EDITOR’S NOTE — When her ex-husband spirited their 2 1/2-year-old daughter to the Middle East, Maureen Dabbagh could find no one to help her — until she discovered the secret world of the child recovery industry. First of a four-part series.
By Todd Lewan
The Associated Press
The man in the tailored suit looked to be in his 70s. He had crisp, dark hair, a refined nose and blue eyes, sharp and blank at the same time. It was a face of effortless composure, a face that would know how to hide a secret.
The hand he extended had five, perfectly manicured nails.
“Mitch Rogovin.”
“Maureen Dabbagh.”
“Come in, come in,” the man said. He had supple, pale skin, the kind that comes from too many years under fluorescent lights. “A pleasure to meet you.”
The room was large and rectangular, colorless and cold, and had little in it, except for a desk that nobody seemed to use. There were no notes taped to a phone, no business cards in a Rolodex, no legal folders in a pile. The trash bin beside it held nothing but air.
On the far side of the room was also a conference table. Around it sat three men. They had broad shoulders, thick necks, tightly cropped hair. One had a graying ponytail. They were looking her over, sizing her up.
She took a chair.
Rogovin said, “These boys used to be Special Forces.” One, he said, was a Navy SEAL, another an Army Ranger, the third a Green Beret. “They’re retired,” he added, with an easy smile. “On paper.”
Maureen reached for her shoulder bag, to pull out the paperwork on her kidnapped daughter, Nadia. Rogovin stopped her with a wave of his hand. “No need,” he said, “I’ve got your file.”
When he’d called Maureen out of the blue, Rogovin had introduced himself as a lawyer. Evidently, she thought, this guy is no ordinary lawyer. How did he get a file on my kid?
“Now,” Rogovin said, “there’s something I want to show you.”
On the wall behind him ran a row of plaques, “CIA” and “Mitchell Rogovin” engraved on each of them. On another wall hung a row of framed photographs. The first showed Rogovin, much younger, shaking hands with President Kennedy. In the others, he stood alongside Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush.
To a third wall was pinned a single Polaroid. Rogovin plucked the snapshot and held it up, as though it were a trophy.
“This is Colleen Piper,” he said. “The little girl in the photo is her daughter, Jasmine. When she was 6, Jasmine was kidnapped and taken to Syria. Damascus. These guys recovered her.”
He handed her the Polaroid.
“We’re going to do the same for you,” he said. “We’re going to get your daughter back.”
If there are junctures in life when an individual’s destiny is radically transformed, this was undoubtedly Maureen Richardson Dabbagh’s moment.
For most of her 34 years, her life had been typical; she’d been educated in a small town, married, given birth, divorced, and employed as an EMT and seamstress, never more than a paycheck away from poverty.
Her only adventure had been her marriage to a Syrian, Hisham, and that had ended badly. Then, during a court-ordered visit, her ex-husband vanished with their 2 1/2-year-old daughter — and most likely had spirited the child overseas.
Now Maureen was about to step into a universe she had no idea existed: the covert world of the “snatchback industry,” a shadowy subculture in which former military commandos, spies and bounty hunters are hired to recover parentally abducted children from hostile, foreign countries.
She eyed Rogovin over.
“Why help me?”
Without hesitation, Rogovin explained that they had done some bad things — ghastly things — during their careers. Now, he said, they had decided to use their experience and skills for more “humanitarian” endeavors.
“I don’t have any money.”
“This isn’t going to cost you anything.”
Careful, Maureen, she said to herself. You’ve been lied to by the best — judges, cops, lawyers. And now this — a freebie from a spook lawyer and the Rambo triplets.
Then again, what did she have to lose? Nadia had vanished from West Palm Beach, Fla., on Feb. 12, 1993. It was now January 1994, and the State Department, FBI, Florida police and Interpol had done nothing to find her.
After a pause, she said, “All right.”
Out of nowhere, a grandfatherly man with perfect, platinum hair and wire-rimmed spectacles appeared. Easing into a chair, he smiled, mischievously, leaned over, and said with mock politeness:
“I’m not here.”
Rogovin then introduced the gentleman as Bill Colby — the former director of the CIA.
