Jeff Dunsavage's Blog (589)

Dutch TV crime reporter Peter R de Vries, 53, and his colleague Chantal van Schuylenburgh, 43, were arrested in Autstralia for trying to talk to a 31-year-old Australian who they say is a murder suspect in the death of 23-year-old Dutch woman Mariska Mast in Roatan, Honduras two years ago. Read full story.

The Australian, Dan Ross, was…

"Judicial agents said Friday that a North American left his home in Pérez Zeledón July 9 and has not been heard from since. They identified the man as Roger Peter Biennvennu, 64. Information is being sought at the following telephone numbers: 2771-3449, 2785-0378 or 800-8000-645. Agents of the Judicial Investigating…

According to my contact on the island, the boat is still not in Honduran police custody, "which means it will most likely sit there for weeks."

Speculation about the boat is rife. Again, according to my contact, "The guy who towed it in said it was upside down when they found it. Normally if a boat is stolen, it would be stripped, but everything is there. Maybe the boat was stolen, used for a drug run and left abandoned...We all find it strange that a drug boat would have the…

Hoping to draw more attention to the plights of adults who disappear overseas and their families, I've created a Missing Americans Project FaceBook Page. Please join and share -- the more people we have calling attention to these issues, the better the odds that something will be done.

For over a year, we and the other families of the Missing Americans Project have been trying to get the State Department to take more than a perfunctory interest in the plight of U.S. citizens who disappear in foreign countries and their families. We've received little to no help. The State Department is profoundly uninterested in these issues.

During the same period, a colleague and friend of mine has been trying to get her family members in the Philippines permission to come to the…

It is time. Let's use the sad anniversary of David Gimelfarb's disappearance in Costa Rica to kick off a national campaign on behalf of missing Americans and their families. Ron Scheepstra of Texas, Joe Dunsavage of New Jersey, David Gimelfarb of Illinois, Richard Alicea and Edwin Pritchard of Florida, Leo Finley of Missouri -- and all the others we don't know about -- must not have been lost in vain. Let's use this occasion to contact our Senators and Representatives by whatever means we…

An approximately 30-foot boat was found off the West Bay Point of Roatan, Honduras. It's blue with twin Yamaha engines. Name on side is Rojo Caliente and the registration number is BZ2182.

Please spread the word widely and pass any leads back to me. Thanks.

The following is from WorldHum.com -- a new resource one of my traveling friends has pointed me to. Once again, no easy way to link straight to the story, so I am copying it in full.

The U.S. Embassy in Managua reported that nearly a dozen taxi kidnappings occurred in the past month in several areas, including around the international airport, along bus routes to and from San Juan del Sur,…

The following is from Top10 Costa Rica. I don't normally copy and past a full story, but there was no easy way to link straight to this one, so I hope the good folks at Top10 don't mind.

Using Costa Rica as a rest stop, the two foreigners detained in Nicaragua have been clearly identified as the American couple wanted in Panama in the death of at least one U.S.…

Some things are complicated, some aren’t – and some simple things become unnecessarily complicated by politics and/or bureaucratic inertia. Over the past year, I have become quite the authority on simple things being made complicated.

In May 2009, my brother Joe Dunsavage disappeared while on vacation on Isla de Roatan, Honduras. We don’t really know what happened apart from the fact that he left the beach to tool around the shallows offshore in a 10-foot-long outboard-powered…

This Wall Street Journal article details the arrest on trumped-up drug charges and abuse of two U.S. citizens in Mexico. Important to read not only for its informative value as to the absence of travelers' rights in Mexico but also as a window into a broken Third World judicial system. This latter point is important to us, as these Third World courts are the only way (according to the U.S. State…

Langtang National Park has advised foreigners to avoid trekking alone in the area after US hiker Aubrey Caroline Sacco, 23 went missing for more than two months while on her way to the Langtang valley from Lama Hotel area, according to this article in the Himalayan Times. Aubrey's whereabouts are still unknown.…