Civil Guard Twitter
The terrifying video shows a woman blindfolded, blood dripping from her mouth. Standing behind her, a man holds a knife to his captive’s throat. “Mommy. They’ve kidnapped me, Mommy, and I don’t know why,” sobs the young woman in the frame. “You can’t say anything to the police. If you do, they’ll kill me.”
But the supposed victim’s life was never actually in danger, authorities say—in fact, she faked the whole thing.
The 30-year-old woman and four others were arrested on the Spanish island of Tenerife, the Civil Guard said in a statement, over an alleged plot to extort a ransom payment out of the arrested woman’s mother.