Tag: kidnappings

FBI Warns About Ransom Scams Involving Fake ‘Proof of Life’ Photos

Criminals are altering images of people obtained from social media or other public sites to create fake “proof of life” photos as part of virtual kidnapping for ransom scams, the FBI said in a public service announcement on Dec. 5.

According to the agency, criminal actors typically get in touch with their targets via text messages, claiming to have kidnapped a person close to them and demanding a ransom. The demands would often be accompanied by threats of violence.

The photo or video will, upon close inspection, reveal inaccuracies, with examples including “missing tattoos or scars and inaccurate body proportions,” the FBI said. The messages will have a sense of urgency—sent out using timed message features so family members do not have sufficient time to analyze the details.

Instead of reacting hastily, people who receive such communication should stop and think whether the kidnapper’s claims “make sense,” the notice said.

The agency advised people to always attempt to contact their loved ones before considering paying the ransom. A code word, known only within their close circle, will be crucial here.

Moreover, this type of fake image ransom scammer will use missing person information found online. The agency advised people to immediately take a screenshot or record any “proof of life” photos they receive.

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Update on the Whitmer FBI Scam…

In October 2020, just weeks before the U.S. presidential election, headlines exploded with the claim that a group of Trump supporting conservative men had been arrested for plotting to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. The timing was a little too perfect.

Revolver has covered the Whitmer fednapping plot in great detail.

In an exclusive interview with Revolver, documentary filmmaker Christina Urso recaps out how the case unfolded, how the FBI ran the operation from start to finish, and how the justice system turned a blind eye to serious constitutional violations.

The First Red Flag

“I first heard about the case in October 2020,” Christina recalls. “Whitmer came out smirking — not the reaction of someone just informed of a violent plot against her. It felt off, especially with Michigan being a swing state right before the election.”

It reminded her of PATCON, a past FBI operation targeting right-wing groups. “It felt like the same playbook — FBI-engineered entrapment dressed up as domestic terror prevention.”

Entrapment or Full Fabrication?

The FBI deployed at least 12 informants, 2 undercover agents, and multiple online covert employees to create fake militia groups on platforms like Facebook.

“They paid informants, created training events, and even gave these working-class men drugs and alcohol — then used their intoxicated words as evidence,” Christina explains.

None of the 14 men had committed violence. Most had no criminal history and were represented by underpaid or negligent public defenders. Only two out of the 14 could afford private counsel.

Legal Railroading and Sabotaged Appeals

The first federal trial resulted in two acquittals and two mistrials. But the retrial was plagued by procedural irregularities:

  • Time limits were imposed on the defense — but not the prosecution
  • A juror accused of misconduct was made foreman
  • Both Adam Fox and Barry Croft were convicted and sent to Florence ADX Supermax Prison, despite having no prior records

Fox’s court-appointed attorney, Stephen Nolder, submitted a weak 75-page appeal brief lacking exhibits, omitted one of the charges, and failed to consult his client. As a result, Fox missed his Supreme Court filing deadline and now has no legal representation.

In contrast, Croft’s lawyer, Tim Sweeney, submitted a 300-page brief with 150 pages of exhibits and worked closely with Croft.

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Dem-Appointed Judge Lets Convict Walk — He’s Now Accused of Kidnapping a Mom and Her Kids

A Kentucky man who was sentenced to 14 years in prison last year but was put back on the street five months after his sentencing has been arrested after a Louisville woman and her children were kidnapped at knifepoint.

Armond Langford. 32, was arrested Friday after a six-hour manhunt, according to WHAS-TV.

Before his arrest, a woman and her two children were kidnapped. The woman said she was forced to drive to a bank as Langford demanded $20,000.

“He opened our back door and told them to get in the car…. They got in the car. They drove to the bank. He held a knife at her the whole time, he was telling her to drive faster,” Brandon Strong, husband and father of the victims, told the TV station.

He said his wife was stabbed during the ordeal and was treated for a non-life-threatening stab wound.

Langford had been sentenced to 14 years in prison in February 2024 after being convicted on charges of robbing multiple people who were withdrawing cash from ATMs from August 2021 to November 2021.

However, in July 2024, Judge Jessica Green granted a request for what’s called “shock probation,” in which the surprise of being set free is allegedly what keeps a criminal from reoffending.

Green was named to the bench in 2022 by Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear.

Louisville council member Anthony Piagentini vented his anger.

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Three Sisters Who Vanished Visiting Homeless Father Found Dead, Manhunt Underway

The three young sisters who vanished near Wenatchee, Washington, while visiting their homeless father have been found dead and police have launched a massive manhunt for the missing father.

The Decker sisters – Paityn, age 9, Evelyn, age 8, and Olivia, age 5 – were all found dead near their father’s truck at a campground in Wenatchee after an intensive search by SWAT and a Homeland Security helicopter.

Per the New York Post:

The girls’ AMBER alerts were canceled late Monday without explanation, before police confirmed the deaths Tuesday with “sincere and deep heartfelt condolences to the family.”

