August 22 , 2014
Source: Pattaya Smart
The two British-Thai Children who were abducted a while ago are now returned to their british father Robert Day.
We will update this article soon
Read the full update here: Phuketgazzette
For more information, visit our web site: www.abpworld.com
Follow our updates on Twitter and Facebook
ABP World Group™ Risk Management
November 30, 2013
Source: BBC
A north London mother has won a landmark ruling to get her children back from Russia after they were abducted by their father. Rachael Neustadt, from Hendon, says Ilya Neustadt took their two sons on holiday in December but never returned.
Moscow City Court ruled that Daniel and Jonathan had been illegally kept in Russia in breach of a UK High Court order. Mrs Neustadt said she was delighted by the ruling.
Missing persons
The court said that five-year-old Jonathan and seven-year-old Daniel should be flown back to London. Mrs Neustadt, a former teacher from the US, claims that Mr Neustadt, who was a lecturer at London Metropolitan University, ignored repeated requests from judges in England to return their sons. Interpol also issued missing persons notices for the boys.
The case is the first to successfully use the 1996 Hague Convention on child abduction in England and Russia, which Russia ratified in June and the UK signed last year.
In September, the Russian court told Mr Neustadt to return the two children. He appealed against the decision and lost on Wednesday. Mrs Neustadt said she had campaigned for the last 11 months to bring her sons home.
“I think that day my heart started racing and it hasn’t stopped,” she said.
Rachael Neustadt
“Every day I think what can I do to bring them back.
“They liked everything and there’s nothing that tells me that why just because they’ve been given a passport that they are Russians that belong in Russia.”
The boys’ maternal grandmother, Merry Rapp, has been helping care for the youngest son two-year-old Meir, while Mrs Neustadt fights her legal battle.
“It is very confusing for them,” she said.
“They have been told so much that is totally wrong. For example, that your mother no longer loves you. How do you say that and not damage a child? It’s not right.”
‘Hidden problem’
The charity Reunite International, which supports parents, said child abduction was a hidden problem. The group said that its helpline received 8,112 calls last year and the numbers were increasing.
Joanne Orton, the advice line co-ordinator, said: “We had 506 new parental abduction cases reported to us which involved 728 children. We also had 412 new prevention cases involving a further 586 children.
“Travel is easier and cheaper than ever leading to more mixed nationality partnerships than ever.
“Where a relationship has formed with one or both parents originating from a different country to the one they have settled in, if that relationship then breaks down, very often one parent will want to return to the comfort of their family in their native country.”
She added that 70% of abductions were carried out by the mother.
“The saddest fact is, that when a child is abducted whilst both parents suffer as a result, ultimately the one person that suffers the most is the child,” she said.
Mr Neustadt has said he may appeal against the latest ruling.
He said: “We will finally reach some amicable solution based on compromises and not on possible actions that would be completely against the children’s best interests.”
Visit our website here: www.abpworld.com
ABP World Group Risk Management
Contact us here: Mail
Skype: abpworld
NOTE: We are always available 24/7
1-800-847-2315 US Toll free Number
0-808-189-0066 UK Toll Free Number
800-11-618 Norway Toll Free Number
Worldwide International Number: +31-208112223
Worldwide 24/7 Emergency Number: +34 633 374 629
August 11, 2011 – Source: Mexico Perspective
A couple was arrested in Tijuana for having taken the grandsons of a Southern California congressman in a November 2007 parental kidnapping. Arrested in the La Mesa area of the city were Jennifer Lopez Dejongh and George Dejongh, Tijuana media reported. The three grandsons — Brian, around 11, and twins Christian and Evan, 9 — were recovered. Jennifer Dejongh had been married to Brian Miller, the son of Rep. Gary Miller, a Republican who represents Brea. El Mexicano reported that the couple also had a baby with them.
By David Story, Special to The Villager
Alabama June 17, 2011
![[PHOTO]](https://i0.wp.com/www.auburnvillager.com/includes/photos/1164435931017402/1308163657005618.jpg)
Contributed Auburn Villager
Luis Gallardo-Rivera and his daughter, Amaia |
Last Father’s Day, Opelika city employee Luis Gallardo-Rivera didn’t know if he’d ever see his daughter Amaia again as he embarked on a desperate odyssey. His search ended up spanning two states, crossing the Atlantic Ocean, and including a trek across Bulgaria from Sofia to Burgas on the Black Sea.
A single man with visitation rights to see his 6-year-old daughter Amaia, Gallardo-Rivera says the disappearance of his daughter was unexpected. In the prior year, his relationship with her mother Beatriz had “settled down.”
