Police searching for a ‘missing’ child discovered the youngster only ever existed on Facebook.
Detectives thought they were racing against time after receiving a report that two-year-old Chayson Basinio had vanished from a supermarket car park.
A kidnapping inquiry was opened and a local lake was dredged, with police fearing the worst, it was reported.
However, days later – as they prepared to tell the family to expect the worst – they could find no trace of their existence in real-life.
Despite the ‘Basinio’ family having full Facebook profiles, they appeared to be completely imaginary.
According to the Guardian, the little boy and his parents only existed in the virtual world of social media.
French police are now questioning the woman who made the initial report about the missing child.
Public prosecutor Eric Mazaud said: ‘The inquiry for kidnapping and sequestration has obviously been redirected into one of reporting an imaginary crime or offence.
‘It [the inquiry] was long and complicated but we can now say that the young Chayson has never existed and nor have his father or mother.’
