Jeff Dunsavage's Blog (589)

Below is an interview I recently conducted with Tanya Keller, wife of Derrick Keller, a U.S. citizen and Navy veteran who has spent nearly a year in a Thai prison. His crime? Performing in a promotional video for a company that turned out to be an international Ponzi scheme.

Please watch and share widely. This is not only important for getting the Kellers the help they need -- it also contains important information for anyone who travels as to how easy it is to get incarcerated abroad…

As the FBI probes deaths of American tourists in the Dominican Republic, Global News has learned 28 Canadians died there so far in 2019.

Data obtained by Global News from Global Affairs shows an average of 39 Canadians died each year in the Dominican Republic over the past decade. More recently, from 2015 to 2018, that average is higher: 47 death cases opened each year.…

Melody Moore wants answers after her son died in the Dominican Republic. She feels there's a connection to the other deaths of American tourists in that country. 

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Suzanne Eaton, who went missing more than a week ago after going on a run, died of suffocation, police confirmed to the BBC. They said they are investigating the case as a criminal act.

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Authorities recovered a jet ski over the weekend bearing the same registration number as the one an American couple was riding before they went missing in Barbados last month. French Navy officers found the missing jet ski hundreds of miles away in Guadeloupe on Saturday, nearly two weeks after Magdalena Devil and Oscar…

This could be huge!

U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) have introduced bipartisan legislation – the American Students Abroad Act – to improve the sharing of information between the Department of State and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) about the deaths of American students that occur while they are studying abroad.

Specifically, the bill will require the Department of State to produce quarterly…

Of the 10 Americans who have mysteriously died during their trips to the Dominican Republic in the last year, nine showed symptoms commonly associated with methanol poisoning. Now, both Dominican authorities and the FBI are looking into a counterfeit alcohol as the possible culprit.

The nine victims died from either pulmonary edema, the medical term for fluid in the lungs, or of a heart attack. At least four of them had drunk an alcoholic beverage at resorts in Punta Cana, Santo…

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is asking for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to investigate recent deaths of Americans vacationing in the Dominican Republic.

Schumer on Sunday (6/30) said the agency should look into the deaths of at least eight Americans who died in the Dominic Republic this year,…

Officials on Friday (6/28) said the search for a New Jersey couple who went missing in Barbados after heading out on a jet ski…

Derrick's only crime was playing a part in promotional videos.

“He has produced as evidence the contract he signed. He has provided the script he was supposed to read. He has produced financial records from the U.S. showing he has no money,” Derrick's Dad, Dana Keller told Fox 26 in Houston. 

Derrick Keller’s trial is set forJuly. If convicted, he could be sentenced to 30 years.…

A man from northwest Arkansas has gone missing while celebrating his graduation from medical school in Guadalajara, Mexico, according to his friends and family. Jessy Pacheco, who also attended the University of Arkansas — Fort Smith, was last seen Saturday, CBS affiliate KFSM-TV reported.

Pacheco's family fears he has…

Law enforcement agencies have warned holidaymakers not to post holiday snaps on …

I just got off a Skype call with the family of Derrick Keller, a U.S. Navy veteran who has spent the past year in a jail cell in Thailand because, two years earlier, he was hired to perform in a promotional video for a business that turned out to be crooked.

The only thing more frustrating than this is the wilful lack of attention demonstrated by Derrick's representatives, including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, and most of the media. With the exception of KHOU -- Houston's CBS affiliate --…

Fourteen passengers have been killed after unidentified attackers halted their bus on a remote coastal highway in the restive southwestern Balochistan Province, officials said. Hours after the ambush on April 18, a new separatist group claimed responsibility for the killings.

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A travel company is investigating whether an area in Peru where a bus carrying 22 of its customers was ambushed by armed robbers is safe to visit. Masked men robbed 10 people travelling with G Adventures of their personal belongings on Sunday afternoon in the Amazon jungle.

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The US State Department has added a new indicator to its travel advisories to flag the high risk of kidnapping in 35 countries around the world, including Turkey and many Middle Eastern and African nations.

A “K” label will be added to some travel advisories to better communicate travel risks, the State Department said one day after President Donald Trump demanded that the kidnappers of an American tourist in Uganda be brought to justice.…

An English backpacker who went missing last week in Guatemala has been found dead — and authorities said she suffered “blows to the body” and died of hemorrhaging caused by a traumatic brain injury.

Tourist Catherine Shaw, 23, of the southeastern English county of Oxfordshire, was reported missing after she left a hotel in Guatemala’s San Juan La Laguna off Lake Atitlan on March 5, the BBC…

The family of a 23-year-old British woman missing in Guatemala say they are "desperately worried" for her safety. 

Catherine Shaw, from Witney, Oxfordshire, had been travelling and was reported missing on 5 March. 

She was last seen the day before and had been staying in the San Pedro, Lake Atitlan area of the…