KATIE Price’s “missing” conman husband Lee Andrews may have lied to her about being detained by copying the real-life ordeal of another Brit, The Sun can reveal.
Andrews, who has a travel ban, told the glamour model he had been apprehended and shoved in a van with a hood over his head at the Dubai-Oman border.
The Dubai-based swindler, 43, also told Katie, 48, that he was being taken to a “black site” – a hidden state-run detention facility – on May 13, and they have not spoken since.
But insiders explain Andrews’s story has striking similarities to that of Brit grandad Albert Douglas, 63, who has detailed his trauma in interviews with newspapers including The Sun – and most recently The Guardian last month.
Millionaire Albert, who lived in Dubai, was arrested for financial fraud in 2019 over a bounced cheque related to his son Wolfgang’s collapsed wooden flooring business, despite having no involvement in the firm.
He was bailed but subjected to a travel ban, and then given a three-year sentence and a £2.5million fine after a court found him liable, with Wolfgang back home in the UK.
After failing in an appeal, Albert tried to flee the country in 2021. His son paid smugglers £20,000 to sneak him across the United Arab Emirates-Oman border at Al Ain in Abu Dhabi.
But soldiers caught dad-of-four Albert, pointing their guns at him, hooding him, and putting him in a van.
They then took him to an unknown location and held him in a dirty cell where he was stripped and beaten for days.
Albert spent the next four years in hellhole Dubai jails after being caged for attempting to flee the country, and he was tortured to within an inch of his life while in detention.
He was finally released last December, following an intervention from the United Nations and pressure from advocacy groups including Detained In Dubai.
After his release, he told this newspaper: “It was like a nightmare with no end.”
Sources in Dubai raised eyebrows after reading the story Andrews fed Katie.
One highly-respected businessman, who has mutual friends with Andrews, told The Sun: “Lee is the type of person to read a story and then imagine it into reality.
“There are lots of similarities between their stories.
“Lee could easily have made this all up based on Albert’s story, as it’s been in the UK press recently, and just be hiding out.”
Andrews’s dad Peter, who runs an insulation and air conditioning firm in Dubai, claimed on Saturday that his son was “OK” but that he had been arrested.
He said: “He has not been kidnapped, but he is under arrest. I don’t know on what charge.
“I’m not sure where he is being held. But he will call me later today. He is not at my house.”
But hours later, mum-of-five Katie dismissed this as “fake news” and insisted that he has not been nicked.
And Dubai’s Criminal Investigation Department could not find a record of his arrest when we made inquiries.
Katie said: “I have spoken to the Dubai police and he definitely isn’t in jail.
“They still don’t know where he is. It is all really confusing and we just need to find Lee.
“I have spoken to his dad. It isn’t true. I don’t know where my husband is.”
Katie wed Andrews in January, just days after meeting him through social media.
He had claimed to be a multimillionaire businessman – but some of his ex-girlfriends accused him of swindling them out of vast sums of cash.
One of them, Crystal Janke, said she handed him £123,000 to invest and he promised to turn it into £1million.
Andrews was also exposed for lying about having a PhD from Cambridge University and working for The King’s Trust and the Labour Party.
He also posted AI-generated images online of himself with celebrities including American reality star Kim Kardashian and Tesla billionaire Elon Musk.
He is said to be the subject of multiple arrest warrants – including for fraud.
Meanwhile, a fresh twist in the drama emerged yesterday after Andrews’s phone was turned on – with WhatsApp messages delivering to his device.
It raises further questions over his dad’s claim that he has been arrested.
A source explained: “I had been messaging Lee and was getting no response.
“But on Sunday morning, my messages had gone from a single tick to a double – so that device is back on and being used.
“Lee has multiple phones but this is the one that is being used now.”
The development came after we told on Saturday how Andrews had followed a glamorous “biker babe” and ex-US Navy veteran called Marisol on Instagram.
She later thanked us for warning her about the grifter’s reputation and blocked him on the social media site.