Kidnapped seven-year-old returned to mother after police sting catches father

A seven-year-old girl from London, allegedly kidnapped by her father during a visit to the US, was reunited with her "overjoyed" mother yesterday, after an FBI manhunt that transfixed America.

Reigh Boss, known as Snooks, was handed over to her mother, Sandra, in Baltimore, Maryland, a week after she was snatched during a routine supervised visit with her father, Clark Rockefeller, in Boston.

Thirty police apprehended Mr Rockefeller in a sting operation on Saturday afternoon, after a tip-off from a concerned local estate agent who said he had rented a flat near the city's Anchorage Marina to a man matching the suspect's description.

They used a "ruse" to lure him away from the apartment – a phone call telling him that his 26-ft catamaran, which was moored nearby, was taking on water – before arresting him in the street outside. Reigh was later discovered in the flat, unharmed.

"Her first words were that she was very happy to see very nice people. She was very pleased about that. She was ecstatic," said a police spokeswoman at a press conference announcing the arrest.

"We wanted to make sure [Mr Rockefeller] was outside. To apprehend him outside, away from his child, was the best case scenario."

A smiling Ms Boss, a partner in the management consultancy firm McKinsey who took part in several tearful press conferences last week, was spotted leaving Boston's Logan airport on her way to Baltimore on Saturday night.

Details of the arrest will add to the intrigue surrounding Mr Rockefeller, who used four different aliases and, according to police, wrongly claimed to be a member of the Rockefeller oil and banking dynasty.

Investigators had previously described the 48-year-old man as a "ghost", saying they were unable to locate his birth certificate, social security number, or even any record of his 12-year marriage.

Former acquaintances gave conflicting views of his possible occupation. Some had been told he that was a physicist for an aeronautics company, others that he was a mathematician or financier.

Though Mr Rockefeller had boasted to friends of recently buying a 72-ft luxury yacht, the second-hand catamaran he had when arrested measured just 26 feet, and was described in its sale advertisement as a "fixer-upper".