kidnapping

Ransoms have surged as Haiti struggles with widespread gang violence, particularly around its capital Port-au-Prince.

Eight people, including an Irish missionary and a three-year-old child, have been released following a kidnapping at an orphanage in Haiti.

The announcement on Friday ended nearly a month of captivity for the group, which included Irish missionary Gena Heraty, the director of a special needs programme for children and adults at the Saint-Helene orphanage.

“We warmly welcome the news that Gena and all of the Haitian nationals taken captive on [August 3], including a small child, have been released and are reported to be safe and well,” Ireland’s Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Harris said in a statement posted on X.

Kidnappings and ransoms have become increasingly common in Haiti, where gang violence has surged amid overlapping political, humanitarian and security crises.

The targeted orphanage was located in the southeast of the capital, Port-au-Prince, where the United Nations estimates gangs control nearly 90 percent of the territory.

Run by the international charity Nos Petits Freres et Soeurs, the orphanage cares for more than 240 children, according to its website.

Further details of the release were not immediately available. No group claimed responsibility for the attack on the school in early August, although the area is controlled by the Viv Ansanm gang federation.

In a statement, Heraty’s family said they were “relieved beyond words”.

“We continue to hold Haiti in our hearts and hope for peace and safety for all those who are affected by the ongoing armed violence and insecurity there,” they wrote.

In April 2021, two French priests were among 10 people kidnapped by the “400 Mawozo” gang before they were released nearly three weeks later.

The gang took 17 American and Canadian missionaries hostage from a bus six months later.

Friday’s release came as the UN Security Council began talks to bolster a floundering international police force deployed to Haiti starting in June 2024 to counter the rising violence.

Just under 1,000 personnel, mostly Kenyan, are currently in the country as part of the US-backed mission, a number far below the 2,500 troops originally expected.

A draft proposal, put forth by the US and Panama this week, seeks to transition the mission into a so-called “Gang Suppression Force”.

The proposal would authorise a deployment of up to 5,500 personnel and establish a UN office in Port-au-Prince to provide “full logistical support” for rations, fuel, medical services, ground transportation and surveillance from drones.

It further laid out a plan to encourage more voluntary funding and resources, but the draft did not directly address the current mission’s lagging support. Earlier this month, the UN said its effort to bring stability to Haiti was less than 10 percent funded.

UN missions remain controversial in Haiti, with past deployments resulting in a sexual abuse scandal and cholera epidemic that killed more than 9,000 people.

Still, the country’s leaders have requested external help as violence and displacement have surged.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has said at least 3,141 people have been killed in Haiti in the first half of this year.

On Thursday, the head of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that a “staggering” 50 percent of gang members and participants in the country were children.

The first time they came for her, in May 2023, Lubabatu Ibrahim was preparing to sleep. Terrorists broke into her home in Gana village, Zamfara State, North West Nigeria, and found her alone. Her husband, the community’s traditional ruler, was away in Mecca for the Islamic pilgrimage.

“They didn’t beat me, but they asked for money, and I told them I had none,” the 46-year-old recounted. 

That night, she narrowly escaped abduction. But the terrorists did not forget her, as they were acting under the instruction of their leader, Kachalla Falando.

For years, Nigeria’s North West has been at the centre of the country’s kidnapping crisis, where armed groups prey on rural communities, abducting residents for ransom and forcing thousands to abandon their homes. Women like Lubabatu, married to a local monarch, are prime targets, not only because of their symbolic status but also because of the assumption that their families can raise huge sums. Her story reflects a broader reality in which ordinary life has been eroded by fear, extortion, and the absence of state protection.

Her escape did not end the threat; it only delayed it. 

Months later, in June 2024, they returned, this time seizing her only son, 15-year-old Bilyaminu, the very day he came home from boarding school. 

“I missed Bilyaminu. It was his first time away from home for secondary education,” she said. “We were jubilating for Bilyaminu’s long-awaited return home as he reunited with his family and siblings from the school he had dreamed of attending,” she said. “As a mother with only one boy, I prepared so much for him and his friends during the festive period. I got him a lot of confectionery and his favourite local dishes, which he had missed.”

