when he was held prisoner near Aleppo he was forced to eat grass, like a horse,” she mentioned.
The Italian Government has lengthy been suspected of paying ransoms so as to free their residents held hostage. According to the Italian justice system supply, the 2 males didn’t earn any cash from this failed endeavor. “If anything was paid, they certainly got nothing,” he mentioned.