“Things were rocky with Beatriz after Amaia’s birth, with visitation disagreements,” admits Gallardo-Rivera, a Columbus native. “I’d travel to Florida from Puerto Rico, where I was living and I’d first met Beatriz, and later to Florida from Columbus.”
Then Beatriz announced she had a real-estate job offer in Spain.
“Beatriz said she’d take Amaia for nine months,” says Gallardo-Rivera, who had joint custody. “It was temporary, and though I wouldn’t see Amaia for nine months, I could have her every summer per our new visitation arrangement.”
Bulgarian connection
The only hitch, adds Gallardo-Rivera, was that Amaia’s mother was engaged to a Bulgarian national.
“The day before they left for Spain, Beatriz called and said they were making a pit stop in Bulgaria to meet the fiancé’s family and get married,” he says.
Gallardo-Rivera admits resenting the fact that Beatriz’s fiancé was a father figure to Amaia. But he appreciated that Amaia got along with the man who might become her stepfather. He says he was glad his daughter had a chance to travel, and he understood the fiancé’s wanting to see his home and family.
But weeks passed and then a couple of months went by with only email and webcam communications between Gallardo-Rivera and his daughter. Beatriz explained that there were visa problems delaying their departure for Spain. Because he has a friend who’s an immigration lawyer, Gallardo-Rivera says this didn’t sound improbable.
The first warning bell rang when Beatriz said Amaia couldn’t come back to visit her father, adding that it wasn’t feasible for the child to leave Bulgaria and try to get back in. She said Gallardo-Rivera could come and visit, however.
“I was frustrated, but not entirely suspicious,” he says. “Now, I look back and think, how could I have been so stupid!”
By February, Gallardo-Rivera was planning a visit. Shortly afterwards, his story took an alarming turn.
Arrest warrant
“On March 16 of last year, I found an arrest warrant online for Beatriz on federal charges of mortgage fraud,” he says. “A 50-plus-page document from the federal Department of Justice initiated by the FBI, which had first interviewed Beatriz the day before she called me with the Spain story.”
Gallardo-Rivera says he didn’t care so much about the bank’s allegations of mortgage fraud as he did about what Beatriz had done to him and his daughter.
“Everything fell into place, so, I called the FBI,” he says. “They had no news of her whereabouts—she and Amaia had boarded a flight from Atlanta to Amsterdam—so I gave the Bureau an address.”
Gallardo-Rivera immediately tried to obtain emergency full custody, filing in Florida.
“It was denied for lack of jurisdiction, and their court ruling said I could file in Alabama or Puerto Rico,” he says. “My lawyer said not to file in Alabama, so I filed in Puerto Rico, and the request was denied.”
Months pass
Months passed and Gallardo-Rivera still communicated with Amaia via webcam, watching what he said to avoid giving away anything. Then, things began to turn in his favor.
“The FBI had to go through the State Department to work with the Bulgarian embassy in Sofia” he says. “I had called the embassy repeatedly, having written to the U.S. ambassador to Bulgaria, Nancy McEldowney.”
Gallardo-Rivera finally got in touch with a female official, Kimberly Atkinson of the embassy’s American Citizens Services, who became his contact. The search for Amaia evolved from a federal case to an Interpol case.
“Atkinson was very proactive,” says Gallardo-Rivera, who had been assured that once Beatriz was apprehended the American embassy would hold his daughter.
“I was sitting tight, and in mid-October I received a call from Atkinson,” he says. “The embassy had just finished a legal consultation and said they couldn’t hold Amaia overnight if they found her. ‘Are you going to get her soon?’ I asked, and Atkinson said she couldn’t answer that.”
Atkinson said she could pass Amaia on to an American missionary couple, the Ridgways, pending Gallardo-Rivera’s arrival.
“‘Should I come?’ I asked,” recalls Gallardo-Rivera, “and Atkinson couldn’t give me a definitive answer. So I slept on it, decided to go, and bought a ticket for Bulgaria.”
Gallardo-Rivera flew into Letishte Sofia-Vrazhdebna airport in Sofia, arriving on a Friday. He checked into the Kempinski Hotel Zografski in the Lozenets neighborhood near downtown Sofia. As Gallardo-Rivera strolled past the hotel’s lake, he contemplated his situation.
