'I felt so vulnerable...' gang bundled young men into back of Audi before subjecting them to horrible ordeal

A gang of thugs preyed on drunk lone men walking the streets of Manchester city centre, before plundering thousands of pounds from their bank accounts.

Unsuspecting young men in their 20s, who were trying to secure a taxi home, were offered lifts before being bundled into the back of a car and forced to handover huge sums of money.

Almost £9,000 was stolen from the four victims, with one being kidnapped and held in an Audi vehicle for more than an hour. They were all left terrified, and some even blamed themselves for being 'naïve' or 'daft'.

READ MORE: Join the FREE Manchester Evening News WhatsApp community

The ringleader of the conspiracy, Abdul Rehman, 29, fled the country before he faced justice, Manchester Crown Court heard. Two others avoided jail after a judge said there were 'exceptional circumstances' in their case.

Prosecutors told how the crimes took place in September 2018, when students were travelling to the city for the new academic year. The gang travelled around in an Audi and targeted 'lone drunk males' in Manchester city centre, prosecutor Andy Evans said.

"Whilst it cannot be said definitively that their targets were students, the offences took place in September, at the beginning of the first term at most of city’s universities, and on each occasion the direction of travel was from popular bars and clubs on Deansgate back towards areas with high concentrations of student accommodation around Fallowfield," he said.

"The method was to approach the target in a car. At first the perpetrators would appear friendly, offering a lift home or asking for directions, as a means to get the target into the back of the car, where he would quickly realise he was surrounded and outnumbered.

Once inside, a