Two University of Virginia students grabbed a man off a street corner in the Washington, D.C., area, tied him up in a motel, and demanded a $500,000 ransom, according to The Washington Post.
The police were able to locate and arrest the kidnappers after they placed a call on the victim’s cellphone. Guanyu Lu and Baichuan Shu, both 19, were charged with abduction with intent to extort money, the Post reported. They were arraigned on Monday and ordered held without bail.
The suspects are second-year engineering students at UVa and are Chinese nationals, as is the 20-year-old victim, according to the Post. The police believe that the three men knew at least one person in common and that the victim was not a random target. —Elyse Ashburn
