Reasons for Hope

The practice of detaining Americans in Russia has been an element of their statecraft since before the war in Ukraine. What started with one American veteran being wrongfully detained, tried, and sentenced, soon escalated to multiple cases. Often tensions between the U.S. and Russian governments have made it difficult for both sides to communicate effectively about what will be needed to resolve the detentions. Those tensions have also restricted the ability of each government to negotiate their positions. Over the years we have engaged directly with Russian leadership, identifying creative pathways and formulas to bring Americans detained in Russia home and presenting those options to multiple American administrations.

On the eve of the war in Ukraine, we were in Moscow meeting with our Russian counterparts looking for ways to secure the return of Americans. We have returned to Russia multiple times since. Our efforts also included several direct engagements with Russian officials outside of Russia. Working simultaneously with the families of those detained, we have been able assist in the safe return of three Americans, to-date. Two were returned by the U.S. government and one was physically returned by us.

Not all cases are easy to understand. One case in Spain made very little sense, but still resulted in the arrest and incarceration of an elderly American citizen. A U.S. government program had been established to investigate drug smuggling organizations and their use of elderly people as unwitting drug mules – people who did not know they were carrying drugs. In this case, an elderly American who had suffered some brain trauma due to an unrelated incident was co-opted by a drug gang posing as UN officials. He thought he was travelling to help them resolve a business issue but when he landed in Spain, he was singled out and arrested. Instead of being sent back to the U.S., the U.S. officials had tipped off the Spanish officials and he was prosecuted and sentenced. We worked with the family to tell his story to the media, engage with congressional officials, and encourage both the State Department and the Department of Justice to intervene. We also highlighted the issue to congressional officials, pointing out that the U.S. officials had provided misleading testimony to their relevant congressional oversight committee.

In 2021, with Russia on the verge of invading Ukraine, the U.S. government was postured to provide massive military aid and advocate to other nations for their support of Ukraine. Being an American businessman in Ukraine has always been risky. The country has been one of the most corrupt in Europe since the end of the Soviet Union. In 2022, Transparency.org, which ranks countries based on corruption each year, assessed Ukraine with a corruption score of 33 (0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean).

When a U.S. farmer discovered he was being embezzled by a local employee, his approach of suing the employee and speaking to the media did not have the effect it might in the U.S.. This was made worse when the former employee became a high-ranking official of the government right before the Russian invasion. The famer was soon accused of a crime and imprisoned to quiet him from criticizing the corrupt government official. Unfortunately, the State Department took a similar stance, not wanting to run the risk of Congress or allied governments seeing that Ukrainian corruption was victimizing an innocent American citizen at a time when both governments had more important geopolitical interests. We worked with the family to craft strategies to encourage the U.S. government to use its leverage to get the farmer released – including when his prison in Kyiv was at risk of Russian missile bombardment. We also worked to identify ways to exert pressure on the Ukrainian government or, if necessary, to help him find a way to leave the country on his own.

Afghanistan is a complex operating environment – at first a war zone and now a country run by the U.S. enemy in that war. It has always been a place where what you first observe is not necessarily what is actually at work and understanding the reality on the ground is the difference between success and failure. We worked with one family for two and a half years, helping them understand who was holding their loved one and why. We initially worked with a U.S. government that knew what was needed but had other priorities and was reluctant to take action. We helped the family tell their story through the media and found allies who could give us a means to encourage action, including sending our own communication to the kidnappers. When the U.S. government made the decision to act, we worked together with them to support their efforts and then worked with the released person to help him and his family tell their story when they were ready. In another case, we worked with a family to help them engage effectively with the media upon their loved one’s government-facilitated release, ensuring they had space to reunite. In a further case, we worked with a family that was being approached by a media personality who was promising to leverage access to the kidnappers if the family would give them exclusive access to the story, helping defend them from exploitation by showing them this was not a viable approach.

Following the terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7th 2023, the world was facing one of largest hostage crises in history, involving hostages with nationalities of over 20 different countries and including over thirty babies and young children. More than a dozen American citizens were included in the group being held. Negotiations to free these hostages had to be conducted while a war was raging and with the two sides refusing to engage directly with each other.

