Four states mobilise to end Swedish kidnapping ordeal

Swedish police will apply to the French authorities today for the extradition of two men in connection with a kidnapping involving four countries, a rich man's son and €1.2m euros (£780,000) deposited under a bridge near Paris.

Erik Westerberg, 23, a son of Sweden's fifth wealthiest man, was kidnapped by two men last Monday outside his flat in Stockholm. The softly spoken engineering student, who counts table tennis and computers among his interests, was taken in a white Mercedes van to a house in the southern suburbs of Stockholm. He was held there for five days and fed sandwiches at gunpoint.

His father, Lars Westerberg, the managing director of a car safety company, said: "They said they had a tape of Erik's voice and they would kill him if I contacted the police or did not obey their instructions. They also said they would hurt other members of the family. I was not allowed to speak to my son.''

Mr Westerberg and his wife, Birgitta, decided to contact the police. "The deal was that we would lead the police to the extortionists but that they would not intervene until we were certain we had got our son back,'' he said. It was the start of a cross-border hunt involving up to 250 police officers in Sweden, Belgium and France.

On Thursday, Mr Westerberg was told to fly to Luxembourg with €1.2m. The next day, he received a call telling him to go to Luxembourg's central train station. There, his mobile phone rang and a voice told him to search the left-luggage lockers. In them, he found another phone, which rang. He was told to rent a car and drive towards Paris.

Finally, Mr Westerberg was directed to Nogent-sur-Marne, on the outskirts of Paris. He was instructed to leave the ransom money under a bridge where two motorways intersect – one leading to Lille and the Belgian border and the other towards Strasbourg and Germany. After doing so, he drove away.

French and Swedish police in an unmarked vehicle waited for a car, a Swedish-registered Seat Toledo, to arrive at the scene. Then they followed it towards Lille.

Mr Westerberg waited on a road siding for a phone call telling him where his son could be found. Minutes after the "drop'', the call came.

"I immediately phoned my wife in Sweden," Mr Westerberg said. "In the same instant, I was surrounded by French police cars and we just waited together on a road siding. An hour and a quarter later, the Swedish police phoned us to say Erik was safe.''

The two men named in the extradition request are aged 22 and 32. They are understood to be Swedes of Yugoslav extraction.

Nine other people have been arrested in Sweden but police there say they are still searching for the two men who abducted Erik Westerberg in the white Mercedes van.