THREE PEOPLE have been arrested following the kidnapping of a security van driver last week.
The cash-in-transit worker was taken from his west Belfast home and forced to get money and hand it over to his assailants. His partner and a son aged 16 were rescued in Co Monaghan after they were taken hostage from home on Wednesday evening with pillow cases covering their heads.
Police yesterday said a man aged 35 was arrested in Belfast, as well as a 64-year-old woman and a 63-year-old man in Newry, Co Down.
The kidnap happened at Teeling Grove, Dunmurry. While his wife and son were driven in a van to Co Monaghan, the employee was held overnight. He was forced to go to work and hand over a substantial sum to the gang in Muckamore industrial estate outside Antrim town the next day.
His wife and son were taken to the Aushnadamp area near Castleblayney in Co Monaghan, by the thieves and were freed by gardaí on Thursday.
Meanwhile, police have praised army bomb experts who prevented a device exploding inside a Co Down bank yesterday. Officers were alerted at about 9.40am after two masked men dropped a bag which they said contained a bomb, inside a branch of Santander in Newry.
A large number of buildings around the centre of the city were evacuated. Police confirmed the bag contained a viable explosive device.
Area commander for Newry and Mourne Chief Insp Davy Beck said: “I would place on record my gratitude to the army technical officer and his team for their actions, which clearly prevented the detonation of this device.”