Gang kidnapped barber they mistook for crypto billionaire

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Quentin Cepeljac was fooled into travelling from Belgium to London, but was dumped at St Pancras station after thieves found he did not have £500,000

A kidnap gang dumped a celebrity barber at a railway station after mistaking him for a cryptocurrency billionaire.

Quentin Cepeljac, 21, who cuts the hair of several Belgian football stars, was tricked into travelling from Belgium to London by the thieves.

Cepeljac had been befriended on TikTok and Instagram by Davina Raaymakers, 20, who is also Belgian. After he told her that he was a successful cryptocurrency dealer, she invited him to spend a weekend with her at a tenth-floor luxury flat in central London.

Davina Raaymakers befriended Cepeljac on TikTok and invited him to London

Raaymakers had told Cepeljac that she came from a wealthy family with a number of homes abroad, and they met in Brussels before his visit to London.

When Cepeljac arrived in London to meet Raaymakers on May 5 last year, she told him that the luxury flat was unavailable and they would stay at one of her parents’ Airbnb apartments. She led him to a bedsit in Shepherd’s Bush where he was attacked.

Cepeljac’s kidnappers held a machete to his neck and a knife to his leg, and punched and kicked him in the stomach. At this point, Raaymakers left the flat. During the nine-hour ordeal, the gang also showed Cepeljac a video of an apparent stabbing to convince him they were capable of lethal violence.

The gang, who included Raaymaker’s boyfriend Adlan Haji, were under the impression that Cepeljac was a cryptocurrency billionaire. After taking his passport, phone and embossed Louis Vuitton wallet, they demanded he transfer them £500,000 from his crypto account.

Adlan Haji, Raaymaker’s boyfriend, was part of the plot

Cepeljac replied: “I don’t have that kind of money”. Haji, 28, said: “Are you kidding me?”

The kidnappers reduced their demand to £50,000, before settling for £2,000 from Cepeljac’s current account after learning that he only held £6.71 in crypto. They forced him to call a friend in Belgium to ask for more money. The friend called Belgian police, who contacted Scotland Yard.

Cepeljac’s kidnappers eventually accepted that he was of no use to them and took him in a taxi to St Pancras station the following morning so he could take a Eurostar train home to Brussels. Before leaving him, they returned his passport and phone.

The Metropolitan Police’s Flying Squad was waiting for Cepeljac at the station. He led officers back to the flat in Shepherd’s Bush, which had been forensically cleaned with bleach. They established that the flat was an Airbnb rental and used phone data to track down the kidnappers who had booked it.

Isleworth crown court heard that Raaymakers and Haji were joined in the plot by Alexander Khalil, 30, and Omar Sharif, 24. During Cepeljac’s abduction, Sharif had to leave the flat because he was electronically tagged and was required to be home by 8pm.

Cepeljac said that he suffered from flashbacks, had difficulty sleeping and leaving his home, and found it difficult to trust other people, especially women.

The defendants, who are all unemployed and from around London, admitted blackmail and will be sentenced later. Recorder Nicola Shannon said they would face long jail terms.

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