___
This is a tale of hate and love, revenge and courage — of a Cherokee preacher’s daughter from the pine country of central Florida whose quest to recover her kidnapped daughter transformed her from a sensitive, charitable woman into a gun-toting warrior unrecognizable to friends and family.
It is also, however, an epic, international saga that unveils the volatile, secret world of the child recovery industry, a big-money business in which the interests of desperate parents, mercenaries and governments dovetail and collide.
In this world, shady characters would come and go in Maureen’s life, making grandiose promises with no intention of ever delivering. Smugglers, guerrillas, even members of terrorist groups would become allies, and men of law would turn their backs on her, leaving Maureen to push on, alone.
This account is, in large part, Maureen’s version of events. It is supported by other interviews and hundreds of documents, including personal letters, entries from diaries, court papers, hospital records, foreign and U.S. immigration records, Interpol cables, State Department papers, FBI memos, and other documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
It cannot all be corroborated, however, because portions of many documents have been blacked out, and others classified on grounds of national security. As a matter of policy, the government does not disclose details on cases of international child abduction. The State Department declined several requests to present its side of this story, and would only discuss snatchbacks in general terms and anonymously.
Although Maureen Dabbagh shared her story exclusively with an AP reporter, she would not discuss some of the things she did or some aspects of the snatchback world, for fear of compromising the work of agents still in the field or violating the privacy of parents who turned to child recovery agents out of desperation.
For 12 more years, Maureen would struggle to get back her daughter, exhausting every legal and diplomatic channel open to her. Whenever she turned to officials in the United States or the Middle East, she got excuses, delays, empty promises, indifference.
In many ways, her experience is typical of thousands of “left-behinds” — parents whose children have been kidnapped by estranged spouses and taken abroad in violation of U.S. court orders. Since 1977, the government has opened files on more than 16,000 cases of international child abduction. In most cases, the children are lost for good.
And experts say the problem is only worsening, as rising immigration, cheaper and easier air travel, and online dating have swelled the number of bicultural marriages in America.
When Hisham kidnapped their daughter and authorities were slow to respond, Maureen felt she had just two choices: Let go of her child forever, or attempt a snatchback.
Hiring a recovery agent would be costly — anywhere between $50,000 to $150,000 for a single attempt — and there was no guarantee of success. Recovery agents have ended up in foreign prisons, and parents and agents were known to have died in failed recoveries.
Ultimately, Maureen didn’t hire an agent.
She became one herself.
___
The child’s voice was panicky, shrill.
“MOMMA!”
“Hello?”
“MOMMA! MOMMA!”
Maureen’s heart seized: It was Christmas Day, 1992, and this was the first phone contact she’d had with her daughter in weeks.
“Nadia?”
“I WANT TO HOLD YOU!”
The child had been sent to her father’s home in Florida on Nov. 3, 1992, for a court-ordered, 30-day visit, according to Medina County court records. But then seven weeks passed with no Nadia, and Maureen grew sick with worry, unable to eat, sleep, work, or even return calls from family or friends.
She wanted to calm the child, to reassure Nadia that soon she would be back home in Ohio, in her mother’s arms ...
“I’m here, baby!”
“I WANT TO HOLD YOU! I WANT TO HOLD — “
The line went dead.
Earlier that year, after an Ohio judge had granted Maureen a divorce, Hisham told her repeatedly that if ever he got a chance to visit with Nadia he would never give her up — even if that meant taking her far away from America forever.
That, she knew, was no idle threat: Once, Hisham had confided to her that members of his family belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood, a rigidly conservative, often secretive organization spread across the Arab world. The group has espoused nonviolence, but it also has been linked to bloodletting — Hamas is the Palestinian arm of the brotherhood. (After a botched coup in Syria, Hisham’s father and extended family had fled to Kuwait City, where Hisham was born in 1963. Hisham emigrated to America at 18 to avoid compulsory service in the Syrian Army.)
Now, as she slumped to the floor, her hand still clutching the receiver, the weight of Hisham’s threats came crashing down upon her.
___
Since Hisham had violated the visitation order, Maureen’s lawyer petitioned Medina County court for an emergency hearing. It was scheduled for the following month, January 1993.
