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In Germany, if you think your financial advisor |
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has been giving you bad advice |
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and messing up your investments, |
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you can complain to the regulators, |
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you can go to the police. |
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But in Bavaria, one group of pensioners stands accused of |
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employing a much more direct method |
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of registering their dissatisfaction. |
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They're on trial for kidnapping |
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their financial advisor and holding him hostage. |
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Four senior citizens, aged between 63 and 79, |
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had invested nearly three and a half million dollars |
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in the US property market |
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and lost it all in the sub-prime mortgage meltdown. |
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They'd concluded that the man who'd handled the investment |
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should now reimburse them. |
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According to prosecutors, last summer |
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the pensioner posse plus one accomplice |
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abducted the financial advisor outside his house, |
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tied him, gagged him, put him in a box |
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and transported him in the boot of a car |
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450 kilometres to a lakeside retreat. |
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He claims to have spent four days |
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locked in the cellar there and to have been tortured. |
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After agreeing to their demands, |
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the prisoner was allowed to send a fax |
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to Switzerland arranging payment. |
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He concealed the phrase |
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"call the Police" in the text |
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and the alarm was raised. |
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Soon after a crack team of commandos came to the rescue. |
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On the opening day of the trial, |
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the 74 year old alleged ringleader of the gang |
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avoided using the word "kidnap". |
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He said he and his co-defendants |
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had only wanted to treat their guest |
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to a couple of days holiday in Bavaria. |
