Believing they’d been swindled out of their life savings in a Bernie Madoff-type scheme, a bunch of angry investors decided to take the law into their hands.
The enraged victims – all retirees in their 60s and 70s – jumped James Amburn outside his home and beat him with a walker before binding him with duct tape and throwing him in the trunk of their car.
Dubbed the “Geritol Gang” by cops, Roland Koenig, 74, and pal Willy Dehmer, 60, along with Koenig’s wife and another couple, then drove him 300 miles to a dungeon-like cellar – and tortured him for FOUR days!
“They bound me with tape until I looked like a mummy,” said Amburn. “It took them quite a while, because they ran out of breath. But when they loaded me into the car, I thought I was a dead man.
“I was bleeding from my eyes, nose and my mouth. But the nightmare had only started.”
When they arrived at the cellar, located in Koenig’s vacation home on a lake in Germany, the unlikely kidnappers offered him coffee and cake and asked him nicely to give them back the $3 million he had lost.
But Amburn, a U.S. citizen, says he explained that the money was gone for good.
“I told them what I had told them before, that due to market conditions, unfortunately it was gone. I tried to buy time, to ease the situation, but they chained me up like an animal.
“They burned me with cigarettes and broke two of my ribs when they beat me with chair legs. Again and again they threatened to kill me.
“I never thought I would make it out alive.”
He was fed only two bowls of watery soup during his four days in the dungeon – but he managed to muster enough strength to make a bold dash for freedom.
Allowed outside for a cigarette break, he hopped a fence and took off running down the street – completely naked! But his elderly captors weren’t far behind him. They chased him down, telling confused onlookers that he was a burglar they were apprehending.
They took Amburn back to the cellar and beat him again. Eventually, he signed a document promising to pay back all the money his captors had lost.
“I told them if I could sell certain securities in Switzerland, then they would get their money, but I would have to send a fax to the bank to give the order for the transfer.”
They agreed – but what they didn’t know was their desperate captive had scribbled a coded message on the bottom of the paper asking for help.
“Luckily someone at the bank was bright enough to pick up on it,” said a relieved Amburn.
Within hours, police commandos stormed the house. Now Koenig and his cronies face 15 years in jail – and Amburn is facing a fraud investigation.
