4 Arrested in Kidnaping of Businessman : Crime: The Armenian immigrant promised to sell his house to buy his freedom.

A Glendale businessman was kidnaped over the weekend and held for 5 1/2 hours, until he promised to sell his home and give $800,000 to his abductors, authorities said.

Shortly after his release Saturday, Arsen Iskandarian, 33, contacted Glendale police. Officers on Sunday arrested three North Hollywood men and an Armenian tourist in the alleged kidnap-extortion plot.

Harout Boyagyan, 27; Gagik Grigorian, 44; Samuel Kroboyan, 38, and Artush Akopyan, 31, of Armenia, are to be arraigned Aug. 5 in Glendale Municipal Court on one count each of kidnaping for the purpose of extortion, a crime that carries the possibility of life in prison upon conviction.

Police were seeking a fifth man believed involved in the alleged incident and are investigating the suspects’ possible links to organized crime.

“If this was involved in organized crime, we’d be looking at a connection to the Russian Mafia. But we haven’t established that at this time,” police Sgt. Leif Nicolaisen said.

Iskandarian, a recent immigrant from Armenia who deals in industrial metals, was stopped at about 11 a.m. Saturday in the 100 block of Glendale Boulevard by a man who called him by name, Nicolaisen said. Iskandarian got out of his car and began a conversation with the man, who told him “he knew him very well” and then suggested that Iskandarian drive him to another location, the sergeant said.

The man ordered Iskandarian to pick up a second man and the three drove to a residence in North Hollywood. There, for the next 5 1/2 hours, Iskandarian told police, five men threatened to harm him and his family, unless he agreed to pay $1.2 million.

The men told Iskandarian that they knew he had made a lot of money in the industrial metals business in the former Soviet Union and they promised to protect his new business in Glendale if he paid them, Nicolaisen said.

The kidnapers also warned Iskandarian that they had “long hands” that could reach to countries where his relatives live if he did not honor their demands.

“They were pretty persuasive,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Lawrence McGrail said. “They said the Glendale Police Department ‘can’t go where we can go.’ ”

Iskandarian repeatedly told his captors that he did not have the amount of money they demanded but told them he would sell his house and give them $800,000 from the proceeds, McGrail said.

After he was released, Iskandarian received several phone calls at his home from the abductors warning him not to break his promise, McGrail said. But early Sunday, Iskandarian contacted police and was able to identify one of the alleged kidnapers from a police photograph. That identification led to Sunday’s arrests.