A Delta State resident, Michael James, has confessed to staging his own abduction in a bid to extort ₦25 million from his family after allegedly exhausting money he owed his siblings.
The confession was contained in an interrogation video shared on Sunday by the Delta State Police Command’s spokesperson, Bright Edafe.
In the video, James said financial difficulties pushed him to fake the kidnapping because he had no means of repaying debts owed to his brother and sister.
According to him, the plan began on July 1 after he was sent to dispose of refuse. Rather than return home, he abandoned his wheelbarrow and hid in a nearby bush.
“I kidnapped myself because I owed my sister and my brother, and I had already spent the money. I had no way of paying it back,” he said.
James explained that he ignored repeated calls from his mother before eventually contacting her to claim he had been kidnapped and that his captors were demanding ₦25 million for his release.
He said he later made another call, alleging that the kidnappers were assaulting him and demanding an immediate payment of ₦700,000.
According to him, the plan began to unravel after his mother informed him that the police and local vigilantes had launched efforts to rescue him.
Fearing the search was closing in on him, he said he left the bush when rain threatened later that day, boarded a commercial motorcycle to another location, and subsequently called his family to claim he had escaped from his abductors.
Reacting to the incident, Delta State Police Public Relations Officer, Bright Edafe, said the command immediately launched an investigation after receiving the kidnapping report.
He explained that operatives deployed digital intelligence to trace the suspect’s location, leading to the discovery that the alleged victim had fabricated the abduction.
According to Edafe, James eventually admitted orchestrating the scheme to obtain ₦25 million from his family.
The police spokesperson noted that the case highlights a growing trend of individuals exploiting the country’s kidnapping crisis to stage fake abductions for financial gain.
A similar incident occurred in June when the Ogun State Police Command arrested eight foreign nationals over an alleged self-kidnapping plot designed to extort money from relatives living abroad after investigations revealed the reported abduction had been staged.