Ballybay: Joy Brochert's family found themselves in a troublesome situation when the thieves that stole their pet boxer, Finn, demanded a ransom of £13,000 for the safe return of their dog. Finn went missing on December 7 from Ballybay, Co Monaghan in Ireland.
The family offered a reward of £4000 on the Facebook page 'Bring Finn Home', run by the friend of the family, Debbie Gough, Mirror reported.
But they were informed, that was not enough by a phone call demanding three times the amount or else, the dog would be 'hung from the nearest tree'.
Speaking to the Irish Mirror, Joy Brochert said, "A man rang around lunchtime and demanded €15,000 (£13,000) by the end of the day or else he would hang Finn from the nearest tree. He sounded hysterical and I couldn’t reason with him at all, he just wanted the money immediately, and now I am in a terrible state as I don’t know whether it was a genuine ransom demand or someone's sick joke."
“There is a reward on offer, it started off small enough but as we got more desperate to have Finn home for Christmas we managed to get €5,000 (£3,000) in place. I tried explaining this to the guy but he just wanted three times that amount and wouldn’t listen to me at all,” she added.
Speaking of the day when she realised Finn was taken, she recalled, "I arrived home and was suspicious straight away as he is usually in the front garden and was not the type of dog to wander, then when I couldn’t find him anywhere I was really concerned. I discovered his collar in the garden, it had been cut clean in half so it came off and there was then no way of anyone identifying him, and at that point I just knew he had been stolen."
When the family realised that the dog was stolen, they launched the page 'Bring Finn Home' on Facebook with a reward amount of £3000. But Joy said, the ransom of £13000 was too much for the family to pay.
"It’s a horrible situation we are in as we don’t know how serious the threat to kill Finn is. We have informed the Gardai (Irish police) and I’d beg anyone with any information to get in touch with them or contact us through the Facebook page, we just want our dog home safe," the Mirror quoted Joy saying.
