Two more people have been arrested over the horrifying alleged kidnapping and murder of 85-year-old Chris Baghsarian, taken from his bed in a case of mistaken identity.
A man and a woman, both aged 23, have been arrested in Sydney’s west.
The pair were taken into custody during a raid on a home at Seven Hills about 6.30am on Wednesday.
They are yet to be charged with any offences but have been taken to separate police stations for questioning.
Daniel Stevens, 24, and Gerard Andrews, 29, were charged in February, days after Baghsarian’s body was found near a golf course at Pitt Town on Sydney’s north-western fringe.
The alleged abduction and murder of the elderly widower marked the latest sign of the Sydney underworld’s shifting boundaries and landscape.
The alleged kidnappers were looking for the father of convicted armed robber Dimitri Stepanyan, who lives on the same North Ryde street as Baghsarian. Demands of a $50 million ransom were made to Stepanyan, who told kidnappers they had abducted the wrong man.
Stepanyan, 37, who is linked to the Alameddine crime family, is not accused of any involvement in Baghsarian’s death.
CCTV footage of three people was released in an appeal for information last week, showing the trio walking towards a property on Wildthorn Avenue, Dural.
A blue Hyundai sedan with a hubcap missing on its left side is seen arriving and then leaving the same home just after noon on the following day, February 14.
Police say Baghsarian was held hostage and tortured at the abandoned and derelict property, where they believe he was eventually killed.
Detectives believe the local ringleader of Baghsarian’s botched kidnapping fled overseas shortly after he was killed.
Baghsarian has been remembered as a gentle and cheerful man. “The kindest person we know – someone who would never hurt a fly,” his family said in a statement.
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