Ecuador
Police say Colin Armstrong is safe and sound after he was kidnapped along with his partner on Saturday
A British businessman and former British honorary consul was released four days after he was kidnapped in Ecuador, police said.
Colin Armstrong, 78, was kidnapped from his home in the town of Baba in the early hours of Saturday along with a Colombian woman identified as his partner, Katherine Paola Santos, according to a police report obtained by the Guardian. He was driven away in his own black BMW, which was later found parked, the report said.
“For now he is safe and healthy,” General César Zapata, commander general of the Ecuadorian National Police, wrote on X on Wednesday with a photo of Armstrong flanked by officers. Police said nine people were arrested in connection with the kidnapping.
Ecuador's Interior Minister Monica Palencia said on X: “We will not allow impunity. Police operations continue.”
Armstrong was a former British honorary consul in the port city of Guayaquil, a volunteer position that helps provide consular assistance, before leaving the position in 2016. He is the founder and owner of Agripac, a major agricultural products company in Ecuador, and owns the 500-acre Tupgill Park estate in North Yorkshire. In 2011 he was awarded an OBE and a CMG.
British Ambassador to Ecuador Chris Campbell said: “We are pleased that Colin Armstrong OBE, our former honorary consul in Guayaquil, has been safely released.”
Police said Armstrong was rescued en route to Manabi, a coastal province in Ecuador. On Saturday, a video posted on social media purporting to show the house where he was kidnapped showed bloodstained sheets on a bed and rooms ransacked.
According to the International Crisis Group, criminal violence has increased in Guayaquil, Ecuador's most populous city, in 2022, reflecting widespread economic hardship in Latin America.
Against this backdrop, President Daniel Noboa, who took office at the end of November, has vowed to crack down on drug gangs and organized crime and take control of Guayaquil, which exports cocaine to the United States, Europe and Asia.
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