That evening, after a warm reunion, he came to her room to say goodnight. He sat by her legs as she patted his head. “Why have you let your hair grow so much?” she teased. He laughed and promised to cut it the next day.

But at about 1:30 a.m., terrorists stormed the village. They demanded to know the whereabouts of the matan maigari—the monarch’s wife.

“I immediately smuggled her out of her room into one of our local silos meant for preserving our assorted grains in the backyard. Only for me to return, I heard Bilyaminu crying in the hands of the terrorists. They were beating him to find out where Lubabatu, his mother, was hiding. Bilyaminu replied that he had no idea where his mother was,” Sani Maigari, the village head of the Gana community, told HumAngle.

The boy insisted he had just returned from school and did not know. His pleas were ignored. He was taken away, along with other villagers. Houses were set ablaze, including that of the community’s Imam. 

After four months in captivity, Bilyaminu was released when a ransom of ₦1.5 million was paid. By then, many residents had fled their homes. 

“There was no security official to rescue the victims,” Sani added. “We are all displaced. As I speak, we do not sleep in our homes. We spend our daytime in Gana and our night in Nasarawar Burkullu. We have been in transit daily since Jan. 6.”

Months after Bilyaminu was released, on Monday, Jan. 6, the terrorists invaded again. It was raining heavily when three armed men broke into the monarch’s house at about 11:00 p.m. This time, they mistook the monarch’s sick second wife, Sadiya, for Lubabatu.

“They forced me to place Sadiya on the bike,” Lubabatu recounted. “She was sick with a stroke. So they tried to load her onto the bike several times, unsuccessfully. One of the terrorists instructed me to hold her legs for him, as he held her by the arm and shifted the sick woman beside a tree, fearing that she could die.”

When it became clear she could not be taken, Lubabatu recalled that one of the attackers declared, “Since we can’t abduct the sick woman, Lubabatu. We will take her instead.”

This time, they had their real target, but they were unaware. 

Alongside more than 50 women and children, Lubabatu was marched through the night to Rijiyar Yarbugaje, on the outskirts of Gana. She overheard teenage fighters arguing about whether they had truly captured her. One insisted they had failed; another said they had already taken someone from her household.

The journey into captivity was brutal. The terrorists led the captives into the forest up to the Kaiwaye riverbank. “We all stopped there. Another fear of the unknown knocked on my heart, and I felt too sad again and again, as all hope was lost. I looked at the river, looked back, and I prayed to God again,” said Jamila Rabiu, another victim of the same attack.

“We trekked through that night until the following day. We neither ate food nor drank water throughout the movements across the forests. We finally reached our destination and stayed there until ₦6 million was paid as ransom for the five of us only,” Lubabatu told HumAngle.

Two days after they arrived at the camp, Kachalla Falando summoned five women among the captives from Gana and asked who among them was Lubabatu. They claimed she had escaped in the forest.

He nodded in dismay, unaware that the woman he sought was among them.

“I was the youngest among the captives. Falando walked toward me and whispered, ‘I love you.’ My chest and heart beat excessively. He asked the rest of the women to go back to the tents. I asked him to fear God and let me go with the rest,” Lubabatu said.

Falando ordered his gang to chain her. She spent three days in chains, exposed to sunshine, and only given a cup of water twice every day.

“I tried to understand why they wanted me abducted, specifically as a wife to the family of the Gana District Head. The only explanation I could arrive at was that Falando is an ambitious terrorist, driven by a desire to expand his territorial influence over communities he labelled as non-compliant,” Lubabatu said. 

HumAngle learnt from locals that Gana, unlike neighbouring Gando and Baruba, was among the few villages in Bukuyum LGA whose leaders had refused to submit to the terrorists’ impunity, including the sexual abuse of women.

Lubabatu remained in captivity for two months and ten days until a ₦6 million ransom was paid. 