January came and went, however, with no hearing. Hisham told the court he wouldn’t be able to appear in Ohio that month, and the hearing was postponed until February, court papers show.
All this time, Nadia stayed at her father’s house in West Palm Beach. Since the custody dispute remained unresolved, the authorities in both Ohio and Florida would not intervene on Maureen’s behalf, no matter how many times she called, or how desperate her pleas.
She also called Hisham’s apartment day and night — always getting the answering machine — and Palm Beach Regional, where he worked as a lab technician. On Feb. 17, 1993, two weeks after Nadia’s third birthday, she phoned the hospital and was told that Hisham hadn’t shown up that week.
Calling Hisham’s home number, she got no answer.
She then telephoned the manager of the apartment complex where Hisham lived. No, the manager told her, she hadn’t seen Hisham lately. And he was behind on the rent. In a panic, Maureen called the Palm Beach sheriff’s office.
As it happened, she was already too late.
Hisham’s car had been found inside the long-term parking garage of the Palm Beach International Airport. According to the ticket on the dash, it had been there since Feb. 12.
Wherever he’d taken Nadia, Hisham had a big head start.
___
To launch a manhunt for Hisham, a state would first need to charge him with a crime and issue a warrant for his arrest. At the time of Nadia’s abduction, however, Hisham couldn’t be charged with international child kidnapping; there was no such law on the books in America.
On Dec. 2, 1993, the U.S. Congress passed a law that made international child kidnapping by parents a felony. Florida authorities didn’t act, though, because the Ohio court had not settled the Dabbaghs’ custody dispute. (Not until October 1994 did the Medina County judge grant Maureen full custody of her daughter.)
Finally, on Nov. 16, 1994 — 21 months after Nadia’s kidnapping — a federal prosecutor in Florida issued a warrant for Hisham’s arrest, and only after Rogovin pulled strings.
Even then, months passed before authorities contacted Interpol to ask for assistance. Interpol subsequently contacted immigration officials in Syria, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, to determine whether Hisham and Nadia had entered those countries, and how.
When Saudi Arabia responded affirmatively, Jim Prietsch, a special agent for Interpol in Washington, D.C., called Maureen with the news.
“They’re still there,” he told her.
They’ve found my baby, Maureen thought. It’s almost over ...
“Maureen?”
She stiffened.
“Yes?”
Prietsch sighed. “We don’t have an extradition treaty with Saudi Arabia. Even if we did, it would only allow us to ask the Saudis to return a criminal, a fugitive. Nadia is neither.”
And, he added, her exact whereabouts were still unknown.
___
By Nadia’s 5th birthday, Feb. 3, 1995, Maureen was living near her brother in Virginia Beach, Va., selling cars and pickups at a Chrysler-Plymouth dealership, and pushing authorities to do something to find her child.
Week in and week out she contacted the FBI, the State Department, Interpol. Each time, the response was the same:
Working on it.
So she reached out to other parents who had lost children, founding PARENT, a worldwide organization for left-behinds. Each year, she held conferences in Washington, D.C., inviting representatives of missing children’s groups and left-behinds to network and support each other.
“In the missing children business, there’s almost no sharing of information between the 30 to 40 groups that care about left-behind parents,” says David Thelen, chief executive officer for The Committee for Missing Children, a nonprofit based in Lawrenceville, Ga.
“But Maureen was different. She brought the parents of missing children together to try to find real solutions to this. She worked tirelessly to bring kids home, and helped an awful lot of people.”
Soon, she was referring other parents to Rogovin, and putting others in touch with independent recovery agents.
Rogovin, for his part, had arranged legal counsel for Maureen in Syria — a Lebanese native, Mounir Al-Amoudi. It soon became evident that Amoudi, like Rogovin, was no ordinary lawyer; he had worked on the case of Colleen Piper’s abducted daughter, Jasmine, and had a web of powerful friends across the region.
Amoudi filed a custody claim on Maureen’s behalf with the Islamic court of Damascus. He then pulled strings to have a warrant issued for Hisham’s arrest in Syria, on the charge of kidnapping. (Amoudi had discovered that Hisham had failed to register Nadia as his daughter in Damascus, meaning that he was not lawfully her father under Syrian law.)
