3 Texans Arrested in Abduction Scheme : Crime: Deputies say the victim was to have been a Camarillo man who may know the location of millions of dollars stolen in a fraud case.

Sheriff’s deputies on Monday arrested three Texans suspected of planning to kidnap a Camarillo man who may know the location of millions of dollars stolen in a federal fraud case.

The suspects--two men and a woman--were taken into custody without incident about 9:30 a.m. after deputies located their van and watched them move about the Camarillo area for about an hour, authorities said.

Sheriff’s Lt. William Edwards said the arrests were the result of a tip the department received about two weeks ago.

“We received information from a source in the state of Texas that there was going to be a kidnaping in the city of Camarillo,” Edwards said. “We got the information that they were en route and expected to be here Sunday night or Monday morning.”

The intended target of the kidnaping is a Camarillo man who was convicted several years ago in a federal fraud case in Texas, served jail time and is now on probation and living in Camarillo, Edwards said. Out of concern for the man’s safety, Edwards declined to identify him.

“This guy was convicted in a major fraud case and there was a substantial amount of money that was never recovered, and I suppose they were speculating that he might know the whereabouts of the money,” Edwards said of the suspects. The missing money amounted to millions of dollars, he said.

“They never did get close enough to the home to do anything,” Edwards said.

Deputies set up surveillance around the home of the intended target Sunday morning, Sunday night and again Monday morning, an officer in the case said.

“We saw them in the area of the intended victim’s house,” said the officer, who requested anonymity.

“They drove away and we did a surveillance on them for about an hour and then we said, ‘Let’s take them down.’ They had gone into a residential condominium area, they were kind of boxed in there and we didn’t let them come out.”

The officer said five handguns, ammunition and an illegal billy club were found with the suspects.

Taken into custody were Norman Rudy Demshar, 45, of The Woodlands, Tex.; Phillip Duane Dowell, 31, of Spring, Tex.; and Rose Marie Lovings, 33, of Houston, Tex.

All three were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit kidnaping, possession of prohibited weapons--the billy club--and carrying concealed firearms within a vehicle, Edwards said.

They were being held in Ventura County Jail in lieu of $1 million bail each, he said.