Woman reunited with piglet after seeking police help when it was pignapped and held for ransom

A woman from central Oahu, Hawaii, was left in shock when she entered her barn recently and found a hole in a screen barrier and a piglet was missing. Micro-mini pig seller Kristen De La Torre says it was no accident.



“After the thieves cut through the screen they grabbed a piglet then took off,” she said. She says 10 days before this break-in, she had brought an interested buyer up to her property. Days after the theft she received a suspicious email from who she believed to be the boyfriend of the interested buyer.

“They were saying that they were going to get possession of the piglet that they knew who has him and they’re going to rescue the piglet for me in exchange for a reward,” said De La Torre. It was ransom for the piglet. “I told them an amount and they raised it another $400 so they demanded more money,” said De La Torre. She then set up a time and place to meet the person to get her piglet back, but before she did that she notified police.


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“The police had been working with me, I had been forwarding them all the emails and text messages to them so they were able to detain him at the time and return my pig to me safely,” said De La Torre. The person arrested was released pending further investigation. De La Torre is just happy to have her piglet back and hopes next time someone actually buys the piglet instead of stealing it. “I’ve only been doing this for a year and this is my first litter so it’s been kind of a challenging start, but you live and learn,” said De La Torre.