SWAT team responds to home in Montecito

Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department said an extortion plot led to a SWAT team call in Montecito on Saturday afternoon.

Around 4:20 p.m. Kelly Hoover said the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office got a call from the U.S. Embassy in Paris. A Montecito woman visiting relatives in France had received a call saying her husband and two of her children were being held hostage. The caller demanded ransom money.

Her husband received a similar call saying she was behing held hostage, demanding the same amount of ransom.

On the way to the bank, the man told to wire money to the caller came into contact with a Santa Barbara Police officers who contacted the Sheriff’s Office.

SWAT officers and investigators soon found out that the family members were accounted for in both countries.

The SWAT team was called off, but the search for the callers trying to extort money is still ongoing.