Three Erin fish­er­men, in­clud­ing Daniel Abra­ham, who were re­port­ed­ly kid­napped in Venezuela late Thurs­day, have been re­leased, but four oth­er men have now been al­leged­ly ab­duct­ed and their cap­tors are de­mand­ing a US$20,000 ran­som for their safe re­turn.

The kid­napped men were iden­ti­fied on­ly by their alias­es: K-man, Plaits, Keeb­wey and Ade­cat. A rel­a­tive of one of the men, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty for safe­ty rea­sons, con­firmed the ran­som de­mand.

“They want US$20,000 or they say the men won’t come back,” the rel­a­tive said. “A boat own­er al­ready went to drop the mon­ey. Every­body just pray­ing they re­lease them.”