Four masked men held two hostages at gunpoint in Vantaa home invasion, prosecutors say

Four foreign nationals broke into a private apartment in Vantaa’s Martinlaakso district in March, taking two young men hostage and threatening to kill them unless a €15,000 ransom was paid, prosecutors told Itä-Uusimaa District Court on Tuesday.

The six defendants—Irish, Estonian, and Ukrainian citizens aged between 17 and their early 20s—are accused of carrying out the attack on orders from an unnamed criminal organization, according to the prosecution. Authorities allege the group was hired to recover a debt linked to a 50-kilogram amphetamine theft attributed to the 16-year-old brother of one hostage, who had fled abroad.

Prosecutors claim the masked men forced their captives to call the younger brother, demanding he pay €15,000 or they would execute the hostages. The brother and an unidentified second person alerted police, who arrested three suspects at the scene and two others the following day.

The defendants allegedly received daily payments for surveillance and were promised up to €10,000 upon completion of the operation. A 22-year-old Irish national is described as the ringleader, coordinating the attack via the Signal messaging app with instructions from overseas.

Charges include aggravated home invasion, unlawful detention, illegal threats, attempted aggravated extortion, firearms offenses, and possession of dangerous weapons. Prosecutors are seeking at least two-year prison sentences and continued pretrial detention for the four defendants held since their arrest.

All six defendants deny the majority of charges, though one admitted to illegal surveillance and another to a minor firearms violation. The victims’ legal representatives stated the ordeal caused lasting fear and stress.

Police suspect Russian-speaking individuals based abroad—possibly in Russia—orchestrated the attack via Signal. The case is among four recent Finnish investigations into “crime-as-a-service” operations, where criminal networks hire contractors to carry out illegal acts.