Ugandan police say they have arrested a 17-year-old student on charges of trafficking 170 young people.

The police said that they arrested the high school student on 18 September in central Uganda.

Police say that the student kept 170 young people at the home of a 28-year-old woman while they awaited transportation to Kenya's capital, Nairobi, where the student had promised them jobs.

However, the Uganda Police Force said on Tuesday that the trafficking scheme was a scam.

“Upon interrogation he [the student] admitted that he wanted to extort money from the victims using the name of Humble Company in Kenya as a cover-up. There was no connection with the company and the job advert for waiters, waitresses, coffee parkers and supermarket attendants in Kenya was fake,” the Uganda Police Force said in a statement.

Uganda’s privately-owned Daily Monitor newspaper reports that 98 of the victims paid the student 100,000 Ugandan shillings ($26; £21) each while the others each paid 50,000 shillings.

The student has not yet been asked to plead.