US Woman hoax kidnapping in India after running out of money, gets caught

Police informed the woman is from Washington DC and is the daughter of an ex-US Army officer. The US Embassy reached out to the Delhi Police considering her “abduction” after her mother had reached them.

A 27-year-old US resident staying here allegedly staged her own kidnapping after she fled out of money in an operation to deceive cash from her parents, police told on Sunday. The woman, recognized as Chloe Mclaughlin, had come to Delhi on May 3. She is a graduate from a university in the US and her father, who resides in Washington DC, is an ex-army officer, they told.

Police told that on July 7, Mclaughlin phoned her mother and said that she was in an “unsafe environment” and was being attacked and beaten by a man known to her. She did not disclose her recent location though, they told.

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Her mother reached the authorities in India, and the US Embassy presented the matter to New Delhi District police. The case had been announced after more than two and half months of arrival of the victim in India, police informed.

On July 10, Mclaughlin again talk to her mother via a video call on WhatsApp, but just before her mother could get some more evidence about her, a man joined the room and their arrival was cut short.

The United States Embassy guessed that the woman was either impaired or was being deterred from contacting her family or Embassy, told Amrutha Guguloth, Deputy Commissioner of Police, New Delhi.

Mclaughlin, when she was challenged, confided that she had staged her abduction as she had run out of money within few days of attaining Delhi, following which she and her boyfriend, Okoro, planned a plan to extort money from her parents, the DCP told.

The woman’s passport had terminated on June 6 and her boyfriend’s passport too had run out of validity, police announced.