A Delta State resident, Michael James, has confessed to orchestrating his own abduction in an attempt to fraudulently obtain N25 million from his family after exhausting money he owed his siblings.
James made the confession in a video released on Sunday by the Delta State Police Command through its spokesperson, Bright Edafe, explaining that financial pressure pushed him into staging the fake kidnapping.
According to the suspect, he was sent to dispose of refuse on July 1 but chose not to return home. Instead, he abandoned his wheelbarrow and hid inside a nearby bush.
He said he deliberately ignored repeated calls from his mother before eventually contacting her to claim that he had been kidnapped by armed men who were demanding a ransom of N25 million for his release.
James further disclosed that he later called his mother again, alleging that his supposed abductors had assaulted him and insisting that she transfer N700,000 to secure his freedom.
The suspect, however, said he became unsettled after learning that the police and local vigilantes had launched a search operation to rescue him.
He explained that as rainfall approached later that day, he left the bush on a motorcycle and relocated to another area before informing his family that he had managed to escape from his captors.
Confirming the incident, the Police Public Relations Officer, Bright Edafe, said the command immediately activated intelligence resources after receiving a report that the man had been kidnapped.
Edafe stated that investigators tracked James to the location where he claimed he was being held, only for him to emerge and tell officers that he had escaped from his abductors.
He added that further investigation exposed the entire incident as a fabricated kidnapping, with the suspect admitting he devised the scheme to extort N25 million from his relatives.
The police spokesperson noted that the case highlights another instance of individuals exploiting the country’s security challenges to deceive family members into paying fictitious ransom demands.
A similar incident was recorded in June when the Ogun State Police Command arrested eight foreign nationals over an alleged self-kidnapping plot designed to extort money from their families abroad.
Investigators later established that the reported abduction had been staged to obtain funds under false pretences.