‘I Kidnapped Myself Because I Owed My Siblings Money’ — Man Confesses After Faking Own Kidnap, Demand ₦25m bRansom

• A Delta State resident has admitted staging his own kidnapping and demanding ₦25 million from his family, telling police he resorted to the scheme because he had no way of repaying money he owed his siblings.

A Delta State resident, Michael James, has confessed to staging his own kidnapping in an attempt to extort ₦25 million from his family, claiming he devised the plan because he had no means of repaying money he owed his brother and sister.

James made the confession in an interrogation video released by the Delta State Police Command through its spokesperson, Bright Edafe, after officers uncovered what was initially reported as a kidnapping case.

Introducing himself in the video, James admitted that the abduction was entirely fabricated.

“My name is Michael James. I am from Edo State, but I live in Delta State. I kidnapped myself. The reason I kidnapped myself was that I owed my sister and my brother, and I had already spent the money. I had no way of paying it back,” he said.

According to James, the plan began on July 1 after his family asked him to dispose of refuse. Instead of returning home, he abandoned his wheelbarrow and hid in a nearby bush, where he began executing the scheme.

He said he deliberately ignored repeated calls from his mother before eventually calling her to claim he had been kidnapped and that his captors were demanding ₦25 million for his release.

“After some time, my mum started calling me, but I did not answer. Later, I called my mum and told her that I had been kidnapped and that the kidnappers were demanding ₦25m. Then I ended the call,” he recounted.

James further admitted that he later contacted his mother again, falsely claiming the supposed kidnappers were beating him and demanding an immediate payment of ₦700,000.

“When I picked up, I told her that the kidnappers were flogging me and that she should transfer ₦700,000 to them,” he said.

However, the scheme began to unravel after his mother informed him that the police and local vigilantes had launched a search operation to rescue him.

Fearing he would be discovered, James said he left the bush as rain approached, boarded a commercial motorcycle to another location and later called his family again, claiming he had escaped from his abductors.

Reacting to the incident, Police Public Relations Officer Bright Edafe said the command immediately launched an investigation after receiving the kidnapping report.

According to him, officers deployed digital intelligence to trace James’s location.

“We received a distress call that he was kidnapped. The command embarked on digitally generated intelligence and trailed him to where he was allegedly being kept, only for the suspect to run out, claiming he escaped from the kidnappers,” Edafe said.

He added that James eventually confessed that he fabricated the kidnapping in a bid to extort ₦25 million from his family.

The incident adds to a growing number of alleged self-kidnapping cases in Nigeria. In June, the Ogun State Police Command arrested eight foreign nationals over an alleged staged kidnapping scheme designed to extort money from relatives abroad after investigations revealed the reported abduction had been fabricated.