An Irish property tycoon who has reappeared after going missing eight months ago has told police that he was kidnapped and tortured by the Russian mafia.

Kevin McGeever, 68, claimed that Russian gangsters kept him in a "darkened container" and carved the word "thief" into his forehead because he owed money to the Russian mafia and the IRA, reports the Mirror.

McGeever was found by Catherine Vallely Thursday night wandering barefoot and disorientated on a remote country road near the border with Northern Ireland.

Vallely told the UK's Daily Mail newspaper that McGeever was "very well-educated, well-spoken and polite."

"We were told he used to be 16 and a half stone [230 lbs] but he is just skin and bones now."

McGeever was found wearing a plastic bag and sporting a long beard, long nails but was carrying a cell phone and a flashlight, reports the National Post.

According to the Irish Times, McGeever did not know he was in Ireland and had been dropped there a short while earlier by men in a van.

He was under police protection Friday at a local hospital where he is being treated for dehydration, malnutrition and exhaustion.

McGeever was reported missing from his home in Galway, Ireland last May by his partner Siobhán O’Callaghan, reports the Daily Mail.

He has already given a partial statement to police who are investigating the disappearance.