A 16-year-old girl from the US thought to have been lured to the UK by an older man has been found safe by police.
The teenager, from Queens in New York, boarded a flight at JFK airport on Saturday. It is believed she had been speaking to an older British man online before her disappearance.
The Metropolitan police, which have been working with the New York City police department to find her, confirmed she had been located on Wednesday.
In a statement, the Met said: “The Met was contacted by the National Crime Agency regarding a 16-year-old US citizen who was believed to have travelled to the UK via Heathrow Airport on Saturday, 24 August.
“She was treated as a missing person and located on Wednesday, 28 August. The US authorities have been informed.”
A man has been arrested in connection with the incident and she was with the police in the UK, her uncle told the New York Post.
While the Met said it would not be providing details on where in the UK she was found, NBC News reported she had been tracked down to Nottingham, citing US law enforcement officials.
Her uncle told NBC that the girl’s parents had unsuccessfully tried to contact the teenager after her father returned from work to find the front door open and her clothes gone on Saturday.
They left her a message to say they were going to contact the police. Subsequent calls to her mobile phone went straight to voicemail.
According to her uncle, after her disappearance, the girl’s parents discovered through the family’s mobile phone records that she had been searching for flights to London.
He said they were concerned she may have gone to London to meet an “older boy” her mother had seen her talking to online.
It is believed the girl, who was born in the US, paid for her plane ticket in cash and used her Polish passport to board the flight.
Her disappearance had left her family incredulous, her uncle said. “She was an honour student, a very good girl, she didn’t have boyfriends, didn’t go out,” he said.
