JEDDAH – Police have arrested a three-member gang, including a woman, for allegedly keeping runaway girls in a flat to blackmail their families to pay huge ransoms to get them back. The Bureau of Investigation and Public Prosecution has completed its probe and transferred the case to the criminal court in Jeddah demanding deterrent punishment for the gang members. The gang's crimes surfaced after the Jamia police received information from a parent that his 13-year-old daughter had disappeared. The girl was able to send messages to the family from her mobile phone, which enabled security officers to locate her in Al-Rabwa district. Police then recorded the numbers that come to the girl's phone. They arrested first a taxi driver after they found the girl with him in addition to SR470 in cash. Police also learned that the girl had run away from the family and that there was another person involved in the case. The girl told investigators that she left her home three days ago of her own free will. She got into a taxi and went to a market and stayed there from morning until late hours of the night. A woman then asked her why she was staying in the market late in the night. "She then asked me to follow her," the girl told police. The taxi driver took the woman and the girl to a flat in Naseem district, which belonged to the two male gang members. The girl said she found four other girls inside the flat who had run away from their homes. "The two men used to bring everything the girls wanted. One of the two criminals used to send messages to the phones of the girls' parents seeking ransom for their release," the prosecution report said. The two defendants prevented the girls from leaving the flat, Al-Watan Arabic daily said quoting the report. The girl's father said he had received threatening messages from the gang members that they would kill the girl if he failed to pay the ransom. During investigation the first defendant said his taxi driver friend told him that there is a girl in his car who said she had no place to go. He then took the girl and handed her over to Um Zakariya, the third defendant, who later told the first defendant that her husband did not like the girl's presence in his home. The second defendant said the girl told him that she had come to Jeddah from Riyadh with her father who left her in the market and then disappeared. He then contacted the first defendant and told him about the girl and the former asked the driver to drop her at his family residence. The first defendant then went with the girl to his customers to offer the girl. The report said one of the defendants had sexually harassed the girl. The charges against the defendants included abduction of minors, confiscating their phones and money and engaging in prohibited activities.
