# Foreign Agents Abduct (Kidnap, etc.) Person Living in U.S. Precedented? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 7, 2008, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-agents-abduct-kidnap-etc-person-living-in-u-s-precedented/436619 "2008-02-07T01:34:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-agents-abduct-kidnap-etc-person-living-in-u-s-precedented/436619/1 "2008-02-07T01:34:50Z")
Has there ever been a case where a person living in the US was kidnapped, abducted, or otherwise taken into custody by foreign agents on US soil? Note that I’m not talking about cases where a foreign lawbreaker is captured by US authorities and handed over to his home nation. Possible examples would include deserters of foreign militaries caught by agents of that military working in the US; foreign lawbreakers tracked down by their own government and arrested by that government’s agents; or political refugees forcibly returned to their homeland. And yes, I’m aware of the impressment issues that were a bone of contention between the US and England around 1812. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-agents-abduct-kidnap-etc-person-living-in-u-s-precedented/436619/2 "2008-02-07T13:44:44Z")
Wow? No takers? I’ll use my one _bump_. ---
**Author:** ![Yeah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/dbc845/32.png) [@Yeah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yeah)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-agents-abduct-kidnap-etc-person-living-in-u-s-precedented/436619/3 "2008-02-07T14:16:31Z")
I can’t recall any cases “where a person living in the US was kidnapped, abducted, or otherwise taken into custody by foreign agents on US soil?” However, two persons living in the US, Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt, were killed by foreign agents on US soil in 1976. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-agents-abduct-kidnap-etc-person-living-in-u-s-precedented/436619/4 "2008-02-07T14:17:14Z")
Not exactly what you were asking for, but you might find the story of [Bogdan Stashynsky](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohdan_Stashynsky) of interest. He was a Ukrainian trained and ordered by Soviet authorities to kill dissidents living in Western Europe in the 1950s, with a James Bond-like device. Quite an important case for German law students, btw: Stashinsky defected to West Germany after his second murder, and the German courts had to interpret the law in a very unorthodox manner to avoid a life sentence. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-agents-abduct-kidnap-etc-person-living-in-u-s-precedented/436619/5 "2008-02-07T18:08:18Z")
Here’s a news strory about US citizens [kidnapping a Canadian in Canada](http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2004/11/24/728898.html). Now, they were acting as private citizens and were arrested on their return to the States, so they werent ‘agents of a foreign power’, but from the Canadian point of view, it would be the same crime whether they were state agents or private citizens. Would not the same hold in the US? ---
**Author:** ![xiix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/d6d6ee/32.png) [@xiix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xiix)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-agents-abduct-kidnap-etc-person-living-in-u-s-precedented/436619/6 "2008-02-07T20:40:10Z")
It seems likely that covert Mossad squads have tracked former nazis to the USA and shipped them to Israel but I will have to google for a cite. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-agents-abduct-kidnap-etc-person-living-in-u-s-precedented/436619/7 "2008-02-07T20:50:36Z")
[QUOTE=xiix] It seems likely that covert Mossad squads have tracked former nazis to the USA and shipped them to Israel but I will have to google for a cite. [/QUOTE] As only one Nazi has ever been convicted in an Israeli court, I find that unlikely. Now, If you said Mossad agents were hunting down and killing Nazis in the U.S., you might have a bit more of a case. I know for a fact that similar squads were active in post-war Europe and South America, but I doubt they bothered to work in the U.S. Not enough Nazis. ---
**Author:** ![kdeus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b487fb/32.png) [@kdeus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kdeus)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-agents-abduct-kidnap-etc-person-living-in-u-s-precedented/436619/8 "2008-02-08T17:09:47Z")
In 1970, a Lithuanian sailor attempted to defect from a fishing boat onto a U.S. Coast Guard cutter. Long story short, the guy’s mom was a U.S. citizen, so he was a U.S. citizen and should have been allowed to stay. The state department and the Coast Guard dropped the ball, and allowed Soviet government agents to board the Coast Guard ship and forceably remove Mr. Kudirka. He got 10 years in Siberia, after which he came to the U.S. Made into a movie in 1978. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-agents-abduct-kidnap-etc-person-living-in-u-s-precedented/436619/9 "2008-02-08T18:54:44Z")
Well, one of the things leading up to the war of 1812 was British ships impressing US citzens into the British military to fight Napoleon. One could say this was whole-sale kidnapping. > [@Wikipedia](#): > > During the Napoleonic Wars, the Royal Navy had expanded to the point of having 175 ships of the line and some 600 ships overall, requiring 140,000 sailors. While the Royal Navy was easily able to man its ships with volunteers in peace time, in time of war they were in fierce competition with merchant shipping and privateers for a small pool of experienced sailors and turned to impressment when they were unable to man their ships with volunteers alone. Since a sizeable portion of the sailors in the United States merchant navy (estimated to be as many as 11,000 in 1805) were in fact Royal Navy veterans or deserters who had left for better pay and conditions, the Royal Navy vessels openly intercepted and searched United States merchant ships for deserters, incensing the United States government, particularly after the Chesapeake-Leopard Affair. > > It was widely felt in the United States that British deserters had a right to avoid justice by becoming United States citizens. At this time, Britain did not recognize naturalized United States citizenship, so in addition to recovering deserters, they considered any United States citizen originally born a British subject to be still liable for impressment. Exacerbating the situation was the widespread use of forged identity papers by sailors, making it difficult for the Royal Navy to distinguish Americans from non-Americans and leading to the pressing of some Americans who had never been British subjects (though at least some were released upon appeal). Anger at impressment was made worse when **British frigates would station themselves just outside of US harbors in US territorial waters and begin searching ships for contraband and impressing men in view from US shores**. “Free trade and sailors’ rights” was a rallying cry for the United States throughout the conflict. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-agents-abduct-kidnap-etc-person-living-in-u-s-precedented/436619/10 "2008-02-08T19:06:21Z")
I’d been given the impression that Leon Theremin (inventor of the electronic music device called the “theremin”) had been kidnapped by Russians. Certainly the film **Theremin: A Musical Odyssey** gives that impression. The Wikipedia article, citing a 2000 book, says that Theremin actually returned voluntarily because of tax problems. I find that kinda hard to believe, but it’s possible. Stalin had him imprisoned and sent to Siberia after his return to Russia, however it happened. > **[Leon Theremin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9on_Theremin)** > > Lev Sergeyevich Termen (Russian: Лев Сергеевич Термен, .mw-parser-output .IPA-label-small{font-size:85%}.mw-parser-output .references .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .infobox .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .navbox .IPA-label-small{font-size:100%}IPA: \[ˈlʲef sʲɪrˈɡʲejɪvʲɪtɕ tʲɪrˈmʲen\]; 27 August \[O.S. 15 August\] 1896 – 3 November 1993), better known as Leon Theremin, was a Russian inventor, most famous for his invention of the theremin, one of the first electronic musical instruments and th...