All Blog Posts (670)

Cruise Law News reports that the president of Honduras -- accompanied by Congressman Jerry Hynds, who represents the Bay Islands of Honduras, which includes the popular tourist destinations of Roatan and Utila -- traveled to Miami to meet with cruise line officials.…

Friends and family of 29-year-old Wrangler Leesman, of Rosenberg, are desperately watching from afar in the search for the former Army Ranger. The decorated veteran has been missing since Tuesday. Leesman -- who in five years as a Ranger deployed five times to Iraq and Afghanistan -- went kayaking with an Army buddy on vacation in Belize. The boat capsized after a wave hit. They were holding on to the kayak when another wave struck and separated…

Inside Costa Rica is one of the few English-language papers in the Central America/Caribbean region that is dedicated to providing serious "warts-and-all" reporting, rather than endless puff pieces about how beautiful the beaches are. It tends to suffer financially as a result, because -- let's face it -- local advertisers are not wild about a stories on murders, disappearances, scams, and corruption that might…

Not much information yet. Here are the links we have so far:

Dutch Police Hint at Criminal Activity in Women's Disappearance (Expat Tales -- PanamaGuide.com)

Two Dutch Women Are…

Last week, a U.S. citizen (whose name I will not mention out of respect for his family) pulled an idiotic stunt on the island of Roatan in the Bay Islands of Honduras. The vacationer, very intoxicated, got into an argument with his girlfriend and stormed out into the night without cash or his cellphone and didn't return.

You may know Roatan from posts here as a place that is aggressively marketed as a safe, inexpensive destination to vacation and retire.…

A 17-YEAR-OLD American girl was left traumatised after she was strangled to near unconsciousness and forced to perform a sexual act on a 41-year-old man in the Bahamas. The assailant reportedly was taken into custody shortly after he assaulted the girl on Monday morning.

The girl, whose parents recently purchased a vacation home on the island, was flown to New Providence for medical evaluation shortly after the…

One of my biggest gripes for years now has been the lack of a truly critical travel media that examines the industry it purports to cover with an eye toward more than the prettiest locales and the best deals. For an industry that rivals energy and agriculture in terms of economic clout, travel/tourism receives surprisingly little media scrutiny. In this article, maritime attorney Jim Walker articulates some of the same frustrations.…

The BBC reports that Edgar Dart, 56, a British citizen who lived in Winnipeg, Canada, was killed when a masked gang attacked his mother's home in Emerald Bay, Grand Bahama. His cousin Michael Dart, from Devon, said the family were tied up during the raid and another male was attacked with a machete.

Assistant Commissioner Emrick Seymour, of the Royal Bahamas Police Force, said…

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CruiseLaw News reports that a Norweigian Cruise Lines Pearl crew member named "Jacob" from the Philippines was killed by a gunshot  while the Norwegian Pearl was in Roatan, Honduras today. Read full article.

A physically abused, developmentally disabled American woman is being held against her will in Mexico. She wants to come home but doesn't know where she is. The State Department won't even try to help her family bring her home. You can help.

Missing Americans Project member Samantha Smith has been trying to find her mom, Sheila, a developmentally disabled adult who is in Mexico in the hands of a man who has a history of abusing her. Sam has managed to get into contact with…

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Also read:

Mexican Army Seizes Guns, Ammo from Narco Camps South of Starr County

Matamoros Mayor Leticia Salazar on Monday asked residents to remain off the streets as gun battles erupted is several parts of the city. Salazar issued the warning through her Twitter account.

Salazar reported numerous blockades throughout the city.

The U.S. Consulate in Matamoros also confirmed the gun battles. Some of the firefights happened in the Puerto Rico and Las Aguilas neighborhoods and areas east of Veteran's International…

FTI Consulting has published its 2014 Latin America Security Index, ranking Costa Rica as the safest country in Central America and one of the safest countries in the whole of Latin America, Inside Costa Rica reports.…

Cruise Law News reports on the recent spate of assaults on tourists on the island of Roatan in Honduras.

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Very interesting article from CNN.com about Shane Anderson, a U.S. citizen who was kidnapped in Mexico and lived to tell about it.

A couple of things jump out at me from the article (my observations are in bold):

"According to the Observatorio Nacional Ciudadano, a Mexico-based security and justice organization that keeps…

Alhaji Mamut Ceesay and Ebou Jobe are from The Gambia in Western Africa, and after more than a decade working in the states, and naturalizing as U.S. citizens, they decided to return to their home and start a business. Alhaji, who has two children and worked as an infrastructure systems analyst for Chevron and Texaco in Houston, had just obtained his MBA. His friend Ebou, a father of three, was an operations manager at Walmart.

The two cashed in their 401(k) savings and gathered…

Sad ending. Not a lot of details yet. 

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A British man who flew to Mexico to get married claims he was attacked and thrown into jail, where he was stripped, beaten and forced to pay more than £2,000 for his release. Martin Lonsdale and his fiancée Kayleigh flew to the resort of Playacar, south of Cancun, with 30 friends and family members for a wedding in the sun.

But when Lonsdale and usher Rhys Quinn went for a walk along the beach, they were set upon by two men. Unprovoked, one of the…

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