Reports: German adviser kidnapped, beaten by unhappy elderly clients

Lousy investment performance apparently drove four clients of a financial adviser in Speyer, Germany, to kidnap the adviser and torture him for four days last week, according to published reports. James Amburn, 56, told the London Telegraph he was kidnapped last Tuesday from outside his apartment building, bound with tape and tossed into the trunk of a car for a 300-mile drive to the home of one of the abductors. Mr. Amburn claims he was held for four days in the cellar, where he was beaten, burned with cigarettes, and chained up “like an animal.” According to published reports, the four abductors, all in their 60s and 70s, lost $2 million through investments that Mr. Amburn made on their behalf in Florida real estate. After at least one failed attempt to escape, Mr. Amburn managed to send a note on a fax that he was ordered to send to a bank to get money for his abductors. “I was beaten,” he said in published reports. “They threatened again and again to kill me.” The abductors have all been arrested and could face up to 15 years in prison.