As a parent it's hard to imagine a more horrifying scenario. You receive a phone-call mid week and an unknown voice hisses down the phone line "we've got your child and if you don't pay up we're going to kill him". Before you can even start to register what's been said, 'your' child starts sobbing and screaming for help, begging you to save them before 'they' hurt them any more. This is followed by demands for money - lots of it - which need to be paid immediately to have your child returned. Does it sound like a movie script? This is what literally dozens of parents have been through here in Singapore recently as kidnap scams have hit the usually peaceful and law abiding city-state. Thankfully all of the calls have been hoaxes, although I read in the Straits Times that some parents did hand over up to $50,000.
Kidnap scams have hit Singapore before and have made a comeback, apparently run by Chinese nationals according to the Straits Times. The 'kidnappers' only ever speak Mandarin, as do their victims who are all Chinese. In one day the families of three girls from the same school were targeted. However nobody has actually been kidnapped, it's a cruel hoax.
Fortunately parents are usually able to get in contact with the children quickly - how many high school kids don't have a cell phone these days? - but it's still a scary experience and you must be left wondering why you were targeted, if it will happen again, and if the situtation is going to escalate.
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