Italian police say they have dismantled an international ring of mainly ex-special forces accused of plotting to kidnap children caught up in custody battles.
Members of the gang used high-speed boats and a base in Sicily to smuggle their victims across Europe, say investigators.
In a statement police said they were "for the most part veterans of special corps from the armed forces, ready to offer their operational skills to whoever was willing to pay them handsomely enough".
The "contractors", operating behind the Norwegian security service ABP World Group, "offered services including the 'retrieval' of children caught up in custody battles between parents of different nationalities".
Armed with Russian weapons, pepper sprays and Tasers, the group charged "tens of thousands of euros" to snatch children from one parent and return them to the other, "putting the child's life at risk".
The first operation took place in October 2012 when the group kidnapped a child in Tunisia and smuggled him into Norway via Palermo in Sicily.
The second operation, planned for November 2012, also involved a child in Tunisia who was due to be carried off in a helicopter.
It fell through when police arrested the would-be kidnappers.
The gang had four other operations in the pipeline - in Cyprus, Lebanon, Egypt and the Ukraine.
Police in Palermo arrested four people - Italians Antonino Barazza, Luigi Cannistraro and Sebastiano Calabrese - and a Ukrainian woman, Moskalenko Larysa, a former medal-winning Olympic sailor who was charged with providing the boats used by the kidnappers.
Arrest warrants were also issued for two Norwegians and a Swede, who has been held in Tunisia since being detained there last November, the statement said.
Abuse of God given talent.
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