Headline Archives |
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FBI Office in Panama Helps Rescue Kidnapped Girl |
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05/08/08 |
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U.S. Department of State Diplomatic Security (DS) investigators in Costa Rica have reunited a U.S. citizen with his kidnapped daughter almost three years after she allegedly was abducted by her mother and taken to Central America. The mother, Nicole Kater, was arrested April 22, 2008 by Costa Rican authorities after an intensive 18-day fugitive hunt coordinated by the DS Regional Security Office of the U.S. Embassy in San Jose. Kater was involved in a custody dispute with the child’s father in California when she allegedly fled to Costa Rica on Aug. 17, 2005 with their daughter, Tierra, who was four years old at the time. A court subsequently awarded custody of the girl to the father, who spent the next 32 months trying to find her. In September 2007, the FBI’s Legal Attaché’s office in Panama notified Diplomatic Security and Costa Rican Interpol Service that Kater was believed to be living in Costa Rica and requested their assistance in locating her and her daughter. Using their extensive network of contacts with Costa Rican law enforcement and government officials, DS investigators coordinated an investigative team of DS, Interpol, and Costa Rican law enforcement personnel who followed up numerous leads throughout Costa Rica. By early April, the investigators identified various locations where Kater was believed to have resided, located and tracked her current boyfriend, and eventually found the fugitive mom hiding out in a house on the side of a rugged mountain near the tourist site of Lake Arenal. “Diplomatic Security’s regional security office in San Jose maintains an excellent working relationship with the local law enforcement personnel throughout Costa Rica who worked so diligently to help DS apprehend this fugitive,” said Patrick D. Donovan, Acting Director of the Diplomatic Security Service, “It’s this type of close, worldwide law enforcement liaison capability that gives Diplomatic Security unparalleled ability to help locate, pursue, and apprehend fugitives.” Kater has been detained in Costa Rica pending her extradition to the United States to face charges of international parental kidnapping. Tierra, now 7 years old, has been reunited with her father. After nearly three years, his search is over. |
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