7 Held In Abduction After Spending Spree

NORTH VANCOUVER, B.C. - Seven people accused of kidnapping a multimillionaire's daughter were arrested soon after they hired a limousine and went on a wild spending spree with ransom money, police said.

Cynthia Kilburn, 30, had been freed unharmed the night before.

Among the places where her alleged abductors shopped was the department store where one of them had picked up the ransom a day earlier, Royal Canadian Mounted Police said. Security guards there recognized the man and alerted police.

Three men and four juveniles - one of them a girl - were arrested Saturday and early yesterday.

Kilburn was abducted Friday morning by several people who burst into her North Vancouver home, police said. The intruders left her 4-year-old twin son and daughter tied up and alone in the house. Kilburn's husband was not home at the time.

Kilburn was released blindfolded but unharmed on a North Vancouver street 14 hours later after her father, Jim Pattison, paid a ransom. Police would not say how much he paid.

Pattison, 62, chairman of the 1986 World's Fair in Vancouver, is the sole shareholder of Jim Pattison Group, a conglomerate that owns auto dealerships, supermarkets and radio stations. The group had revenues estimated at $2 billion last year.

The abductors had telephoned Pattison and directed him to leave ransom money at a downtown Vancouver department store, RCMP Constable Sheila Armstrong said.

``Store security got a good description of the person who picked up the money,'' Armstrong said.

On Saturday the pickup man, accompanied by another person, returned to the store to shop, store security officers told police. The pair had a chauffeur-driven limousine waiting outside.

An all-points bulletin was put out for the limousine, and two suspects were arrested when police spotted the car in a West Vancouver shopping center. Five others were arrested elsewhere, Armstrong said.

RCMP also recovered a large sum of money and other items.

The abductors told the limo driver they were celebrating their last year of high school with a $20,000 spending spree.

``One of the guys was in a store at Park Royal (shopping mall) getting seven suits tailored,'' said chauffeur Dino Falcone.

``I was just getting into the car asking the guy in the back seat where they wanted to go next, and then I saw a couple of badges in the window.''

Undercover police arrested a passenger in the car and a man in the store, Falcone said.

He said he picked up five males and a female in North Vancouver at 11 a.m. Saturday after a man had called the limousine company that morning saying he simply wanted to ``spend some money.''

Falcone said he drove to four shopping centers, where his passengers filled the limo's trunk with clothes, guitars and jewelry.

``Everything was paid for in cash - I just thought that they were pretty young so they wouldn't have credit cards,'' said Falcone.

``One of the guys said his parents were very well-off, very wealthy. I just figured there was a lot of rich kids around.''

Falcone said they gave him a $100 tip ``but that's not unusual at this time of year.''

When North Vancouver RCMP swooped down on his limo, only two were still in the car.