A Spanish poker player has failed in his attempt to defraud his parents after an attempted fake kidnapping plot failed to materialize.
When I was a kid I bunked off school with an accomplice. He rang my teacher and pretended to my Dad.
“Lee won’t be in school today.” Said my buddy.
“What seems to be the problem?”
“He’s sick.”
“And who is this speaking?”
“It’s his Dad.”
“And your name is?”
“Pat.”
Pat was my mum’s name.
It turns out I’m not the only idiot to create an elaborate scam designed to fool my parents. According to Spanish website Antenna3 two men have been arrested in Cartagena, Murcia, Spain, after the pair failed in their attempt to extort money from the father of one of them after faking a kidnapping.
It seems one of the men ran up a rather large debt playing poker at a local club. The man couldn’t pay the debt and so the manager of the club, and the destitute poker player, created a hair-brained scheme to get back into the black.
The manager of the poker club rang the parents of the man in debt and told them if they didn’t clean out their bank accounts and hand over all their cash, he would chop off the legs of their son and kill him. The poker club manager even allowed their son to talk to them over the phone where he begged them to hand over money or face being killed along with him.
The parents were made even more concerned after the kidnapper revealed specific information about their properties and the names, ages and gender of their grandchildren.
The parents went straight to the police, a negotiator was drafted in and a national manhunt began. Eventually, the young man decided enough was enough and returned home telling his parents he had been set free. The police smelled a rat, brought him in for questioning, and he eventually admitted faking the whole thing to try and settle poker and drug related debt. The poker club manager has since been arrested.
It’s unclear whether his parents will be pressing charges, and what penalty the police will be handing out for wasting their time. One doubts the young man will be making an appearance at the record breaking European Poker Tour (EPT) festival in Barcelona.