She confirmed to HumAngle that neither Falando nor his gang realised that she was in their custody. “None of the women that we were abducted together disclosed my identity to the terrorists, despite the intimidation, abuse and violent actions against almost every one of us,” Lubabatu said.

Falando is a notorious kingpin in Nigeria’s North West. Locals familiar with his group estimate its strength at about 200 fighters. Beyond terrorising communities, they extort from them, sometimes under the guise of peace. On several occasions, Falando has compelled rural populations to pool resources for so-called “ransom-for-peace” agreements. But these deals rarely last. In Adabka, a farming settlement in Zamfara, residents raised and paid ₦20 million in the hope of buying safety. Three years later, Falando’s gang struck again, abducting and killing residents and security operatives.

The shadow Falando casts stretches across communities like Gana, where Lubabatu was seized. The village had long been under siege. Residents say the first major attack was recorded six years ago, when armed groups began their incursions into the community, which has led to assaults that have battered families.

Since she returned, fear and trauma have become Lubabatu’s worst nightmare. “The sounds of guns knocking on my ears are always my greatest fear. Anytime I hear the reverberation of gun sounds, I get tensed,” she said. “We look like wanderers, always on the move, so restless. My son is no longer in school because we are paupers and cannot afford to sponsor his education.”

Her voice carried both exhaustion and resolve. What she wanted, she said, was simple: safety, food for her family, and financial support to rebuild their lives. But until the government breaks the grip of men like Falando, residents, especially women like Lubabatu, will remain trapped by fear, their lives suspended between survival and despair.

When a group of armed, masked men was spotted dragging a woman into an SUV in the Fashion District last week, a witness called 911 to report a kidnapping.

But when Los Angeles Police Department officers arrived, instead of making arrests, they formed a line to protect the alleged abductors from an angry crowd of onlookers demanding the woman’s release.

The reported kidnappers, it turned out, were special agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Police Chief Jim McDonnell defended the officers’ response, saying their first responsibility was to keep the peace and that they had no authority to interfere with the federal operation.

In political and activist circles, and across social media, critics blasted the LAPD for holding back the crowd instead of investigating why the agents were arresting the woman, who was later found to be a U.S. citizen.

“What happened downtown on Tuesday morning certainly looked and felt like LAPD was supporting ICE,” said Mike Bonin, a former City Council member who is now executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at Cal State L.A.

Kimberly Noriega, left, speaks with her aunt, Anita Neri Lozano, at Veterans Memorial Park in Culver City on Sunday. The family was attending a news conference regarding the arrest of a beloved street vendor, Ambrocio Lozano.

(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)

The incident was one of more than half a dozen in recent weeks in which the LAPD responded to federal immigration enforcement actions that were called in as kidnappings.

The presence of local police officers at the scenes — even if they are not actively assisting ICE — has led some city leaders to question the department’s role in an ongoing White House crackdown that has swept up hundreds of immigrants and sown fear across Southern California.

Incidents of impostors masquerading as law enforcement have compounded the situation, along with rumors — so far unverified — that federal authorities have enlisted bounty hunters or private security contractors for immigration arrests.

Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin called coverage of one reported kidnapping a “hoax” in a post Tuesday on X and said: “ICE does not employ bounty hunters to make arrests.”

In a letter to the Police Commission last week, City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez said the LAPD should make sure federal agents who cover their faces and often use unmarked vehicles are who they claim to be.

“Our residents have a right to know who is operating in their neighborhoods and under what legal authority,” wrote Rodriguez, whose district includes the San Fernando Valley. “Allowing unidentified actors to forcibly detain individuals without oversight is not only reckless — it erodes public trust and undermines the very rule of law.”

She said that city leaders couldn’t allow “bounty-hunter-style tactics to take root in our city,” and urged the commission, the LAPD’s civilian policymaking body, to “develop proper legal and safe protocol that provide for officer safety, transparency and accountability to our communities.”

Residents stand behind a line of Vernon police officers after an immigration raid in the city of Bell on June 20.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

“This lack of identification is unacceptable. It creates an environment ripe for abuse and impersonation, enabling copycat vigilantes to pose as federal agents,” Rodriguez wrote.

