{"id":491115,"date":"2026-02-19T23:02:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T23:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/491115\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T23:02:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T23:02:07","slug":"police-raid-property-on-outskirts-of-sydney-linked-to-kidnapping-of-85-year-old-chris-baghsarian-sydney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/491115\/","title":{"rendered":"Police raid property on outskirts of Sydney linked to kidnapping of 85-year-old Chris Baghsarian | Sydney"},"content":{"rendered":"

Police have executed a warrant at a semi-rural property believed to be linked to the mistaken kidnapping of grandfather Chris Baghsarian.<\/p>\n

The 85-year-old man has been held captive since three men bundled him into a dark-coloured SUV outside his Sydney<\/a> home just before dawn last Friday.<\/p>\n

Detectives believe the widower, who they say is a victim of mistaken identity, is still alive after videos of him emerged restrained in an unknown location.<\/p>\n

Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n

Police swarmed a property in Dural, about 36km north-west of Sydney, on Thursday night, after identifying it as a location \u201cbelieved to have been used as a makeshift stronghold by the kidnappers\u201d.<\/p>\n

A crime scene at the property has been established.<\/p>\n

Baghsarian\u2019s family spoke publicly for the first time<\/a> earlier this week, describing the kidnapping as a surreal and harrowing ordeal.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur family is living through a nightmare we never thought possible,\u201d they said in a brief statement released via police.<\/p>\n

Baghsarian\u2019s lack of personal links to any criminal or underworld activity is making the case difficult for investigators.<\/p>\n

No ransom has been demanded, leaving police to appeal directly to the kidnappers to return the grandfather to a safe location.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not an instance where they\u2019re randomly taking people for the sake of it,\u201d Det Supt Andrew Marks told reporters on Monday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were intending to take somebody but have taken the wrong person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Police are continuing to appeal for public assistance to help identify and arrest those responsible for his kidnapping.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police have executed a warrant at a semi-rural property believed to be linked to the mistaken kidnapping of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-491115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}