So we have financial advisors who steal money in this country and wait for the wheels of justice to turn to punish them. But some senior citizens in Germany had what they thought was a better approach to punish and get their money back at the same time.

The good senior citizens ambushed James Amburn, 56 outside his home in Speyer, Western Germany, bound him with duct tape and bundled him into a car trunk.

Amburn was than driven 300 miles to the Bavarian lakeside home of one of the gang. As the financial advisor Amburn, who runs investment firm Digitalglobalnet, was taken to the cellar another couple, retired doctors, joined the kidnappers in the cellar where Mr. Amburn was chained and tortured for four days last week.

The reason for all of the anger from the good citizens was that the financial advisor has lost the equivalent of $3.3 million of their money. It seems that their money was supposed to have been invested in Florida real estate, which of course was lost completely.

Mr Amburn said: ‘I had known these people for 25 years. I had no reason to be afraid. But as I went into my home I was jumped from the rear and struck.

‘They bound me with masking tape until I looked like a mummy. It took them quite a while because they ran out of breath. 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 just started.’

During his confinement in an unheated cellar, Mr Amburn claims he was burned with cigarettes, beaten, had two of his ribs broken when he was hit with a chair leg and chained up ‘like an animal.’

He says he was fed only two bowls of watery soup during his four days in the dungeon.
He was rescued when he convinced his captors that he had money in a Switzerland bank that could be transferred to them if they allowed him to fax a note to the bank. They agreed to let him send the fax, but unknown to the seniors he scribbled a note at the bottom of the fax to call the police.

Shortly afterwards, the Swiss bank telephoned police in Germany and an armed team of special SEK commandos was scrambled and the house was stormed in the early hours of Saturday morning.

An ambulance with a doctor had to be called not only for Mr. Amburn, but also for the senior citizens because of their infirmities. How about that!

Chief public prosecutor Volker Ziegler said: ‘They were angry because they invested money in properties in Florida and he lost it all.

‘This was black money – they hadn’t declared it to the revenue authorities in Germany.’

Mr. Amburn is recovering from cigarette burns, broken ribs, threats of being killed by the Mafia. The seniors are facing 15 years in jail for kidnapping, torture and tax evasion.

Finally what do you think of this vigilantism? Do you condone their actions?