Two boys in the Upper East Region have feigned an abduction of themselves, Upper East Regional Police Commander, DCOP Ampofo Doku has said.

This follows recent reports of kidnappings in the country.

A fifteen-year-old boy, after incurring debt at a football betting centre, acquired an old SIM card to call his mother to demand a ransom of GHS200.

DCOP Ampofu Doku told Accra-based Citi FM on Monday, 24 June 2019 that the boy's parents "reported to the police and the police was able to entice the boy and then negotiate" with the "supposed kidnapper, and then a ransom of GHS200 was sent through mobile money and then later on the boy was arrested and he said, yes, he ran away from home and went to a betting centre where he incurred some debt and in order to get money from the parents, he feigned [bieng] kidnapped".

The Upper East Regional Police Commander also noted that a similar incident occurred in which a young boy, who left home to fetch water and never returned, reported to his guardians that he had been kidnapped.

"A boy left the house on Saturday to fetch water and never returned and was feared kidnapped. The aunt of the boy showed up with the boy together with the husband, both of them are lecturers at Bolga Polytechnic, but when police quizzed the boy, the boy owned up that he was kidnapped and, so, if the police had not quizzed him, he would have feigned that he was kidnapped but managed to run away".