Teenagers fake own kidnap to defraud mother

Two female Ondo state secondary school students, who falsely claimed some assailants had kidnapped them, were among suspects paraded by the Amotekun Corps before journalists in Akure, Ondo state on Monday.

The 13, and 15 years old got involved in the crime, in order to get their mother to pay a ransom of N100,000 for their release.

Adetunji Adeleye, the corps commandant in the state, said that the two teenage suspects are in JSS1 and JSS3 respectively.

The students had hidden themselves somewhere at Oka-Akoko in the Akoko South-West Local Government Area, from where they telephoned their mother.

Pretending to be the assailants, the students equally telephoned the monarch of their town, threatening him to either pay the ransom or be prepared to lose the two fake kidnap victims within a 24-hour ultimatum.

Adeleye said, “The 28 suspects we are parading today (Monday) shows that we have more kidnapping than any other criminal activities. This is in continuation of our efforts at ensuring that kidnapping in Ondo State becomes a thing of the past.

“We have people who kidnapped themselves and raised alarm and in our diligent investigations, we were able to unravel the mystery surrounding their disappearance to the extent that they have confessed.”

He explained that the corps collaborated with the Department of State Services to trace the telephone numbers used by the girls to contact their parents.

Speaking, one of the girls confessed and claimed that her elder sister lured her to the crime.

The 13-year-old girl said, “On that day, my sister and I spent the night in our grandma’s place and left there around 6am the following day.

“While on our way back home, my sister told me that she had a plan to get money from our mother.

“She then revealed her plan to declare ourselves kidnapped and asked for N50,000 each ransom from our mother. It was my sister who taught me what to say when she put a call through to my mother.

“When we called, we didn’t know that it was the monarch that was speaking with us on the telephone when we threatened to kill our victims in captivity if they failed to pay the ransom quickly.”