Drug debt may have led to woman’s abduction

A WOMAN who suffered a 48-hour kidnap ordeal may have been the unwitting victim of an underworld drug debt row sparked by a string of recent seizures.

Mother-of-three Helen Judge, snatched from her Kildare home earlier this week, was last night under guard in hospital where she remains under observation.

The 41-year-old was described as being in a stable condition and in good spirits. She was found early yesterday in a severely distressed state in a secluded wood on a mountain in Louth. A team of gardaí from Dundalk and Kildare are involved in the hunt for the kidnap gang. The probe is being co-ordinated by the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

Detectives will be investigating members of a number of drug gangs. Garda sources believe the gangs may have been desperate to raise money to pay off debts.

The kidnapping may be linked to a series of recent drug seizures. Gardaí have discovered millions of euro of illegal substances, mainly cannabis, in raids over the past number of weeks.

While importers here lost their goods and their investment, they will still have to pay the wholesalers on the Continent and may not have been trusted with further shipments until the debts have been settled.

Members of Mrs Judge’s family arrived at Dundalk Hospital around 4pm yesterday but were unwilling to talk about how they coped with the trauma of the kidnapping. Mrs Judge was being kept in a private room with a garda posted at the door.

The Kildare woman was discovered in a secluded area in the Cooley Mountains, a number of miles away from the village of Omeath in Co Louth. She was found dressed in the night clothes she was wearing when snatched between 11pm on Sunday and 3am on Monday. Her screams alerted Garda search teams in the area following a tip-off.

Garda Headquarters said yesterday: “At 3am an anonymous call was received at the incident room in Kildare suggesting we search a particular wooded area in Omeath. Local gardaí commenced a search immediately and were joined by gardaí from the investigation team in Kildare. Helen Judge was located at 5am in the wooded area known as Jenkinswood.

“The scene where Helen Judge was located is being preserved for Garda technical examination.”