One of my neighbours was always convinced that someone had stolen her
elderly Siamese, which never roamed and was never found or held to ransom.
The cat very rarely went as far as the front step, to sit in the sun.

Someone in a neighbouring neighbourhood (that does sound odd! not far from
my house, but not that close, either) was fined for animal cruelty because
if his neighbour's cats got in his garden, he'd catch them, drive them
some distance away, and dump them. I think he did this to 3 or 4 cats,
but it's been a long time and I don't remember all the details. Some of
the cats were never found again.

It's a lovely neighbourhood, too, nicer houses than in my
neighbourhood, and he was a respectable professional family man. None of
that guarantees decent behaviour towards cats, I guess.

Mind you, many gardeners hate cats digging in their garden, which is one
of many reasons I keep mine in, but they don't normally dispose of the
offending cat. My father used to spray a neighbour's cat with water, which
didn't hurt the cat, but discouraged him from coming in the yard when my
father was around. Naturally, the cat saw no reason to stay away when my
father wasn't in the yard!

<snip>

Extortion is a crime. If your neighbour had been asking for money to
release your cat from their garage, you bet the police would have been
interested!

It isn't unusual for people to try to extort money even when they have no
connection with the original problem, so it wouldn't suprise me if there
was some kind of fraud going on rather than a cat-napping. I've read some
stuff about how people who engage in tricking or extorting money out of
others think - it's really odd. They try to justify themselves by saying
they weren't doing any real harm; if the victim was foolish enough to
believe them, they deserved what they got, etc,

I suspect the police look upon it as an attempt to extort
money from the cat's owners, which is definitely illegal!