Building on our work from 2007-2008, leading to the release of an Israeli soldier from the hands of Hamas, we engaged in the current hostage crisis on multiple levels. With well over 60 families seeking assistance, we provided them a strategy, both collective and bespoke to their individual needs. We provided guidance in navigating and engaging with the U.S. Government, congressional legislators, and the media. Separately, we leveraged our long-term trusted relationships to engage informally with members of the negotiating teams to help secure the first agreement on the release of hostages and its subsequent extensions, leading to the release of about 110 hostages initially.

Iran ranks high among the countries that have made the detention of Americans an element of their statecraft. Relations between the U.S. and Iran have been strained or non-existent since the late 1970s. We have played a role in at least five cases. In some of those we have negotiated directly with the Iranians and in all of them, we supported the families and helped them craft strategy, engaged with trusted parties who could help us understand what the Iranian regime wanted in exchange for the detainees.

Our role has always been to provide the insight – to both the Iranians and the U.S. government – so they could then bring Americans home. But there have been times when one or both governments have been unwilling to act despite knowing what is needed. We have worked with families to help them craft their narrative and find opportunities to share it, with the goal of bringing the two governments to the table. We have worked with them to engage with governments, international non-governmental organizations, and reliable third parties. We have helped to position the families with information that supported a productive engagement with the U.S. government.

An American development contractor who had lived and worked in Pakistan for years was kidnapped by al-Qaeda shortly before he was due to return home to the U.S.. He was held in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas – a lawless area on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan – and a third-party organization arranged for communication with the kidnappers and an eventual ransom payment. But after that, communication went quiet and the family wanted to go public about the case to try to get efforts reinvigorated. We worked with the family to help them understand the situation – despite having worked with the FBI for several years, they had largely been kept quiet and in the dark. We leveraged the media to press the kidnappers to reengage, at one point sending a message directly from the man’s wife to the people holding him. Al-Qaeda responded shortly after that. Despite an indication that communications were resuming, the man was accidentally killed in a U.S. counterterrorism strike that hit a building where he and another hostage were being kept. We worked with the family to manage the substantial media response to the incident and the public acknowledgement of his death by President Obama, including giving them a means of telling their story to honor his memory.

Some cases do not end well. Syria is one of those places where lawlessness and desperation lead to horrible consequence. This is true for combatants, but also for journalists, medical personnel, and relief volunteers.

We were asked to play a role in the effort to recover three people who were in Syria to try to help the local population but were captured by ISIS militants. We worked with trusted parties in the region to attempt to make contact with the kidnappers or with others who could help arrange for the release of the detainees. We also worked with the families to help them engage the U.S. and foreign governments. Unfortunately, none of the cases resulted in a positive outcome. We do not get involved with only those cases where we know we can help someone come home. We get involved in cases where the need for assistance is greatest. Even when someone does not come home to their family, it is important that the family know they did all that could be done to help them.

An American held in Yemen was killed in a U.S. military rescue mission. We were not involved in the effort to bring him home, but we were contacted after his death when a television magazine show approached the family to ask them to participate in a profile of him and the U.S. efforts to rescue him. The family was still in grief and trying to honor his memory and did not know whether this would be the right way forward. We engaged with them to explain the process and the likely motivations of the journalist, which were not exactly as had been pitched to the family. By showing them that there were two competing narratives – their interest in telling their loved one’s story and the journalist’s interest in criticizing the U.S. government – we showed them what would be necessary in order for them to reach their goal so they could make an informed decision and avoid the risk of exploitation.

China is one of the hardest places to resolve a wrongful detention case because the engagement is almost always at the government-to-government level and because both countries have so many other high-priority equities beyond prisoners. We recognize that the U.S. government needs to be the lead in most situations involving China, but we also recognize that the U.S. government sometimes does not want to acknowledge a prisoner is wrongfully detained or take action when they know that detention is politically-motivated.

On at least three cases, our role has been to advise the family, helping them to understand what is going on, recognize opportunities for engagement, and engage people or organizations that can play a productive role. In several cases, this involves helping the family craft a narrative that explains the circumstances of the detention while not positioning the Chinese Government in a way that disincentivizes resolution of the case.

The history of Myanmar is full of hope and despair, twists and turns, with bilateral relations going from non-existent to full embrace, and back to no-contact. In this space, multiple American, international, and local citizens found themselves detained for long periods of time by the ruling junta.

