[kitski]

Two Japanese people were kidnapped by an armed group east of Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay, on Sunday and a $150,000 ransom has been demanded in connection with the case, Paraguay's national police said Monday. It is not immediately known whether the kidnap victims are safe or whether the ransom has been paid. There are no reports of suspects having been apprehended.

The victims are Hirokazu Ota, a 62-year-old Asuncion resident who runs a tourism development company, and his female secretary, Sawako Yamaguchi, 37, according to the Japanese-language Nikkei Journal in Paraguay. Paraguayan police arrested several people earlier on Monday near the site of the kidnapping, but all of them have since been released after it was determined they had nothing to do with the case, according to local media reports.

"We don't know the two people's whereabouts. There has been a ransom demand from the perpetrators, and this is an extremely serious situation where people's lives are at stake," said an official of the Unification Church in Tokyo, to which Ota and Yamaguchi belong.

The two Japanese were kidnapped by a group of three people wearing what looked like police or military uniforms, according to the police.

The victims, who were returning to the capital from Ciudad del Este, a city near the Brazilian border, were forced by the group to get out of their car and held at gunpoint in Caaguazu, located more than 100 kilometers east of Asuncion, they said.

A policeman who happened to be at the scene reported the incident by cellphone, but he and a female acquaintance were also snatched, they said.

After the incident, a call was received via the Japanese man's cellphone demanding a ransom of $25,000, which was followed by a later call raising the sum to $150,000, they said.

The Japanese Embassy in Asuncion declined to comment on the reports, including whether the incident had taken place.

"We are making sure that no efforts are being spared in collecting information and dealing with the case," Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters in Tokyo on Tuesday. "But I would like to withhold comment because people's lives are at stake."

Ota and Yamaguchi are both members of the Unification Church, and a source from a Japanese residents' group in Paraguay said Ota had been engaged in missionary work for the church as well as in investment.

The church has been involved in real estate-related investment and missionary activities in Paraguay and Uruguay for about 10 years, according to another source.

The Unification Church and its related entities possess about 600,000 hectares of land in Paraguay, according to the church's Japanese head office. "We use the land for the conservation of the natural environment in Latin America," a church official said.