Nigerian Kidnappings That Never Happened

The program

They disappeared. Their families panicked. Then came the ransom demand.

Except there was one problem.

Some of these people allegedly had never been kidnapped.

In Nigeria, police have uncovered cases where people allegedly staged their own abductions, recruited friends or relatives to play kidnappers, recorded fake distress videos and demanded money from the very families who were desperately trying to save them. In some cases, ransom was actually paid before the truth came out.

In this episode, we look at some of the strangest Nigerian kidnapping cases that turned out to be something completely different, and how investigators discovered that the people everyone thought were victims had been part of the deception.

Listener discretion is advised.