A 27-year-old US womanputting up in Delhi for the last two months allegedly staged her own kidnappingafter she ran out of money in an attempt to extort cash from her parents,police said.
The woman has been identified as ChloeMclaughlin.
She had come to Delhi on May 3. She is a graduate from a university in the US and her father, who lives in Washington DC, is an ex-army officer, they said.
Police said that on July 7, Mclaughlincalled her mother and said that she was in an ¡®unsafe environment¡¯ and wasbeing assaulted and beaten by a man known to her.
However, she did not disclose her currentlocation though, they said.
In between, the distressed motherapproached the authorities in India, and the US Embassy forwarded the matter toNew Delhi District police.
The case had been reported after more than two and half months of arrival of the victim in India, police said.
On July 10, Mclaughlin again spoke to hermother via a video call on WhatsApp, but just before her mother could get somemore information about her, a man entered the room and their call was cutshort, PTI reported.
The United States Embassy conjectured thatthe woman was either incapacitated or was being prevented from contacting herfamily or Embassy, said Amrutha Guguloth, Deputy Commissioner of Police, NewDelhi.
Police said they used technicalintelligence and, in order to ascertain her most recent whereabouts, soughthelp from Yahoo.com for the IP address Mclaughlin had used to send an e-mail toAmerican Citizen Services regarding her immigration document work on July 9.
When the Bureau of Immigration wasrequested to provide the immigration form of the alleged victim, they gavepolice the address she had shared with them, which was in Greater Noida, theofficer said.
Accordingly, police conducted raids at ahotel, where she was suspected to have stayed. But the staff there said no oneby her name had checked into their hotel. Later she was arrested from GreaterNoida.
Mclaughlin, when she was questioned,confessed that she had staged her kidnapping as she had run out of money withinfew days of reaching Delhi, following which she and her boyfriend, Okoro,hatched a plan to extort money from her parents, the DCP said.
The woman's passport had expired on June 6and her boyfriend's passport too had run out of validity, police said.
Legal action is being taken against both for overstaying in India without a valid passport and visa, they said.
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