The search continued for their 32-year-old dad, Travis Decker, who had collected them from their mother’s house for a planned visitation on Friday — then went missing with them in his white 2017 GMC Sierra truck.

Hours before the bodies were found, a warrant was issued for Decker’s arrest on three counts of first-degree custodial interference.

Upon discovery of the bodies, the charges against Decker were upped to three counts of kidnapping and first-degree murder. He was divorced from his ex-wife, the mother of his children, and had been staying at campgrounds and hotels with his dog. Whitney Decker, the girls’ mother, said in a statement prior to their bodies being discovered that Travis struggled with mental health issues, but that she never thought he would become violent.

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The Rise And Fall Of Two Crypto Traders Who Tortured A Bitcoin Millionaire For His Password

A shocking crypto kidnapping case involving two self-styled traders has rocked New York. On May 23, Italian crypto millionaire Michael Valentino Teofrasto Carturan escaped from a luxury townhouse in New York’s upscale SoHo neighbourhood, running barefoot onto a city street and flagging down a traffic officer, according to The New York Post. Carturan told police he had been kidnapped and held captive for nearly three weeks by John Woeltz and William Duplessie.

Prosecutors alleged that during his captivity, Carturan was tortured with a chainsaw and tased while standing in water, and at one point was hung off a roof ledge in a bid to force him to reveal the password to his Bitcoin wallet, reportedly worth $30 million.

According to ABC News, prosecutors said Woeltz and Duplessie lured Carturan to New York by threatening to have his family killed. Once he arrived, they allegedly stripped him of his passport and electronics, bound his wrists, beat him, shocked his feet, struck him in the head with a gun, cut his leg with a saw, urinated on him, and forcibly made him smoke crack cocaine.

Prosecutors said Carturan eventually escaped after convincing his captors to retrieve his laptop so he could access his Bitcoin wallet. When Woeltz left to get the laptop, Carturan ran out and sought help.

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Crypto investor allegedly tortured captive Italian businessman with a chainsaw for weeks in luxe NYC pad in sadistic scheme to gain password: sources

A cryptocurrency investor from Kentucky is suspected of torturing an Italian businessman with a chainsaw in a sadistic, weeks-long extortion attempt to gain the password for his accounts at a ritzy Manhattan apartment – before the captive made a daring escape, police sources said.

John Woeltz, 37, was arrested after the bloodied and bruised businessman – a 28 year-old man – broke out of the SoHo house of horrors Friday morning, ran to a police officer and said he’d been held prisoner for more than two weeks, the sources said.

Cops rushed to the luxurious Prince Street pad – which Woeltz was allegedly renting for roughly $30,000 to $40,000 a month – and discovered multiple Polaroid photos showing the businessman being tied up with electrical wire and tortured, including one of him bound to a chair with a gun pointed at his head, according to the sources.

Since being taken captive, the businessman had been bound with an electric cord, Tased while his feet were put in water, pistol-whipped, forced to take cocaine and threatened to have his limbs cut off with an electric chainsaw, the sources said.

The nightmare erupted from a dispute over cryptocurrency, in which the suspect allegedly tried to extort millions of dollars from the man by unleashing a litany of horrific tortures, according to sources.

The man was rushed to Bellevue Hospital for treatment, while cops arrested Woeltz, who was expected to face an assault charge, the sources said.

Woeltz was charged Friday night with two counts of second-degree assault, first-degree kidnapping, first-degree, first degree unlawful imprisonment and criminal possession of a weapon.

A second person — 24-year-old Beatrice Folchi of Manhattan — was also arrested and charged with first-degree kidnapping and first-degree unlawful imprisonment.

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Colombian woman sentenced in Florida to 20 years in prison for kidnapping, drugging two US soldiers in Bogotá

A Colombian national has been sentenced to over 20 years in federal prison for her role in the drugging, kidnapping, and robbery of two US military service members in Bogotá, Colombia.

Kenny Julieth Uribe Chiran, 35, was sentenced in the Southern District of Florida to 262 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. She was also ordered to pay $24,115 in restitution. In March 2025, she pleaded guilty to conspiracy to kidnap internationally protected persons.

According to the US Justice Department, the incident occurred on the evening of March 5, 2020. The two US soldiers, on temporary duty in Bogotá, had visited a local pub in an entertainment district after watching a soccer match. There, Uribe Chiran and a co-conspirator approached them and secretly drugged their drinks with benzodiazepines. Once incapacitated, the soldiers were kidnapped, robbed of valuables and financial information, and later abandoned in separate locations across the city.

“Uribe Chiran and her co-defendants mercilessly preyed on US soldiers when they drugged their drinks, stole their valuables, and left them incapacitated on the street,” said Matthew R. Galeotti, Head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “Kidnapping and assaulting two US military service members is deplorable, and the Criminal Division will continue to prioritize protecting our service members through these prosecutions.”

US Attorney Hayden P. O’Byrne for the Southern District of Florida echoed that sentiment: “Kidnappings and assaults against US service members will not be tolerated. To those who would dare commit such reprehensible acts against America’s heroes, know this: We will identify you; we will find you; and we will prosecute you as aggressively as the law permits.”

