Phnom Penh military police on Monday arrested seven Chinese nationals for kidnapping and holding three Chinese men in a rental house for four months in a bid to extort money from their families.

The suspects include five men and two women. Their three male victims were in debt to the kidnappers, according to Leng Song, deputy chief of the municipal military police’s anti-trafficking unit.

“They got angry with the victims for owing them money and not paying it back,” said Song. “They held [the victims] for ransoms from their families.”

Military police arrested the suspects during a raid on a rental house in Chak Angre Krom commune in Meanchey district at about 4pm on Monday.

A senior military police officer at the municipal military court, who asked not to be named, said that local villagers had tipped them off about empty cans and other housewares being thrown out of the rental home by unseen people.

“It seemed that someone tried to tell them something from the house,” said the officer. “When military police entered the house to check, we saw the victims locked inside one of the rooms.”

The suspects, who have been detained at military police headquarters, will be sent to municipal court today. Police said that preliminary charges include kidnapping and illegal human detention.

Neither the suspects nor victims were available yesterday.