VLADIVOSTOK, December 29 (RIA Novosti) – Police in Russia’s Far Eastern Primorye Territory said on Saturday they had detained a teenager who faked his own kidnapping in order to get a ransom of almost $4,000 from his mother.
A woman from the city of Lesozavodsk told police that her 17-year-old son went missing. Near her house, she found a note saying that she must pay a ransom of 120,000 rubles ($3,700) for her child, or the kidnappers would chop off his hand.
Police started searching for the young man immediately and found him in his friend’s apartment.
“The teenager said that he decided to cheat his mother out of her money. He was taken to a police station for an interview,” a police spokesman said.
The spokesman said that the teenager ran away from home on numerous occasions and was known for his anti-social behavior.
Earlier this year, he made his mother take a cash loan of 125,000 rubles ($3,800) using the same fake kidnap trick and spent the money “for his own needs,” police said.
