A 21-year-old woman is under police custody for allegedly staging her own kidnap so as to extort money from her new boyfriend.
Mariam Uwase, is being held being held at Old Kampala police station, after she was tracked down by police and found to be living freely and comfortably in a mansion despite making distress calls to her boyfriend that she had been kidnapped.
According to police, Uwase manipulated her voice using a smart phone mobile app, Magic Voice to make teary calls to her three months old boyfriend using different phone numbers claiming she had been kidnapped.
She said her alleged captors were ready to kill her if the boyfriend didn't send Shs 25 million. The concerned boyfriend, innocently first sent a 'deposit' of Shs 700,000 as a commitment that he would send the rest of the money later. He then reported a case of kidnap at Lugala police station SD REF. 10/09/04/2018.
After a few days of negotiations with the alleged abductors, police launched a secret rescue mission only to find Uwase living large.
Upon questioning, according to police, Uwase confessed to staging the false kidnap, claiming her boyfriend is a "stingy fellow" who doesn't giver her money yet she lacks upkeep money for her siblings.
She's now being held on charges of giving false information. Kidnaps for ransom have been common in Kampala sometimes resulting into death.
In February, a 28-year-old Susan Magara was kidnapped and later murdered after her abductors reportedly demanded for $1m (about Shs 3.5 billion). At the time of her death, her family had managed to send about Shs 700 million.