“The Kempinski Hotel was next to the embassy,” he explains, “and by Monday I was frustrated when Atkinson informed me Beatriz still wasn’t in custody. I didn’t know what to do, so I went back to the hotel and tried to contact the Bulgarian police. Then my sister told me about a private investigation agency she’d found online,”
A private detective
Korona AIK Detective Agency at 14 Budapeshta St. is known for tracking hiding or missing persons, and the agency had a 10-year for reputation working with foreign clients.
“I gave Korona’s Alexandra Karmanska my daughter’s last address in Bulgaria, plus the name of the Drita School,” says Gallardo-Rivera, “She arranged surveillance of the school and learned Amaia was abruptly checked out by her mother’s fiancé on the same day I’d gotten the call from the U.S. Embassy about the American couple, the Ridgways.”
Gallardo-Rivera moved to a less expensive hotel, the Hotel Maxim, close to downtown Sofia and the Vitosha Street commercial district. He stayed till the end of the second week but was on leave without pay.
“I was trying to email Beatriz because the webcam communication had suddenly stopped,” he explains, “but there were no email responses.”
Gallardo-Rivera decided to return home. Once he was back in Alabama, the emails started again and were forwarded by him to the FBI, which forwarded them to Bulgaria. There, authorities traced the IP address to the seaside town of Burgas.
Gallardo-Rivera was still trying to arrange a trip without letting Beatriz know he knew where she was. He said he was going to visit his brother in Ibiza, Spain, and wanted to make side trip to Bulgaria.
“No, don’t come,” Beatriz said. “Amaia is going to winter camp with her school.”
The Hague Treaty
The emails slacked off, and when they came again, Beatriz was elusive about her address. Gallardo-Rivera tried to get Amaia on the Missing Children’s List, a process that only local authorities can initiate. The Florida police wouldn’t follow through, however, so Gallardo-Rivera turned to the International Missing Children’s List and made a petition through the Hague Treaty.
The Hague’s Office of Children’s Issues provides direction to foreign service posts on international parental child abduction and fulfills U.S. treaty obligations relating to the abduction of children.
The Hague Treaty, a multilateral treaty protecting children from abduction and retention across international boundaries, provides guidelines for an application process to have a child returned under the treaty.
“In the week or two leading up to finally getting Amaia back in November, I made calls and wrote letters to my congressmen, the State Department, Bulgarian Minister of Interior Tsvetan Tsvetanov, the International Missing Children’s List and Interpol’s Bulgarian office,” says Gallardo-Rivera. “I got flooded with calls in response.”
Then Atkinson called from Sofia, saying the embassy had Amaia. She and Beatriz had been in the home of a friend of the fiancé’s in Burgas. Gallardo-Rivera drove straight to the Atlanta airport, thinking his daughter was en route to the Ridgways. There were complications, however.
“It was alleged that Beatriz said I’d given up custody rights or they’d been revoked,” according to Gallardo-Rivera. “But I had my documents when an embassy car with a translator picked me up at the airport.”
Gallardo-Rivera’s documents showed he had never relinquished joint custody, and he immediately became custodial parent as soon as Beatriz was incarcerated.
The embassy got Gallardo-Rivera to the Social Assistance Office, but Amaia wasn’t with the Ridgways; she was at the Dragalevtsi Shelter for Children because Beatriz claimed Gallardo-Rivera had relinquished custody.
When Gallardo-Rivera saw Amaia there she hugged him. The embassy staff drove them to the airport, and they were out of the country three hours after his arrival.
Home at last
Amaia’s aunt and paternal grandfather were waiting when they landed in Atlanta.
“I am grateful I’d always tried to communicate with Amaia, because she was comfortable with me,” says here dad. “Amaia took it all like a champ.”
Amaia started school at Jeter Primary in Opelika the following Wednesday.
“Amaia was smiling and acting like a little girl,” recalls Sandra Gallardo, Amaia’s aunt, of their airport reunion. “She’d say little things in reference to her time in Bulgaria, and it caught us off guard and was hard to respond to. Amaia has a strong sense of leadership and a deep need to understand things but is as silly as any young girl.”
Her aunt adds that Amaia has always been extremely social, makes friends quickly and never forgets names.
“Folks stop me and tell me they can’t believe Amaia’s only been with me for a few months,” says Gallardo-Rivera. “She’s resilient and integrated into school. She’s gotten used to new rules; it’s like we’ve always lived together.”
Be careful with whom you have children, sums up Gallardo-Rivera.
“It’s a challenge—going from bachelor to full-time single Dad with the ‘technical’ aspects of health plans,” he says. “Nothing can prepare you for day-to-day parenthood. It’s not like when you could eat a bowl of cereal for dinner or skip a meal; you have another mouth to feed.”
