Related coverage from The Cavalier Daily, University of Virginia
Please note that the two students are both Chinese nationals. Mr. Shu is in the Electrical Engineering undergraduate program, and Mr. Lu is a Rodman Scholar (our Engineering Honors program). According to reports from The Cavalier Daily, a roommate of Mr. Shu described him as "well-off" with "his own place in Shanghai."
The whole thing sounds really sketchy.
Give us 5 hundred thousand dorrars or we feed him the aqra beads.
I wonder if this is an Honor Code violation ...?
“The suspects were second-year engineering students at Virginia University”
Not anymore. I wonder if after prison they will get to keep the student visa’s.
Hey hey, UVA.
Sounds like a busted intelligence operation, and this story is their weak cover.
The Cavalier article has two students speaking highly of Shu and reporting that they understood he and his family were well-off (his current and former roommates), but couldn’t seem to round up any comments about Lu. I wonder if Shu got bullied or blackmailed into this by Lu.
I’m also a bit suspicious of the “host family”, which is apparently Chinese-speaking. From the WP article:
“Someone called the victim’s host family that night and demanded, in Chinese, $500,000 for the victim’s life, Allen wrote. The caller also threatened to blow up the family’s home if they contacted police, the affidavit states. The family received several more calls, telling them that the victim was bound and bruised, Allen wrote. The incoming phone numbers, including some from the victim’s phone, were recorded on the family’s phone. The family contacted police the next day, the affidavit states.”
Sure there was (supposedly) a threat to blow up the family’s home if they contacted police, but I think any normal family would contact immediately police anyway, especially since the kidnap victim wasn’t their own chid/relative. I mean if they believed the threat to blow up the house, they also must have believed the threat to kill the victim unless they came up with $500,000 pretty fast. Sooooooooooo, how ‘bout getting out of the house, and calling police fast. Unless they somehow thought that 1) they could and would come up with the $500,000 (but how? and why?) and 2) trusted the kidnappers not to kill the victim or blow up the house anyway (again, why trust these people?). Just wondering . . .
I’ll be waiting to hear the rest of the story.
Brings new meaning to the phrase, “RUCKED UP”.
“Little Falls Street and Park Avenue, just off Broad Street and very close to the motel”
They held him in room 27 of the Stratford, and made the ransom call from the corner right in front of the Falls Church City Police Department.