The stolen Renault Laguna car used in the Bangor tiger kidnap and robbery

DETECTIVES have freed a 45-year-old man in relation to a tiger kidnap and robbery in Bangor, Co Down.

The suspect was arrested on Wednesday following a four month investigation by the PSNI’s Serious and Organisd Crime Branch.

Police say the man has now been released unconditionally.

Three masked and armed men entered a house in Bexley Road off the town’s Gransha Road late on Thursday, January 17, threatening a father and son.

The following morning around 4am the teenage son was taken from his home in the family car, a grey Renault Laguna, to a vacant house in the Beechmount Parade area of west Belfast.

He remained there until he managed to escape and raise the alarm shortly before 9:30am.

A short time earlier, a substantial sum of money was passed to the driver of the family’s car at a filling station on the Ravenhill Road in south Belfast.

The man, who was arrested in Belfast on Wednesday, was being questioned at a police station in the city before being released at tea time on Wednesday.

Police enquiries are continuing.