State and local officials have proposed legislation to increase transparency around officer identification, but it’s unclear if the bills will become law — and whether they could actually be enforced against federal agents.

Police Commission President Erroll Southers said Tuesday that he and another commissioner met with City Council members to discuss the Police Department’s response to the Trump administration’s aggressive sweeps. Several commissioners questioned McDonnell about how LAPD officers are supposed to respond to reported kidnappings.

Los Angeles police officers stand guard as community members protest recent immigration raids in front of the Federal Building in downtown L.A. on June 18.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

McDonnell said the department created new guidelines that require a supervisor to respond and instruct LAPD officers to verify the purported ICE agents are legitimate, preserving a record of the interaction on body-worn cameras.

The chief said the top priority for officers is maintaining the safety of all those present, but ultimately officers have no authority to interfere with a federal operation.

According to a new poll from YouGov, a public opinion research firm, nearly three-quarters of Californians believe local police officers should arrest federal immigration agents who “act maliciously or knowingly exceed their authority under federal law.”

The same survey also found that a majority of state residents want to completely forbid California officials from collaborating with immigration enforcement and make it easier for citizens to file lawsuits when “authorities violate the due process rights of immigrants.”

The LAPD has long claimed that it has no role in civil immigration enforcement, but the department is now facing pressure from City Hall and beyond to go further and protect Angelenos who are undocumented.

A motion considered this week by the L.A. City Council would, among other things, limit the LAPD’s “support to agencies performing immigration enforcement.”

Eastside residents and others march in Boyle Heights on Tuesday as part of a series of “Reclaim Our Streets” actions being conducted in protest of federal immigration enforcement operations.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

LAPD officials say that the department has responded to at least seven calls in which people contacted 911 to report a kidnapping that turned out to be an ICE operation.

One emergency call came in when a group of masked federal Border Patrol agents was spotted staging near Dodgers Stadium last week, sparking a wave of speculation online about potential immigration enforcement at the ballpark. LAPD officers responded to the scene and again provided crowd control after a group of protesters showed up.

Several police supervisors said that in the past, it was customary for federal agents conducting surveillance in a given LAPD division to give the area’s watch commander a heads-up as a courtesy. But that longstanding practice has ended, leaving them largely left in the dark about the timing and location of planned immigration raids.

Cmdr. Lillian Carranza said it was irresponsible for people to describe the arrests as “kidnappings” and encourage people to call 911, saying that there is misinformation circulating online about how and when federal authorities can arrest someone. Authorities don’t need to present a warrant when encountering someone on the street, she said; all they need is probable cause.

“If people have concerns about the conduct of federal agents, they need to seek justice in court,” she said. “That is the place to litigate the case. Not the streets.”

In a testy exchange last month, McDonnell told the City Council that even if he knew about an immigration operation beforehand, he would not alert city leaders.

The LAPD’s relationship with ICE has been the subject of intense debate on social media platforms such as Reddit, where some commenters argued that the department’s focus on policing protesters was a tacit endorsement of the federal government.

Much of the discussion has fixated on an incident that occurred last week in downtown Los Angeles in which a woman named Andrea Guadalupe Velez was detained by agents clad in bulletproof vests with gaiters over their faces.

A livestream video showed a man, Luis Hipolito, who was later arrested, asking agents for their names and badge numbers.

“I’m calling 911 right now,” he told the agents.

“911, I want to report a crime. I want to report a crime,” Hipolito is heard saying on the phone.

“What are you reporting?” an operator is heard asking.

“They’re kidnapping kids, they’re kidnapping people on Nine and Main Street,” he is heard saying. “I need LAPD right here, right now. Nine and Main Street. They’re kidnapping, they’re kidnapping people.”

After several agents were seen piling on top of Hipolito, LAPD officers arrived at the scene. They formed a line between the agents and the angry crowd, members of whom were shouting to release Hipolito.

Homeland Security’s McLaughlin said Velez “was arrested for assaulting an ICE enforcement officer.”

