Woman arrested for masterminding her own kidnapping

Chizoba Ogbonna, a 36-year-old mother of three, has been napped by operatives of the Inspector General of Police Special Intelligence Response Team (IRT), in Abriba-Ohafia, Abia State, for allegedly masterminding her kidnapping.

The suspect, an indigene of Osisioma in Abia State and a graduate of Alvan Ikoku Federal College of Education, Owerri, Imo State, was arrested with two others, Uche Anthony and Joseph Ezema, who allegedly assisted her to mastermind her kidnap, as well as negotiate for a ransom.

The sum of N500,000 was paid through Ogbonna’s bank account as ransom, before the IRT operatives swooped on them.

The Nation learnt that one of Ogbonna’s relatives alerted the Inspector General of Police, Adamu Mohammed, to her purported abduction and the subsequent demand for N2million as ransom.

It was gathered that her purported kidnappers had threatened to kill her within hours if their demands were not met and the IGP swiftly deployed a crack team of operatives from the IRT, headed by Deputy Commissioner of Police Abba Kyari, to track and arrest the suspects.

The source said the operatives, who were armed with advanced tracking devices, trailed Ogbonna and her kidnappers to an uncompleted building at Agborji community in Abriba-Ohafia area of the state with the intention of rescuing her and nabbing her kidnappers, but they (operatives) were shocked when they arrived the hideout and discovered that Ogbonna was having an affair with one of her purported kidnappers and her abduction was staged to extort money from her relatives, which she intended using to travel out of the country, with her boyfriend.

Ogbonna, however, denied staging her own kidnapping, claiming that she was hypnotised, whisked away in a vehicle and she later found herself in the home of her boyfriend, Joseph Ezema, who she said contacted her family and demanded the ransom.