Woman, 93, Robbed of $250,000, Kidnapped to Poland

Oct. 12, 2007 — -- A 93-year-old Florida woman was rescued last week from a Polish nursing home where, police allege, she had been dumped by a pair of kidnappers who stole $250,000 from her bank account.

The accused kidnappers, Aron Bell, 80, and his wife Henryka Bell, 59, are being held without bail in Palm Beach, Fla., and are charged with kidnapping, elderly exploitation, grand theft from a person older than 65 years of age and fraud.

Federal authorities operating out of the U.S. Embassy in Poland were led to Janina Zaniewska, 93, at a nursing home outside Warsaw four months after she was last seen at her condo complex, the Palm Beach Towers.

The Bells, Zaniewska said, told her they were taking her on a vacation to Poland, according to a Palm Beach Police Department report.

"Thank God you found me," she told Florida detectives who first reached her by phone.

The police accuse the Bells of befriending Zaniewska and stealing her life savings, spending all but $1,000 of $250,000 they took from her bank account to pay for their mortgage and other personal expenses.

The authorities were tipped off by Pamela Leikala, a bank manger who alerted police after she became suspicious of the Bells' involvement with Zaniewska's finances.

"This is a bad story with a great ending," Leikala told ABCNEWS.com, but would not further comment "because of the bank's privacy rules."

Leikala asked the Bells for a number in Poland at which she could call Zaniewska. When a Polish speaking friend called that number and reached a Polish air force base, Leikala contacted the police.

Through a local Polish-American society, investigators found Joseph Sadej, a Polish native living in Florida whom they asked to work on their behalf, making phones call to Poland.

"I made one call and a man picked up the phone but said he didn't know [Zaniewska]. He gave me another number and I spoke to a woman who gave me another number," Sadej told ABCNEWS.com. "I called that guy and he told me the whole story. That's how the detectives finally got her."