CHICAGO (AP) – It was a dramatic story that began on Valentine’s Day and supposedly involved a carjacking, a terrorist kidnapping and a one way ticket to Casablanca, Morocco.

But it was also an elaborate web of lies that put federal authorities on alert and caused an international flight to be diverted while still in the air, according to the FBI.

Zubair Ali Ghias told FBI agents he made a “rash decision” and may have been suffering from dementia “due to the stress in his life” when he phoned relatives and told them he had been kidnapped by Arab terrorists, the FBI said in an affidavit filed Friday.

Ghias, 27, is charged with making false statements to the FBI, a felony. He remained in custody in Maine pending a hearing Monday in federal court.

Ghias, an investment banker with JP Morgan Chase, was reported missing in Chicago on Monday. After he told his wife he was going to the office, he walked out of their Lincoln Park condo on Feb. 14 and never returned. The couple had fought earlier in the day.

Ghias’ sport utility vehicle was later found abandoned on the other side of the city, in the crime-ridden Englewood neighborhood. It was then learned that he had withdrawn $5,200 from a South Side bank near where his SUV was found.

A private investigator hired by Ghias’ family learned that his credit card had been used to purchase building materials, including glue and tape at a hardware store in Brooklyn, N.Y.

The number of questions surrounding his disappearance increased as the search for his whereabouts continued.

The FBI affidavit includes the following account of what happened between the time he left home and his arrest.

After boarding the plane bound for Casablanca on Thursday night, Ghias called home.

He spoke with his wife, an uncle and a Chicago police detective that happened to be at the home. Ghias told them he had been kidnapped and forced to travel to New York and was now headed to Morocco, where his kidnappers had arranged for someone to meet him.

That phone call set in motion a chain of events that culminated with the Royal Air Maroc flight being diverted to Bangor, Maine, four hours after it had taken off in New York because of suspicions that a passenger onboard had a bomb.

Ghias was removed from the plane in handcuffs because FBI agents were not certain “that he did not have the ability to detonate an explosive device,” the affidavit said.

He then began telling the bogus story of how he was kidnapped. He said he was the victim of a carjacking after he left his home on Feb. 14.

He told the FBI agents he was then told to withdraw the $5,200 in $50s and $20s and give it to his captor. He said the man then tied his ankles and wrists with rope and took pictures of him before untying and forcing him to board a bus for New York.

He claimed that in New York, three Arab men took him to a motel where he checked in under the name “Roberto Perez.” Several days later the Arabs forced him to get a new passport and a last minute ticket to Morocco, which he paid for in cash.

He told investigators that he was supposed to switch places with one of the Arab men right before the plane departed but that the man did not show up at the airport.

Later on in the interview, however, Ghias admitted the story was a lie and that after fighting with his wife he made “a rash decision to go to New York and get away from everything,” according to the affidavit.

If convicted, Ghias faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison, federal prosecutors said.

A second man detained from the flight was identified by a federal immigration official as Ahmed Bhiksi, a Moroccan who was in the process of being deported from the United States.

Bangor police Sgt. James Owens said Ghias and Bhiksi were seated together on the plane, but it was coincidence that the men were both on the same flight.

AP-ES-02-21-04 1730EST