As revelers celebrated the arrival of 2024, news was breaking about a very unusual rescue.

On New Year's Eve, authorities found a 17 year old student camping alone in the Utah snow.

Kaizwang, a foreign exchange student from China, had been missing from the home of

his American host for three days. There had been fears that he'd been

kidnapped, but the reality was far stranger. The exchange student was told his family

in China was in danger unless he isolated himself away from society and law enforcement.

The shivering and terrified teenager had been groomed by online

scammers for more than a month.

Eventually they had ordered him into the wilderness in the middle of winter.

Otherwise they said his family back in China would be harmed. It was all part of a

plan to trick Kai's parents into believing he really had been kidnapped.

At that point we learned that they had received a photograph from Kai from his phone

and it was a photograph where it made it appear as if he was being

kidnapped or held captive. After that they subsequently started receiving phone

calls from the alleged kidnapper demanding a ransom.

Riverdale Police Chief Casey Warren said Kyi's parents transferred $80,000 to the scammers.

But in reality, their son had never been in any physical danger except perhaps from frostbite.

We were able to communicate with the family and show them that there's been other

cases from around the world and several within the United States

so they would cease contact with the kidnappers and stop sending money.

This type of crime has come to be known as virtual or cyber kidnapping. Now getting somebody to

fake their own kidnapping is quite something. But what makes it even more extraordinary

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