Federal authorities said in court filings that Velez “abruptly” stepped into the path of an agent in “an apparent effort to prevent him from apprehending the male subject he was chasing.”

Velez, a Cal Poly Pomona graduate who is 4 feet 11, allegedly stood in the path of the agent with her arms extended. The agent couldn’t stop in time and was struck in his head and chest, federal authorities allege.

Velez’s mother, Margarita Flores, was watching in her rearview mirror, having just dropped her daughter off at the scene.

Flores said she saw a man running toward her daughter and then Velez falling to the ground. Flores said the men didn’t have identification or license plates on their car.

Fearing a kidnapping, she told her other daughter, Estrella Rosas, to call the police. When the LAPD arrived, Rosas said, her sister “went running to one of the police officers in hopes that they could help her.”

“But one of the ICE agents went back after her and fully [put] her in handcuffs,” Rosas said. “He physically had to carry her to put her inside the car and they drove away in the car that had no license plates.”

Velez spent two days in a federal detention facility. Charged with assaulting a federal officer, she made her initial court appearance last week and was released on $5,000 bail. She has not yet entered a plea and is due back in court July 17.

Times staff writer Brittny Mejia contributed to this report.

Jurors have reached a verdict on four of five counts against music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, who is on trial in a New York federal courtroom, accused of racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation for prostitution.

The jury sent a note to the trial judge Tuesday afternoon stating they’d reached a verdict on several counts but were unable to reach a consensus on count one — racketeering. They will continue deliberating on that count in Manhattan starting Wednesday at 9 a.m.

Combs, 55, is charged under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly referred to as RICO, which requires a defendant to be part of an enterprise involved in at least two overt criminal acts out of 35 offenses listed by the government.

He is also charged on two counts each of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion and transportation to engage in prostitution in connection with two women — his former girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura and a woman identified in court only as Jane, also a former girlfriend.

The jury has reached a unanimous verdict on the four counts tied to Ventura and Jane but not on the racketeering count. Their verdict is not yet known. As Tuesday’s deliberations concluded, Combs was seen praying in the courtroom and looking morose, according to the Associated Press.

The impending verdicts are the culmination of a celebrity legal drama that has generated global attention and offered a graphic and often violent glimpse into the life of one of the nation’s most powerful music figures and his near billion-dollar enterprise. Jurors heard from three women, two former girlfriends and a personal assistant, who described mob-family-style racketeering with coercion, kidnapping, threats and beatings done to cover up a pattern of sexual assaults, sex trafficking and prostitution over decades.

During the seven-week trial, prosecutors portrayed Combs and his associates as luring female victims, often under the pretense of a romantic relationship. Once he had gained their interest, Combs allegedly used force, threats of force, coercion and controlled substances to get them to engage in sex acts with male prostitutes while he occasionally watched in gatherings that Combs referred to as “freak-offs.”

On the stand, witnesses testified that Combs gave the women ketamine, ecstasy and GHB to “keep them obedient and compliant” during the performances.

Jurors deliberated for more than 12 hours before reaching verdicts on several of the counts against Combs.

The racketeering charge alleged Combs’ Bad Boy Entertainment was like a mob family and criminal enterprise that threatened and abused women and utilized members of his enterprise to engage in a litany of crimes over the years including kidnapping, sex trafficking, bribery, arson, forced labor and obstruction of justice.

Though RICO cases are more typically associated with the mafia, street gangs or drug cartels, any loose association of two or more people is enough, like Combs’ entourage, said former federal prosecutor Neama Rahami. Prosecutors during the trial aimed to demonstrate a pattern of racketeering or two or more RICO predicate acts that occurred over 10 years. That’s why the evidence of bribery, kidnapping, obstruction, witness tampering and prostitution became key to the case.

Key to the government’s case was the testimony of three women: Combs’ onetime lover Ventura, whose 2023 lawsuit set off the unraveling of Combs’ enterprise and reputation; his most recent ex-girfriend, Jane; and his former assistant, only identified in court as Mia.

