Four men jailed for a total of 50 years for kidnap, false imprisonment and blackmail 

The men were jailed in February last month at Southwark Crown Court and sentenced as follows: 

Mohammed Kodoris, 52, of Blackthorn Road, Ilford, was sentenced to 16 years for two counts of false imprisonment, eight years for blackmail, to be served concurrently and two years for ABH, to be served concurrently. 

Progghnamoy Chowdhury, 32, of Elsenham Road, Forest Gate, was sentenced to 16 years for two counts of false imprisonment, eight years for blackmail, to be served concurrently and two years for ABH, to be served concurrently. 

Shah Abdal, 45, of Powlesland Court, Stepney, was sentenced to 12 years for kidnap, 12 years for false imprisonment to be served concurrently, nine years for blackmail to be served concurrently and two years for ABH, to be served concurrently. 

Mohammed Sajon, 45, of Ingestre Road, Forest Gate, was sentenced to six years for blackmail. 

Kodoris, Chowdhury and Sajon pled guilty to the offences. Abdal was found guilty at the conclusion of a trial.  

In the first incident the victim, a 29-year-old man, was in Stepney at around 18:00hrs on 21 September 2017 when he was met by Chowdhury, a male known to him. Chowdhury took the victim to an address in Dersingham Avenue, Forest Gate, where Kodoris was present. There, they assaulted the victim and threatened him over several hours, before demanding he hand over his bank card so that money could be withdrawn from his account. Over £600 in cash was taken. After a number of hours, the victim was allowed to leave the address after photographs had been taken of his identification documents as well as pictures of his family. Threats were made towards him and his family and further money was demanded. He was left with reddening to his skin after being kicked and reported the matter to the Police straight away.  

In the second incident police were called to the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel at around 00:41hrs on 10 March 2018. Officers attended and found the victim, a again a 29-year-old man, who had been beaten. He had suffered a broken arm and scratches to his face and spent a couple of days in hospital recovering from the attack.
He was later interviewed by police where he alleged that earlier in the day on 10 March he had received a phone call from Abdal, who was known to him, telling him to go to a postcode in Bow on the offer of potential employment opportunities. On arrival, he was met by Abdal who took him to an address where, once inside, he was taken upstairs by a number of men including Chowdhury and Kodoris who began assaulting him with wooden sticks. They then searched his pockets and took his ID cards, mobile phones and £650 he had in cash. The males then demanded that he contact his friends and family, due to a misplaced belief that they were wealthy, to get them to pay money for his release. Two of the victim’s friends agreed to pay money with one handing over £500 in cash and the other £200 in cash.  

He was beaten and threatened over several hours by the group, made up of Kodoris, Chowdhury, Abdal and Sajon. They demanded the victim obtain a further £50,000 from relatives or otherwise he or his family would be killed, intimating that they had a firearm. 

After he could not transfer any further money, the group drove the victim to his home address.  

Officers from the Central East Command Unit launched an investigation and identified the group responsible through CCTV and phone work, which led to them being charged in 2018. 

Detective Constable Megan Bushell, of the Central East Command Unit, said: “These were terrifying incidents in which two men were, in completely separate attacks, taken completely against their will and subjected to a horrible level of violence and threats. I am pleased to have secured significant custodial sentences for each of the men involved in these very serious crimes. I’d like to thank the victims for their bravery in supporting our investigation and hope that this gives them some small measure of comfort in seeing justice done and their attackers imprisoned.”