Now they needed to find a way to lure Hisham to Syria.
Back in Virginia, Maureen drafted a presentation for the United Nations on international parental kidnapping. She gave newspaper, radio and TV interviews to journalists from around the world. The Voice of America broadcast her plight to listeners across the Middle East, and eventually more than 500 Web sites told her story, as well.
She also immersed herself in Middle East custody law, and later came to be considered an expert witness in child custody disputes involving American and Middle Eastern spouses.
“I’ve been doing this for 33 years and never met anyone like her ... She essentially educated me on law in the Middle East,” said Thomas R. Conner, a well-known trial lawyer in Houston who specializes in family law.
None of this made her a favorite at the State Department’s Office for Children’s Issues; one memo-writer called her a “would-be do-gooder.” Maureen knew that the bureaucrats weren’t acting aggressively on her case, and it made her angry.
But she had Rogovin.
___
Growing up in rural Florida, Maureen had never been a fighter; her sister and brother, she would always remember, always called her “wuss.”
Even as her father encouraged his children to learn to hunt, to trap, to hit a squirrel in the eye with a .22-caliber rifle, Maureen took up sewing, painting. Later she taught Sunday school, served as a Girl Scouts leader, and volunteered in the Red Cross as an emergency medic.
When Nadia disappeared, she became someone else.
For months after the abduction, Maureen wouldn’t go to bed without studying her daughter’s baby pictures or sniffing Nadia’s favorite blanket. Then, one day, she put them away.
Gradually, she lost all interest in her former avocations: church, volunteer work, art, music. Her friends, who saw her less and less, found her moody, emotionally detached.
Nights, she had trouble sleeping.
In her dreams, Maureen saw herself rocking Nadia to sleep, lightly touching the dimples of the child’s fingers, brushing the chestnut hair from her eyes. Sometimes she would see the child in the park, in her boots and red, wool coat, holding up a fistful of snow, and giggling.
Then the sound of Nadia’s voice in that last, Christmas Day phone call would play in her head, in an endless loop — “MOMMA! I WANT TO HOLD YOU!” — until she snapped awake.
Rogovin and Colby, she later realized, must have sensed her building anger, that she was a woman with nothing to lose, that all she needed was a nudge in the right direction.
As it happened, that nudge came with her first job — a support role in the recovery of two Louisiana teenagers who’d been kidnapped by their Syrian father and whisked off to Damascus.
It was a messy case: The American mother had gone alone to Damascus, located her son and daughter, and fled with them by bus into the interior. Still, they were trapped in Syria; the kids had no passports and the authorities had locked down all borders. (Unfortunately, a week earlier, a French recovery team had snatched a child from the country, and the government had heightened security.)
While Rogovin dispatched a team to Syria, Maureen instructed the mother by phone how to stay undercover, a step ahead of the Syrian police; where and who to contact for travel papers for her kids; and, finally, how to rendezvous with the recovery team.
Although she did not actually leave Virginia, once the job was done Maureen felt a thrill, a rush of hope, an overwhelming sense of confidence that Nadia would be rescued the same way.
At that point, she began prepping for field work — “special training,” as some called it.
Maureen learned how to slip across borders undetected. She learned how to make it appear as though she was in several places at once. She trained to use knives, automatic weapons, and “improvised devices.” (Beyond the barest details, Maureen would say no more.)
She learned how to mine data from computers, plant misinformation, send classified transmissions. She became acquainted with night-vision goggles, tasers, GPS tracking devices.
She worked on recoveries of kidnapped American children, as young as 3 and as old as 16, primarily from North Africa and the Middle East. She would often call Rogovin and Colby for guidance, checking in with them along the way.
It was dangerous work: There were no regulations, laws or oversight. Some recovery agents had no compunction using extreme violence. Many just took the money from the left-behind parents, with no intention of attempting a recovery.
Maureen couldn’t — wouldn’t — let any of this faze her; her own daughter would one day be the target.
On that day she would need to be strong.
___
TO BE CONTINUED.