Woman charged with making false kidnap claim and collecting ransom money from friend

A woman who allegedly convinced her friend that she had been kidnapped and collected the ransom money herself has been remanded in custody on fraud charges.

44-year-old Ivana Stankovic, a Serbian national residing in St. Paul’s Bay was arraigned before magistrate Ian Farrugia on Wednesday, where Police Inspector Christian Cauchi charged the woman, a shop owner, with obtaining money through false pretences and other fraudulent gain. 

Stankovic was also charged with the fabrication of false evidence and using electronic communications equipment to make threats and extort money.

Inspector Cauchi told the court that the victim, a male friend of the defendant, had gone to the police station in a panic, after receiving a WhatsApp message from Stankovic with a picture of her with a gag in her mouth, bleeding from facial wounds. 

Police officers had immediately gone to the woman’s apartment, entering the residence through the balcony, only to find the woman in bed, asleep, together with her niece. The officers did not observe any injuries on her face

The woman told the police that her mobile phone had been stolen. At the time she was not a suspect, the inspector explained, and so she was told to call the next morning. She failed to do so, however.

The victim had told the police that two weeks before, he had given €3,000 to the woman after she told him that her 20-year-old niece had been kidnapped and a ransom was being demanded, Inspector Cauchi went on. 

But the police had spoken to the niece in question, who told them that this was not true. 

After obtaining a warrant, the police arrested the woman and carried out a search of her shop and the overlying apartment where she resided on July 10.

During questioning, she told the police that before the officers arrived, two men whom she wouldn’t name, had entered her apartment and threatened to kidnap her, so she had “taken a pill to calm down” and gone to sleep. 

Despite having told the victim that her passport had been stolen, it was found in her apartment, added the inspector.

Stankovic pleaded not guilty to the charges. Her lawyer, Joseph Bonnici, requested bail for the defendant.

The prosecution objected to the request, pointing to the risk of her tampering with evidence and the fact that witnesses, including her niece who lives with her, and the victim, were yet to testify. Inspector Cauchi insisted that the woman’s failure to turn up for her appointment at the police station showed that she wasn’t trustworthy.

Bonnici argued that at this stage the charges were still unproven allegations and that the defendant had released a statement telling “the whole story” to the police. “If we send her to prison…she will lose the shop as she won’t be able to pay the rent and lose her home, because she lives in a flatlet above the shop. It will create more problems than what she already has.” Insisting that Stankovic was not a danger to society, Bonnici argued that “only one person is alleging that she mesmerised him and took some money from him.”

Magistrate Ian Farrugia denied bail, after considering the nature of the case and the circumstances, observed that the woman had no real ties to the Maltese islands and that the witnesses had not yet testified, concluding that there was a “real and probable danger to the administration of justice.”