Wanted man offers to turn himself in if mugshot gets 15k likes

A wanted man has made a bargain with police to hand himself in if his wanted poster gets more than 15,000 likes on the force's social media.

Jose Simms is wanted by police in Torrington, Connecticut, for multiple failure-to-appear warrants.

The city's police department shared his poster on Facebook, and said they had done an unusual deal with him in the hope it would lead to arrest.

The post read: "Jose Simms negotiated with me earlier this week (Through Facebook) and has agreed to turn himself in to Torrington Police if we can get 15,000 "likes" on this post (I said 10,000 he wanted 20,000, we split).

"It will be difficult but is doable.

"So please, 'like' this post, and while you're at it share it, Tweet it, Instagram it, Snapchat it, WUPHF it, (Thanks Jared!) (Pronounced Woof, its a reference to the television show, 'The Office'...nevermind :D), or use whatever other platforms are out there that I don't know about.

"Then again, if you know where either of these guys are, you could always let us know that too, it'd save everyone from the suspense of the 15K....

"Let's get it!!"

Despite the post racking up more than 19,000 likes, as well as thousands of other "reactions" on Facebook, police said they had not seen him yet.

An update from Lieutenant Johnson said: "We are getting a lot of inquiries as to if Mr Simms has turned himself in yet. As of now he has not. We will update the post again when he does turn himself in."

Facebook followers loved the idea, with one person asking if the surrender would be live streamed on the site. Unfortunately police said they "had to draw the line somewhere".

Others were more cynical about whether it would work, with one saying: "So he's got multiple failure to appears and y'all think this will work?

"Fine...I liked it."

Another said: "This story will most definitely go international..."