Seychelles - (Fishy Tales): The $10 million demand had been kept secret via a UK tabloid spoiler campaign of 'Africanised Maddie' age-progressed images.
These show a dusky Madeleine on board a Mogadishu registered phishing smack as it trawls the barmy, er...balmy! - waters off the Horn of Africa.
The move is the brainchild of the UK's Cheops (Child Exploitation and Online Protection System) unit named, after the ancient Egyptian Pharaoh responsible for the Great Pyramid Scam of Geezer.
Co-incidentally tomorrow, November 4th, is the 87th anniversary of Egyptologist Howard Carter's discovery of the boy-Pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valet of the Kings.
"It's 2,200 miles as the crowsnest flies between the Cheops Pyramid and Mogadishu's Canary Wharf," a kidnapping expert said today.
The Egyptian hieroglyph for a Somali pirate is unprintable.
