Perched under 50 miles inland off Ecuador’s Pacific coastline, Hacienda Rodeo Bonne was an utopia regarding relaxed nowadays of the year. Apples and mangoes gently ripen into the woods. And with temperatures extending towards 30s, the quiet home gardens are usually filled with new scent out-of jacaranda and you can hibiscus blossoms in the run-as much as Xmas Time. Nonetheless it was here, precisely this morning, you to previous honorary United kingdom Consul Colin Armstrong OBE is snatched by the fifteen dudes dressed in bogus police uniforms at the beginning of a terrifying and you can slightly unique kidnapping ordeal; one which, it could be told you – such as for instance given that brand new tale has thankfully concluded towards 78-year-old’s safe launch – might have been ripped straight from the pages from an effective Graham Greene book. Bundled to the his personal black colored BMW on gunpoint, the new billionaire entrepreneur – earlier known as ‘Our Man from inside the Guayaquil’ – try kidnapped past Saturday, plus Katherine Paolo Santos, an excellent Colombian design and you may rod performer, afterwards described because of the Ecuadorian police because the their ‘close partner’. The fresh large-a have chosen to take a unique bizarre turn when, only occasions adopting the kidnapping, Ms Santos arrived in the a good gated property said to fall in so you can Mr Armstrong’s young man Nick, sporting exactly what she advised cops was a great vest filled with explosives which may inflatable in the event the a ransom money in order to 100 % free Mr Armstrong was not paid down into the criminal group trailing their kidnapping.

Then again the fresh new Manchester-produced business person, because Post is inform you, isn’t any stranger to help you risk

Footage keeps given that emerged towards social networking apparently indicating his glamourous girlfriend having an enthusiastic explosives vest got rid of because of the a-bomb discretion specialist

(suite…)