Family traumatised after tiger kidnapping

Dublin airport was on high alert throughout much of Thursday as Gardaí investigated the false imprisonment and abduction of a family from Artane in Co Dublin.

It appears to be a so-called tiger kidnapping, where victims are held hostage in order to coerce their loved ones to commit a crime.

In this case, it seems a man in his 50s – a cash in transit van driver - was forced to hand over a significant amount of cash to criminals while his partner and her adult daughter were tied up and left in a van.

The incident began on Wednesday night at 8pm when two masked men entered the family’s home at Gracefield Road in Artane.

The men stayed overnight before taking the family from their home at around 5am on Thursday.

The mother and her 20-year-old daughter were taken hostage in a Volkswagen Caddy van with the partial registration number 09-D.

They were tied and bound while they were driven around for Dublin city for a number of hours before being parked up and left in the vicinity of the Chestnut Groove estate in Dunboyne, Co Meath.