The ‘big picture’
His sleep was the first thing affected. He wakes up an hour early and stays up at night to make dinner and help with homework.
“All of these things are peanuts compared to the big picture, so it’s worth it,” he muses.
Amaia and her dad even make it down to Florida so she can see her maternal grandparents, who knew nothing about Beatriz’a legal troubles.
“I’ve learned so many things about Amaia,” says her dad. “She is into art. Her drawings are very detailed. I signed her up with 4-H club at school, and we visit different parks and go to Opelika’s Sportsplex to swim.”
The one thing he hasn’t figured out yet is how to fix a little girl’s hair, confesses Gallardo-Rivera.
“I try to convince her to go with a short haircut, but with the movie Tangled, that hasn’t been successful,” he says. “You can tell when my sister or a female co-worker has helped with my Amaia’s hair and when ‘Daddy’ did it.”
This is the first Father’s Day Amaia will spend with Gallardo-Rivera, his father and all his siblings.
“My family has showered her with so much love,” he says. “She adores them, and they love her. They’ve grown so close so fast; she calls my dad ‘abuelo.'”
Gallardo-Rivera’s father Orlando—Amaia’s grandfather, says she is totally different from when she first arrived.
“When we are together, she is very affectionate and talks of things she does with her Dad; she loves being with him,” he says. “My son has a unique way with her. He’s always there for Amaia.”
Note: Gallardo-Rivera said Amaia’s mom Beatriz was extradited and is awaiting trial in Florida. Gallardo-Rivera now has full legal and physical custody, and Beatriz will have to request visitation in court. So far, she has not. The facility she is in does not allow visitors, so Amaia has only seen her mom via webcam since leaving Bulgaria. Beatriz’s fiancé is still in Bulgaria, and since he didn’t formally sign anything or directly commit any mortgage fraud, he is not facing charges.
Many left-behind parents are told that the Hague Convention will bring about the return of their abducted children. Some authorities say that if your child is abducted, you should follow procedures outlined by the Hague, but we don’t agree.
Only 5-10% of abducted children are annually recovered because of the Hague Convention
Until 1980, there was no international system in place to help parents recover abducted children who had been taken to other nations. The Hague Convention attempted to create one, but it doesn’t work. If you take the time to read the well-intentioned text of the Hague, you’ll see its many flaws.
In our opinion, it’s not worth the large amounts of money, time and trouble to hire an attorney to try using the Hague Convention to get your child back. You aren’t likely to get him or her back — and even worse, the abducting parent could be “legitimized” by the courts in another nation.
Under the Hague Convention, a case must be filed in the country where the abductor has taken the child. The courts of that country tend to render their decisions in favor of their countrymen, as the Hague Convention focuses on residency, not citizenship. There is little concern for the fact that the child is a citizen of the country from which he or she was abducted, or for the possible detrimental effect on the child.
Even if the child was born in your country, if that child is found to be a “habitual resident” by the courts in another country, the child may be ordered to be returned to that country.
This underscores the need to act quickly.
Few, if any, of the Hague signatory countries are going to send anyone out to physically recover your child for you. Embassy officials will check on the child’s welfare, if it is known where the child is and if the abducting parent lets them.
As soon as abducting parents are aware that that they’ve been located, they’ll usually disappear with the children again.
And about hiring lawyers
You need to be aware that a great amount of money has been spent on lawyers in foreign abduction cases. The unfortunate fact is that they, most often, can’t practice in the foreign courts and are required to hire associate lawyers in the foreign country.
Note: they often have no qualifications or experience working with child abduction cases.
More money…
Educate yourself
Many resources are available to help you learn about parental child abduction. If you’re dealing with an abduction, the better informed you are, the better equipped you’ll be to cope.
Recover your child
Time is of the essence. Parentally abducted children are helpless on their own and confused by the irrational and sometimes abusive acts of non-custodial parents who are supposed to have their best interests in mind. ABP World Group Ltd. has the manpower and the know-how to rigorously cover all avenues, and bring your child home.
Follow our updates on Twitter and Facebook
Visit our website here: www.abpworld.com
ABP World Group Risk Management
Contact us here: Mail
NOTE: We are always available 24/7
1-800-847-2315 US Toll free Number
0-808-189-0066 UK Toll Free Number
800-11-618 Norway Toll Free Number
24/7 Emergency Number: 0047 40466526
ABP World Group - Parental Abduction Recovery & Kidnapping Recovery 