Page 10 - PPIAC Newsletter Apr-May 2022

It was hot, it was humid, it was jungle….y. It was 90 degrees. We were close to getting arrested or at least
deported by the Nicaraguan National Police. But, we had a case to investigate.

Prior to flying to Nicaragua, I had been contacted through an online community of private investigators by a family
seeking assistance with finding her brother, who we’ll call Abiodun, who had disappeared in Nicaragua. All they
knew was that he’d recently graduated from college in the United States, and decided to go backpacking through
Costa Rica and Nicaragua. He’d been in constant contact with the family until a few weeks previous, and then
dropped off the map. The only other piece of information the family had was that they knew he had been
experimenting with ayahuasca.

I gave the family a few ideas on things she could try on her own:

Victim Steps
When you first suspect that someone is missing, it’s critical to file a police report, even if you’re not fully sure the
person actually is “missing”. It turns out that in this case the family had already notified local police in the US,
though they could not do much. They had also contacted the US State Department in Nicaragua to inform them of
what had happened. The State Department was able to mobilize the Nicaraguan National Police (“NNP”).

The rest of these steps should be done after discussion with law enforcement. However, as local (to the US) law
enforcement was unable to assist in the case, and the family was concerned about the NNP’s lack of
communication regarding their investigation, I recommended these additional steps without approval from the
NNP.
1. Review the missing person’s social media profiles for clues as to what may have happened. In this case,
the sister had actually accessed her missing brother’s Facebook account prior to contacting me, and had
attempted to contact people he’d recently been in contact with, with no success.
2. Review the missing person’s personal belongings for clues as to what happened.
3. Post on social media and other online communities regarding the missing person’s disappearance.
4. Create and disseminate a missing person poster (in this case this had already been done).