Winnipeg men captured, tortured random victim to get cash for more meth: police

Police now say methamphetamine fuelled the kidnapping and hours-long torture of a man in Winnipeg this summer.

The 32-year-old man was held captive and viciously assaulted for 12 hours after being abducted by two men in a van near Sargent Avenue and Victor Street shortly after 9 p.m. on June 8, police said.

Police spokesperson Const. Tammy Skrabek said the man was chosen completely at random.

"There was no indication that he was targeted for a specific reason other than somebody suspected he may have had money on him," she said. 

"It's unfortunate to say, but if it wasn't this person that night, it likely would have been somebody else."

The man was hit over the head, robbed of his wallet, money, bank card and cellphone, and taken to a Spence Street home where he was held at gunpoint and tortured for 12 hours, police said.

The men, who were high on meth, tied their victim to a chair and demanded his PIN, Skrabek said.

The man was beaten, burned with cigarettes, dangled out of an upper-floor window and forced to inhale meth blown into a garbage bag wrapped around his head while a knife was held to his throat, police said.

"This reads like something out of a movie, like a movie script."

'There just wasn't a rationale'

The motive was simple: the men were high on meth and wanted cash for more meth, Skrabek said.

"There just wasn't a rationale — this was just an action based on the fact that they were just intoxicated with drugs," she said.

The man escaped when his captors left the home after getting his banking information. In all, the men made off with around $500, Skrabek said.

He was interviewed by police in hospital, where he was being treated for numerous injuries the following day.

After obtaining a search warrant for the Spence Street home, officers found evidence of the kidnapping and torture, and used surveillance video to identify two suspects.

One man was arrested in the West End in August and a second suspect was arrested Tuesday.

Boniface John Mason, 20, and Preston Anthony Kakegamic, 29, both from Winnipeg, are each charged with a number of offences, including kidnapping, robbery and forcible confinement.

Skrabek called the case unique and said the "regular safety messages" police give, like being aware of your surroundings, wouldn't have made a difference for the victim.

"In this case, he was paying attention; it was just not expected that these people were going to grab him," she said.

"There's not much you can do in these situations, if you are the victim of a kidnapping, but to co-operate. Because the end result is that there's no theft that's more important than your life."