A teen-aged boy thought he was going with his mom to get an iPhone.
But he ended up being the centerpiece of a not-so-clever plot to extort money from his dad.
And the mastermind behind it all? His mom.
That's the gist of a zany kidnapping story that sounds like it should be a part of the National Lampoon's movies series, federal prosecutors say.
Alejandra Arriaza appeared in federal court in Miami on Monday with her two accomplices to face federal kidnapping charges that could send them all to prison for life.
Arriaza confessed to being involved in the scam that saw her own son threatened with a blow torch if he didn't cooperate last week.
She, too, was supposed to be kidnapped to make the caper more believable, said prosecutors, who released some details of the incident on Monday.
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According to a news release, Arriaza and her son went to Wal-Mart to buy a phone, and when they got back in the car, accomplice Angel Ponce was lying in wait in the back seat. He surprised the two with a gun and told them they were being kidnapped.
They eventually ended up at Ponce's Miami home, where the boy was blindfolded and locked in a closet. The boy was then forced to talk to his father while a blowtorch was lit near his legs.
Prosecutors have yet to release how much the group asked for, but it took authorities little time to track the trio down.
