A Colombian mother is being accused of staging her own toddler son’s kidnapping along with several accomplices in order to get ransom money from the boy’s father.

On Sunday evening, November 12th, the news of a young boy kidnapped in Caribe Verde, south of Barranquilla, Colombia, started spreading like wildfire. The 2-year-old had apparently been snatched right out of the arms of his helpless mother as she was walking on the street. Two helmet-wearing assailants approached the woman on motorcycles, intimidated her, and then rode away with her child. When police arrived on the scene, they started questioning the woman about what had gone down, and locating the minor became the biggest priority. It didn’t take long before someone reported the presence of a child fitting the kidnapping victim’s description in a Caribe Verde apartment. A police team burst into the apartment, only instead of masked assailants, they found the boy in the care of a friend of his mother’s…

Around midnight, a woman called the police to report that her 17-year-old son had come home with a boy that fit the victim’s description. Upon questioning the youth, officers learned that he was a friend of the boy’s mother and that she had asked him to take care of the boy for a few days, as she attempted to extort 60 million pesos ($14,700) out of the boy’s father.

It’s unclear whether the boy’s parents were still together at the time of the staged kidnapping, or whether the woman got to ask the father for a ransom. Colombian media reports that the 2-year-old is currently in his father’s care, while the mother awaits her charges in jail.