Trip To Meet Internet Bride Ends in Kidnap

SYDNEY, Australia — An Australian sheep farmer who sought love over the Internet was instead kidnapped and held hostage for 12 days after his African "bride" turned out to be a gang of machete-wielding gangsters.

Des Gregor, 56, flew to Mali promising a dowry of gold and marriage to "Natacha," reportedly a Liberian refugee in her 20s, following a whirlwind romance over the web. But when he stepped off the plane, men claiming to be the woman's relatives took him to a flat in the capital, Bamako, where he was robbed, bound, and threatened with having his limbs hacked off unless he arranged an $84,000 ransom.

The plot was foiled after Australian police, pretending to be his relatives, persuaded his captors to release him briefly to collect the ransom. After arriving back on Australian soil on Sunday night, Mr. Gregor said he felt lucky to have escaped with his life and praised police in Australia and Africa for a "fantastic job."

"If it wasn't for them, I reckon another couple of days and I wouldn't have returned," he said, adding that he was regularly beaten with a machete. "I have the scars to prove it," he said.