In the trial, Ventura testified she felt “trapped” in a cycle of physical and sexual abuse by Combs, and that the relationship involved years of beatings, sexual blackmail and a rape.

She claimed Combs threatened to leak videos of her sexual encounters with numerous male sex workers while drug-intoxicated and covered with baby oil as he watched and orchestrated the freak-offs.

One of those freak-offs led to an infamous hotel beating that was captured on hotel security cameras. Video footage from that March 2016 night shows Combs punching and kicking Ventura as she cowers and tries to protect herself in front of an L.A. hotel elevator bank. He then drags her down the hall by her hooded sweatshirt toward their hotel room.

A second angle from another camera captures Combs throwing a vase toward her. She suffered bruising to her eye, a fat lip and a bruise that prosecutors showed was still visible during a movie premiere two days later, where she wore sunglasses and heavy makeup on the red carpet.

In closing arguments, Assistant U.S. Atty. Christy Slavik told jurors Combs “counted on silence and shame” to enable and prolong his abuse and used a “small army” of employees to harm women and cover it up, according to the Associated Press.

Combs, he said, “doesn’t take no for an answer.”

When it came time for Combs’ defense team to present their case, they opted to move straight to closing arguments without presenting a witness. Rahami, the former federal prosecutor, said the defense expected jurors would question why those on the stand did not report the behavior to authorities at the time it was occurring and, in some cases, chose to stay in Combs’ orbit.

Marc Agnifilo, one of Combs’ lawyers, told jurors in closing that federal prosecutors “exaggerated” their case and sought to turn the hip-hop mogul’s swinger lifestyle into the most serious of federal offenses — racketeering and sex trafficking, without the evidence to back it up. In reality, Combs has a drug problem and his relationship with Ventura was a “modern love story” where the mogul “owns the domestic violence” that was revealed in the trial, Agnifilo said.

PROSECUTORS in Sean “Diddy” Combs’ federal case have pulled key testimony during the trial that was critical to the racketeering charge the disgraced music executive is facing.

The stunning move by federal prosecutors comes a day before closing arguments in Combs’ trial are set to begin on Thursday following six weeks of graphic testimony.

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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court said Monday the Trump administration may deport criminal migrants to South Sudan or Libya even if those countries are deemed too dangerous for visitors.

By a 6-3 vote, the conservative majority set aside the rulings of a Boston-based judge who said the detained men deserved a “meaningful opportunity” to object to being sent to a strange country where they may be tortured or abused.

The court issued an unsigned order with no explanation.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a 19-page dissent and was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

“In matters of life and death, it is best to proceed with caution. In this case, the Government took the opposite approach,” she said. “I cannot join so gross an abuse of the Court’s equitable discretion.”

Last month, the government put eight criminal migrants on a military plane bound for South Sudan.

“All of these aliens had committed heinous crimes in the United States, including murder, arson, armed robbery, kidnapping, sexual assault of a mentally handicapped woman, child rape, and more,” Trump’s Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer told the court. They also had a “final order of removal” from an immigration judge.

But U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston said the flight may have defied an earlier order because the men were not given a reasonable chance to object. He said the Convention Against Torture gives people protection against being sent to a country where they may be tortured or killed.

He noted the U.S. State Department had warned Americans: “Do not travel to South Sudan due to crime, kidnapping and armed conflict.”

Sauer said this case was different from others involving deportations because it dealt with the “worst of the worst” among immigrants in the country without authorization. He said these immigrants were given due process of law because they were convicted of crimes and were given a “final order of removal.”

However, their native country was unwilling to take them.

“Many aliens most deserving of removal are often the hardest to remove,” he told the court. “As a result, criminal aliens are often allowed to stay in the United States for years on end, victimizing law-abiding Americans in the meantime.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the plane landed at a military base in Djibouti.

In April, Murphy said “this presents a simple question: before the United States forcibly sends someone to a country other than their country of origin, must that person be told where they are going and be given a chance to tell the United States that they might be killed if sent there?”

He said the plaintiffs were “seeking a limited and measured remedy … the minimum that comports with due process.”