SAN DIEGO -- Two north county men who were kidnapped and held for ransom in Kenya are returning to the African country in hopes of seeing justice served.
Last April, Juergen Robert Alhaman, 58, and James Edward Harrell, 67, fell victim to a Nairobi-based ransom scheme that investigators believe has targeted a number of foreign travelers in recent months, officials.
Alhaman and Harrell were taken in while looking for venture capitalists to invest in a business they were starting, authorities said. The nature of the endeavor has not been disclosed, though it may have involved the sale of diamonds.
Once in Kenya, however, the two were taken to a strange home, then chained and locked inside a room.
Two days after the men's arrival in Kenya, one of their wives received an e-mail message supposedly sent by her husband and asking for $10,000, ostensibly to pay "administrative expenses" for the transfer of the $5 million, FBI special agent Jan Caldwell said.
"Subsequent conversations with the two victims indicated that if the money was not sent soon, they would be in big trouble," Caldwell said.
The families of the two men then called the FBI and started working with an agent assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi. With help from Kenyan law enforcement officials, the FBI set up bogus arrangements to deliver ransom for the release of the businessmen.
After 10 days of being held ransom, Alhaman, Harrell and another man were finally set free.
Two of the five alleged kidnappers are now standing trial in Kenya, and Alhaman and Harrell want to see their kidnappers pay.
"I would like to see them rot in jail," Alhaman said.
"Not an American jail, but a Kenyan jail."
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