Nairobi — Nairobi-based detectives have apprehended five suspects among them three women for kidnapping a man and demanding a ransom to set him free.

The arrest came following an operation from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations agents Monday when they stormed a house where one of the victims was being held incommunicado.

According to the agency, its detectives found the victim stark naked, as the five suspects waited for an Mpesa transaction of Sh100,000 to set the man free.

"The man had called his relatives claiming that he had been involved in a road accident and needed Sh100,000 for treatment. The special agents who had followed cyber forensic leads to the house where the victim was being held, connected the crime to an incident that occurred last month, where a man was accosted in Parklands and robbed off Sh450,000," the DCI said Friday.

According to the DCI, women are now luring unsuspecting men from social networking sites before leading them to a room where the man is held hostage and asked to buy his freedom.

The agency said the women involved lay the trap for men after a promise of offering them sexual favors.

"In a well-choreographed plan, the three damsels who were arrested prey for men online, promising them blissful moments with a happy ending and the wowed men easily fall into the trap hook, line and sinker," the DCI said Friday.

The DCI said that the suspects mostly target men of Caucasian origin whom they would bait to a house behind Ruaraka's Naivas supermarket, with a promise of giving offering them a 'good time'

"But moments before they get down, a rude knock suddenly interrupts the occasion as a man posing as a boyfriend to one of the women suddenly appears, throwing a spanner in the works of an eventful evening," the DCI added.

Police have identified the victims as Joseph Makau Mulatya, Patrick Wekesa Omosa, Rehema Njeri, Vigilance Mumbi and Hadija Ong'ai.

"Detectives have processed them to answer to robbery with violence charges today (Friday)morning," the agency said.