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Jewish ‘cult’ leaders sentenced for kidnap of 2 NY kids, including a child bride, in twisted sex scheme

Leaders of a Jewish fundamentalist cult were sentenced to more than a decade behind bars for kidnapping two kids— including a child bride – then smuggling them into Mexico, prosecutors said.

Three brothers, who are members of the Lev Tahor sect, allegedly forced the girl back into the arms of her adult “husband” in a sickening and sophisticated sex scheme.

Yakov Weingarten, 34; Smiel Weingarten, 28; and Yoil Weingarten, 36; were sentenced Tuesday for snatching the children from their upstate New York home in 2018 after their mother fled Lev Tahor, a group of zealots who practice stomach-churning habits like child marriages, underage sex and family separations, US Attorney Damian Williams said Wednesday.

The brothers — who live in Guatemala — used a variety of disguises, aliases, drop phones, fake travel documents and encrypted apps to pull off the 3 a.m. kidnapping that December day, then smuggle the brother and sister across the border, the feds said.

Local, federal and international authorities launched a massive three-week search that eventually found Yante Teller, 14, and Chaim Teller, 12, and returned them to their mother.

In March, a federal jury convicted the trio of child sexual exploitation and kidnapping charges.

As punishment, US District Judge Nelson Román has sentenced Yakov and Smiel to 14 years in prison, and Yoil to 12 years, the feds said.

“The sentencing of the Weingarten brothers holds them accountable for kidnapping children from their mother in the middle of the night, including for the purpose of coercing a child into a sexual relationship with an adult,” Williams said in a statement.

“This Office will do everything in its power to protect children and use every available tool to investigate and prosecute those who sexually exploit them.”

The twisted saga began in 2017, when Lev Tahor leaders arranged for Yante — then just 12-years-old –to marry an 18-year-old man, the feds said.

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Appeals Court Hammers Prosecution About FBI Conduct In Whitmer Kidnap Plot

The much-anticipated appeal hearing was held Thursday for Barry Croft and Adam Fox, the alleged “ringleaders” of the 2020 militia conspiracy to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Croft and Fox were convicted of plotting to kidnap Whitmer after their second trial in late 2022. At their first trial earlier that year, a jury acquitted two other men while failing to reach a verdict for Croft and Fox.

The two men appealed their convictions on multiple grounds. Thursday’s hearing focused largely on the conduct of FBI informants and their handling agents.

Croft’s attorney, Timothy Sweeney, argued that his client should get a retrial because he wasn’t allowed to introduce numerous text messages that showed improper conduct by the FBI.

Those text messages showed how FBI informants were pressuring Fox and Croft to formulate a plan against Whitmer. A list of the texts can be found in this document.

Representing the government, Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler argued that the FBI text messages were irrelevant because Fox and Croft were already predisposed to committing an act of terrorism.

“All the [FBI] statements identified by defense go to inducement. If jury found they were predisposed [to kidnapping Whitmer], none of that matters,” Kessler said. “This court has held that entrapment can only happen if the government plants an idea in an innocent persons’ head.”

The appeals justices expressed skepticism about Kessler’s argument. One justice disagreed with the prosecutor’s reading of the law.

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Inside The FBI-Tainted Whitmer ‘Kidnap Plot’ You’ve Heard Almost Nothing About

In a fiery exchange last month, CNN anchorwoman Abby Phillip told GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy that there was “no evidence” to support his claim that federal agents abetted protesters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Ramaswamy shot back that the FBI conspicuously has never denied that law enforcement agents were on duty in the crowd. He argued that federal officials have repeatedly “lied” to the American people about not only that investigation but one that has gotten much less attention: the alleged failed plot to kidnap and kill Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan in 2020.

“It was entrapment,” Ramaswamy said. “FBI agents putting them up to a kidnapping plot that we were told was true but wasn’t.”

His zeroing in on the Michigan case highlighted an uncharacteristic development in contemporary politics, where progressives vigorously defend law enforcement power while conservatives view it with deep suspicion. Further, Ramaswamy’s linking of Jan. 6 and the Whitmer plot resonated with many on the right who want similarities between the two episodes exposed to the general public, especially the FBI’s reliance on informants and other paid operatives.

On Oct. 8, 2020, Whitmer announced the shocking arrests of several men accused of planning to kidnap and possibly assassinate her. The case produced alarming headlines just weeks before Election Day; Democrats, including Whitmer, used news of the plot to blame Trump for inciting violence.

Joe Biden commended the FBI for thwarting the abduction plan and, in a written statement issued the same day, claimed that “there is a through line from President Trump’s dog whistles and tolerance of hate, vengeance, and lawlessness to plots such as this one.” Biden continued that line of attack during campaign speeches in Michigan, a swing state that voted for Trump in 2016, and one Biden needed to capture to win the presidency.

In the years since the election, the national press has given little attention to the case since the initial arrests, even though court documents have recast the episode as something more sinister. Instead of a heroic effort by the FBI to safeguard the country from domestic terrorists, it now appears to have been a broad conspiracy by law enforcement to entrap American citizens who held unpopular political views.

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