May 2013 Blog Posts (16)

Eleven young people were brazenly kidnapped in broad daylight from an after-hours bar in Mexico City’s Zona Rosa, a normally calm district of offices, restaurants, drinking spots and dance clubs, anguished relatives said Thursday.

The apparent mass abduction purportedly happened sometime between 10 a.m. and noon on Sunday morning just off the Paseo de la Reforma, the city’s main boulevard, near the Angel of Independence monument and only about 1½ blocks from the U.S. Embassy. …

A search is under way for a Marine reservist veteran once based in Galveston who disappeared in Mexico on May 15.

The State Department is leading the search for Armando Torres, who crossed into Mexico near Brownsville with his father and uncle, KPRC-TV reported.

Authorities said he was kidnapped along…

A Texas family's search has ended in tragedy. Family members confirmed that the body of Apolonio “Polo” Sanchez, Jr. was found south of the border in Matamoros. The Harlingen home health care provider went missing in Mexico on the weekend of May 10th. Sanchez was supposed to coach a youth soccer game but never made it to the field.…

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Per ABC News: While Mexico's murder rate of 19 killings per 100,000 residents is about four times higher than the murder rate in the U.S. and 20 times higher than Canada's, Mexico's murder rate is significantly smaller than the murder rate of nearby Latin American destinations like Honduras, Venezuela or Guatemala, which had 39 murders per 100,000 people in 2012. Brazil, the country that will host millions of tourists for the next year's World Cup, has…

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A Canadian man has been killed in Costa Rica in an apparent home invasion, police there have confirmed. Brad Deering, 42, was shot outside his home in Escazu, near the capital San Jose, Costa Rican police said in a statement on their Facebook page.

The Department of Foreign Affairs has not confirmed the man's identity, only saying in an emailed statement that "our thoughts are with the family and friends of a Canadian citizen who passed away in…

In at least five instances over the last number of months, according to the AP, gang members in Honduras have disappeared after being confronted by the national police. Members of the 18^th Street Gang are accusing the national police of forming "death squads" of armed men who either kill the gang members or make them…

The drug war in Mexico has claimed at least 70,000 lives, but the full death toll may never be known because thousands are searching for relatives who have disappeared.

Along the border some of those missing in Mexico are U.S. citizens.

“It’s individuals that communicated with their loved ones on a daily basis and all of a sudden they disappear,” said Oscar Hagelseib, assistant special agent in charge of Homeland Security’s investigations in El Paso.

The agency helped…

The family of a Canadian man who went missing in Mexico two weeks ago fear they are unable to trust the local police who are leading the investigation.

Diego Hernandez, a 22-year-old martial arts instructor from British Columbia, and his American friend Craig Silva, disappeared from the Mexican resort city of Puerto Vallarta on May 8.

The two were in the country to organize a mixed martial arts sporting event. Hernandez and Silva had withdrawn money from Silva's bank account to…

Missing in France? Don’t expect police to come looking.

Though the United States and Canada have bolstered their missing person organizations with the help of the Internet, France has suddenly taken a step in the opposite direction. Law enforcement agencies in the country have ended missing person's searches for adults.

The news came in the form of a press release that was posted earlier this week to…

Two men are reportedly in custody and police are searching for a third man in connection with the slaying of a sailor from Chicago who was working on a tall ship in the Bahamas. The arrests in the fatal shooting of Kyle Bruner, 34, was reported by the Nassau Tribune.

Bruner, 34, a former special education teacher, was apparently trying to help a woman being mugged by two armed…

This is my family's story, which appeared in this morning's Star-Ledger newspaper in New Jersey. Four years after my brother's disappearance from the island of Roatan, it is the first time we've been able to get out of the Middlesex County section and onto the front page (above the fold! This is progress!). It's also the first story to try to touch on the larger issues facing…

Read this useful article in the Tico Times

Steve Flesch languished for a MONTH in the Costa Rican health-care system, suffering repeated infections before dying, while the U.S. State Department and President Obama blew off his family's pleas for help. There is a special circle of hell reserved for career diplomats and politicians who can't pull their heads out of their posteriors long enough to help citizens of their country in this kind of need. Shame on John Kerry, shame on President Obama!!…

State Department says they can't help because he doesn't have his passport (it was stolen). Family has been trying to get him home for a month. Read the full article

President Obama is in Costa Rica NOW -- please share this story widely and let the White House know you want the…