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Date Published: 17/06/2022

ARCHIVED - Alicante woman fakes own kidnapping to get attention from a male friend

ARCHIVED ARTICLE

Police on the Costa Blanca have arrested the 20-year-old 'attention-seeker'

<span style='color:#780948'>ARCHIVED</span> - Alicante woman fakes own kidnapping to get attention from a male friend

A 20-year-old Alicante woman has been arrested after being accused of faking her own kidnapping to attract the attention of a male friend on social media. A huge police operation was launched as a result of the bogus hostage situation, and the false accuser has been arrested.

The bizarre events unfolded in the early hours of Monday June 13 when a National Police patrol was carrying out routine surveillance close to the west pier in Alicante city. A frantic young man who appeared "nervous and in a hurry" approached the officers and told them a female friend had written several messages on social media claiming she had been kidnapped by two people at knifepoint.

The young woman allegedly wrote that she had had problems with the same men in the past "giving credibility to her claims", according to police sources, and sent a message to her friend alleging her kidnappers wanted to meet him at a hotel. Over several posts she said "her life was in danger" and she was "very afraid".

Once police verified that the person sending the messages was who she claimed to be, she continued to insist she had been taken to a house in an Alicante neighbourhood and, "after waking up", had been locked in a room where she had somehow managed to find her mobile phone and try to get help.

Also read: Alicante schoolboy drowns after getting his hand stuck in a pool suction drain

Almost all the police forces available in the city were sent to the property where the alleged victim said she could "signal them from a window without her captors noticing".

Meanwhile, another patrol decided to check the woman's home where she was found "peacefully in her room".

She told police she had already been released and had made her own way home. Unconvinced, officers arrested her on a charge of public disorder and simulating a dangerous situation which led to the mobilisation of extensive police services.

According to police statement, the arrestee, a Spanish woman with no previous record, "only wanted to attract the attention of the young man to whom she had sent the messages".

The case has been handed over to Alicante's Duty Examining Magistrates' Court.

Now read: Benidorm elderly swindled out of thousands at ATM by helpful con artists

Image: Policía Nacional

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