Woman arrested over own kidnap, Shs3.5m ransom

MBARARA- Police in Mbarara District are holding a woman for allegedly faking her own kidnap and demanding more than Shs3 million ransom from her family.

The regional police spokesperson, Mr Samson Kasasira, said Ms Meloni Nabaasa, 45, of Kaberebere Town Council in Isingiro District, hid in a friend’s house before demanding Shs3.5m from her brothers in Nyamiyanja Sub-county, Isingiro South, on April 17.

Mr Kasasira said the lady colluded with a friend called Beatrice and only “released” herself when her brother raised the Shs3m ransom, which he sent by mobile money.

Mr Kasasira said Ms Nabasa told relatives that she had been dumped in Lyantonde District and asked for Shs20,000 to travel back home.

Foul play
Mr Kasasira said police suspected foul play and arrested Ms Nabasa at Katete in Mbarara District after she had used Shs350,000, part of the ransom she had received.

“Upon her release, we continued with investigations only to find out that her call location kept rotating around Kaberebere and Katete, yet in her statement she had indicated she was kidnapped and dumped in Lyantonde, which never happened. Her phone location logs never indicated Lyantonde, not even Kiruhura [District],’’ Mr Kasasira said.

Mr Martin Kakuru, the brother of the suspect, said the family had forgiven their sister, who was divorced and was forced into the act in order to secure school fees for her three children.

‘’She is my sister and she has a lot of problems and she wanted money to pay school fees for her children. Even the money that we had sent her, we are not demanding it back,” Mr Kakuru said.

Ms Nabasa said she needed Shs858,800 for her daughter’s fees at Kashaka Girls School in Mbarara and to offset a Shs1,890,000 bank loan that was due on Monday and she was worried she could be arrested without servicing the debt.

“I had many problems and was thinking of committing suicide but a friend told me that if I fake kidnap, I would raise the money needed for my children school fees and bank loan which I was to pay yesterday, so I decided to call my brother telling him how I was kidnapped and if he does not send the money, I will be killed,’’ Ms Nabasa said.

Mr Kasasira said Ms Nabasa has been charged with obtaining money by false pretence and demanding of property with menace.

“We have cases like this we are still following up, including of children abandoning home just to get money by saying they have been kidnapped. As police we want to condemn this act and whoever will be got in this crime will be prosecuted,” Mr Kasasira warned.

Mr Kasasira said five cases of kidnap have been reported, including one of a child, who was allegedly killed by a pastor.
“We have arrested the pastor and his whole team, and we were able to recover two children and two ladies, one of the women was from Kisoro [in south-western Uganda],” he said.

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