Fake kidnap saga: How Taadi woman used her own SIM to demand ransom

• Police say the Taadi woman who faked a pregnancy also demanded ransom for her own kidnap

• Josephine Panyin Mensah who is currently in police custody used a SIM registered in her name to make the ransom demand

• The Western Regional Minister is on record as saying he gave 3,000 cedis to police to settle the ransom

As details emerge from the fake pregnancy and kidnapping saga involving 28-year-old Josephine Panyin Mensah, it has been confirmed that she used a SIM card registered in her name to demand ransom.

A Daily Graphic report said police investigations had established that the number that was used to call Josephine’s mother days after she was reported missing had been registered earlier this month in her name.

Police subsequently traced the number to the Agona-Nkwanta municipality, which is an adjoining jurisdiction to Takoradi where she allegedly went missing on September 16 when she went out on a routine walk.

The report added that Josephine had left the area by the time the police arrived there to conduct their search and was shortly ‘rediscovered’ by a carpenter in Axim under strange circumstances – principally without her pregnancy.

At the time of her reappearance, Josephine alleged that she had delivered and her baby had been taken by the kidnappers. Police requested medical proof of pregnancy at the Axim Government Hospital and also at the Effia-Nkwanta Regional Hospital, both of which established that she was not pregnant.

Police announced late Friday, September 24, 2021, that she had confessed to faking both the pregnancy and kidnap saga.

Her mother and husband who had earlier been treated as suspects by the police were granted bail after it emerged that they had no knowledge of her plan.

She is currently with the police after she was discharged from the hospital. The Western Regional Minister is on record to have said he gave an amount of 3000 cedis to police to be paid as ransom.