Ukrainian citizen Larysa Moskalenko, who is charged in Italy of involvement in criminal organizations engaged in kidnapping children, did not work for the company, but only rented out boats to them, Ukraine's Segodnya newspaper quoted CEO of the APB World Group Martin Waage as saying.

"We rented boats for our purposes from her, but she did not work for our company," the head of APB World Group, whose employees are suspected of kidnapping, said.

Waage added that he was surprised at what was going on: "I'm in Oslo, and no one arrests me. No criminal proceedings were launched against us in any country, except Italy."

The CEO of APB World Group explained that the company did not kidnap children, but in case the parents were divorced and lived in different countries, they returned a child to the parent, whom court ruled to give custody of this child.

Italian mass media reported on November 1 that former Ukrainian yachtswoman Larysa Moskalenko had been detained on suspicion of being a member of a criminal group that was engaged in trafficking in minors in Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon and Cyprus.

The newspaper Corriere della Sera wrote that Moskalenko was one of the seven arrested suspects. She reportedly lived in Palermo, where she owned a firm that leased out luxury boats and yachts.

She was allegedly a member of an international criminal group, led by Norwegian and Swedish nationals. Nothing was said about their whereabouts.

The magazine Spiegel wrote about a group of former highly-placed officers and about their plans to kidnap children in Cyprus, Lebanon, Egypt and Ukraine.

Moskalenko, 50, was born in Ukraine and she has been residing in Italy in recent years. She is a bronze yachting medalist in Class 407 during the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul (as a member of the Soviet team), the 1991 world champion, and she was in forth place in the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona as a member of the team of the Commonwealth of Independent States.