A woman has been arrested after police in France found that she reported a fictional two year-old boy missing, setting up fake Facebook profiles to back up her story.
The woman, who claimed to be the boy's aunt, told police the boy had been missing for a week and she feared he had been abducted from a supermarket carpark.
The only link police could find for the boy was a photo of him and his 'dad', Rayane Basinio, on a Facebook profile. Police later found that the photo used had been lifted from a local newspaper, La Montagne.
The police spent many weeks trying to trace the young boy, as public prosecutor, Erc Mazaud explains: "It was a long and complicated enquiry, but we can say that the boy has never existed and nor have his father or mother ... Somone decided to create false Facebook accounts and took pictures from real accounts to feed the false accounts and make these people seem real."
Two minors have also been arrested in relation to the investigation.
