US woman arrested for faking her own kidnap in India for parents' cash

A US traveller is under investigation for staging her own ransom in India. Photo / Shalender Kumar, Unsplash

An American woman has been arrested in the Indian capital Delhi after being accused of faking her own kidnapping.

27-year-old Chloe McLaughlin had run out of cash while travelling South Asia, and had allegedly begun writing "blackmail" ransom notes to convince her parents to send money.

The fantasy backfired after her parents reached out to the local American Embassy and Indian Police.

Investigators were able to trace her location from the IP address from which the ransom emails and calls were sent, where they found her living with an accomplice - a 31-year-old man whom she had met online.

Okoroafor Chibuike Okoro, from Nigeria, and McLaughlin had struck up a friendship in May and bonded over a shared love of Music.

Local media reported McLaughlin arrived in India on 3 May.

Shortly after she had sent messages to her family that she was in an "unsafe environment", and facing threats of physical and emotional abuse, according to the Indian Express.

This was followed up with requests for ransom payments and a video call on 10 July, in which she appeared to be asking for money under duress.

The family from Washington DC were able to forward these details to the New Delhi District Cyber Unit.

Police began investigating her whereabouts after the US Embassy forwarded the complaint from her family to them. They were able to trace the emails to an apartment in Noida, on the outskirts of Delhi, in which she and Okoro were living.

McLaughlin reportedly confessed to the plot after Okoro's arrest.

"After her rescue, it was revealed that she had staged the incident to blackmail her parents," New Delhi's deputy commissioner of police, Amrutha Guguloth, told the Indian Express.

The pair had begun living together after meeting on social media.

Her accomplice is reportedly an actor and performer, who had first come to India in 2017. Both were found to be overstaying visas, and the man's passport was reportedly expired.