Forest Boy Finally Identified and Admits: ‘I Made It All Up’
He is Robin Van Helsum, a 20-year old from Hengelo in the Netherlands who was reported missing by his family last September, just days before he turned up in Berlin with his incredible story.
“He has admitted that he is a fraud,” Thomas Neuendorf of the Berlin Police told the Daily Telegraph.
Berlin police released a photograph of the boy, who identified himself only as “Ray”, this week in the hope of finally solving a mystery that made headlines across the world and had baffled detectives for months.
School friends contacted Dutch police after recognising him from the photograph and his stepmother, seemingly his only family, was contacted to confirm it.
“We went to him with the new information this morning and he said: ‘OK, you got me - I am Robin and I made the whole story up,” Mr Neuendorf said on Friday.