A businessman who had been kidnapped over a week ago was found dead in the early hours of this morning in Maputo province, in the south of the country.

"The kidnappers abandoned him on the public highway and informed his family, who went there to collect the body," Henrique Mendes, spokesman for the National Criminal Investigation Service (Sernic) in Maputo province, told Lusa.

According to the police, the businessman, who was kidnapped on December 14, was abandoned in the Txumene area, on the outskirts of Maputo, and showed injuries and signs of aggression.

The businessman was kidnapped in front of one of his businesses in Matola by an armed group.

A video captured by surveillance cameras at the scene of the crime shows the exact moment when the group, made up of four men, dragged the businessman into a car in broad daylight.