Former Australian cricketer Stuart MacGill was abducted and released in an alleged kidnapping incident in Sydney last month, police said.
Four people were arrested in connection with the April 14 incident.
Stuart McGill In The National Team
Police said MacGill knew one of the men and that the plot was motivated by extracting money.
He received minor injuries but did not need to be cared for, police said.
MacGill, 50, was the Test spinner for the national team between 1998 and 2008.
At one point, he was ranked second best in the world behind his teammate Shane Warne.
The Incident
New South Wales police said the arrests, which took place after a raid in Sydney on Wednesday, had been a two-week investigation.
Police allege MacGill had been approached and confronted in the Sydney suburb of Cremorne one evening by a 46-year-old man he knew.
Then two other men appeared and the gang forced the former cricketer into the car.
He was taken to a remote area in Bringelly, on the outskirts of the city, where he was allegedly assaulted and threatened by a gang, “police said.
About an hour later, he was taken to a complex southwest of Belmore and released, police said.
Financially Motivated Kidnapping Attempt
Authorities say no money was given or received during the attack, but the kidnapping attempt was financially motivated.
Police said MacGill reported the crime to authorities a week after the incident, and that he was concerned for his safety and that of his family.
“Standing on the road, being dragged into a car, being driven from a distance, threatened with a gun, arrested for a while and then dumped, I think you will be very worried,” said detective Anthony Holton.
“I know it was only the hour he was trapped, but it would have been a horrible hour of patience,” he said.
He said MacGill’s ordeal was “not involved in any back story that leads to him having a personal debt to other people,” and that he was solely being treated as a “victim of a targeted kidnapping”.
Police said the arrested gang members – aged 27, 29, 42 and 46 – would be charged on Wednesday.
MacGill is yet to provide the public with comments on the incident.
