FBI agents following an electronic tracking device hidden in a bag of money stormed a Chicago building, freed a hostage who had been shot and tortured, and arrested six people on charges of extorting $40,000 in ransom from a suburban Chicago bank, authorities said Friday.
According to court papers filed Friday, an employee at the TCF bank in Oak Lawn received calls from her fiance early Thursday in which he warned that he had been kidnapped and that his captors wanted money. The employee notified her boss, who called police, who then called the FBI, said William C. Monroe, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's Chicago office.
The bank employee "handled it just perfectly" and may well have saved her fiancee's life, Monroe said.
Federal agents watched as people in two cars collected the bank bag from a drop point and brought it to a building on Chicago's South Side, according to court papers. The agents forced their way in, freed the 34-year-old hostage and arrested his six captors, Monroe said.
Monroe did not identify the alleged hostage or his fiance. He said the man told agents his captors followed him home and abducted him at gunpoint at about 3 a.m. on Thursday. He told agents his captors placed a hood over his head, bound him, pounded on his feet with a wrench, and shot him in the leg, Monroe said.
The six suspects appeared in court Friday afternoon and were ordered held without bond pending hearings. Each is charged with attempting to extort $40,000 from the bank, and faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Cole set hearings for Tuesday, at which the six defendants may try to make bond.
Those charged included Tony Callion, 40, of Riverdale; Daniel Gibbs, 23, of Madison, Wis.; Natalie Hoisington, 22, of Marshall, Wis.; and Sherman Swopes, 25, Israel Collins, 37, and Hal Durham, 44, all of Chicago. Authorities said that Durham is Gibbs' father.
Susan Shatz, Swopes' attorney, declined to comment.
Hoisington's lawyer Nishay Sanan told a reporter that "the lawyers got the complaint about five minutes before you did, and so we are going to wait to see how this plays out to see what roles people played."
He said Hoisington, the only woman arrested, "doesn't seem to fit the profile of the others." He said her family will be coming for the bond hearing Tuesday "to try to get her out."
They are charged with attempting to extort $40,000 from the bank. They face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.