Our long history of engagement in Myanmar began in the 1990s with Governor Richardson’s assistance to the then-jailed opposition leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Leveraging the relationships we established with various political leaders at that time, we were able to intervene and assist with the release of four individuals. While each case was different, all efforts required careful and respectful direct engagement, at times when no official engagement existed between the U.S. and Myanmar governments. We worked with the families to help them tell their stories and conducted multiple missions to meet with Myanmar officials – including in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. All of this built trust that allowed us to help facilitate the release of people being held by the government.

One of the most synonymous countries with the notion of detention of Americans is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, known in the U.S. simply as North Korea. With very few exceptions of short-lived formal diplomatic engagement efforts, bringing Americans home from North Korea has always been a significant challenge. Over the years, we assisted the families of multiple incidents of detention in North Korea. Some cases required missions to North Korea, humanitarian engagement and creative negotiations. All of them required assisting and guiding the families of those detained until their loved ones got home.

When an American teacher found himself detained in Libya, his mother reached out for help. The simple cause of his detention – an expired visa by several days – escalated when his captors learned he was a U.S. Navy veteran. It turned into an arrest, prolonged detention, and aggressive interrogation. This signaled the potential for a dangerous and long imprisonment or even his disappearance. With no unified governing structure in Libya at the time, we worked with trusted intermediary parties to secure a commitment for his release and, through close collaboration, with the U.S. Department of State, we were able to secure his safe return home within weeks.

When one thinks about wrongful detention, the Dominican Republic is not the country that first comes to mind. But we have worked on two cases there in recent years and are aware of others. In 2022, Transparency.org, which ranks countries based on corruption each year, assessed the Dominican Republic with a corruption score of 32 (0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean).

In one case, several Haitian-born brothers living in the United States visited another brother in the Dominican Republic. While there, a local gang sought to extort them and ended up having them arrested on a bogus drug charge. Despite video evidence showing their innocence, Dominican authorities held them in custody and eventually let them out on bail but with a travel ban. We worked with journalists who specialized on the region to raise questions about their case and extended detention, showing that the U.S. Embassy had failed to recognize the brothers were being set up and had not raised the case to the attention of the ambassador at the time. The State Department office responsible also refused to take action, so our strategy was to ensure that the public was aware.

At roughly the same time, an unrelated family encountered similar problems, when a child had a medical incident at one of the resort hotels. Instead of providing assistance, the hotel called the police and alleged the father had abused the child, leading to his arrest and eventual travel ban for several months. We worked with that family for several months to support their engagement with the State Department and congressional advocates who could encourage the leadership of the Dominican Republic to resolve the case.

Sometimes cases are not the result of poor bilateral relations between the United States and another government. Sometimes complex internal dynamics can result in an unjust detention of an American. In general, U.S. relations with Mexico are excellent. Yet, in one case, a U.S. Navy veteran was held for 13 years in pre-trial detention due to internal dynamics in a Mexican state. He was not convicted of a crime, but was essentially lost in the system without an advocate working to help him regain his freedom.

Untangling the situation and bringing him home safely to his family required high-level contacts with the Mexican leadership, prolonged engagement and negotiations with multiple stakeholders on all levels of local governance and and in the Mexican judiciary, several week-long missions to where he was being held, and countless meetings and discussions. The combination of these steps resulted in a perfect alignment of circumstances where he was eventually allowed to fly home to the U.S..

In recent years, Venezuela has held the largest number of American wrongful detainees. Relations between the U.S. and Maduro regime have ranged from complicated at best to confrontational and being on the brink of violent conflict.

When six American oil executives were detained in 2017, the two countries had no direct engagement between them and thus no way of resolving the situation. Over time, more and more Americans were detained in Venezuela. Some were tricked into crossing the border and others ended up there by making bad mistakes that had even worse results. At the request of the families, we engaged directly with the Venezuelan leadership, building on a previous relationship that had been built over many years. We visited Venezuela multiple times, insulating the issue of the detainees from broader policy interests, and helping refine different formulas to enable the release of these Americans. Simultaneously, we helped guide and advise the families of those detainees on strategy and engagement with the U.S. government and the media, in order to maximize the chances of successful conclusions to the negotiations.