How May I Flee and Avoid Extradition to the United States?

Factual Questions
41

Even then, would they bother, for a run of the mill embezzler or murderer?

There is something to be said for the idea that living in Somalia is sufficient punishment… so the ancillary question for the OP should be “what countries THAT YOU WOULD WANT TO LIVE IN” are safe from extradition".

Some of the tricks to avoid it might not be available to all people, as well, so when researching your options, bear that in mind. For example it’s fairly unlikely I could ever father a child in Brazil (or, well, elsewhere either) short of marrying a local woman and adopting her child (would that count? and of course assuming Brazil had same sex marriage).

My ability to flee to Israel and use the “law of return” is somewhat limited; I have Jewish ancestry but it is on my mother’s grandfather’s side so it doesn’t count. And afterthis well known case, Israel changed its laws regarding extradition of citizens anyway. The “person” involved wound up serving his time in an Israeli prison anyway - which might or might not have been better than a US prison. The story has a lot more details than I heard at the time - what a lovely family (not!!).

Honestly, I think your best bet would be to find a country where there is no explicit extradition treaty, that has a decent standard of living at least if you’re “rich”, get fake papers there, and live modestly because you don’t want to draw attention.

42

None of this is correct, but it seems to have entered into Urban Legend™ territory, as I’ve seen variants on it elsewhere.

There were two Americans, both caught in Canada around the same time, and both facing murder charges with death penalty: Ng (from California) and Kindler (from Pennsylvania). Their cases went through the Canadian courts at about the same rate.

The federal Crown prosecution service brought extradition proceedings against both of them, acting on behalf of the United States, as is common in extradition treaties. The Canadian courts held that the US had met the test for extradition, on the basis of the submissions made by the Canadian federal prosecutors.

The next step is to have an order of extradition granted by the Minister of Justice. Both Kindler and Ng argued that Canada was bound by the Charter to insist on a “no-killing” clause from the United States, as a condition of extradition.

The federal Justice Minister refused to impose that condition and confirmed the extradition of both Ng and Kindler. That then went to the courts, eventually ending up in the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court held that the Charter did not require the federal government to obtain a “no-killing” clause from the US as a condition of extradition:

Kindler v Canada (Minister of Justice)

Reference re Ng Extradition

Canada then extradited Kindler and Ng.

According to the wiki article, as of 2018 Ng was still on death row in California.

Kindler was reprieved from the death penalty last March: A 1982 murder, a capital sentence, two escapes and now, a reprieve from death row (Note that this news article repeats the idea that Canadian officials “…initially balked at extraditing him back to Philadelphia to face a death sentence, an illegal punishment north of the border.” As I said, the fact that the federal government fought every step of the way to extradite him without a “no-killing” clause has been turned into the idea that federal officials objected to extraditing him - a complete reversal of what actually happened.)

So, net result: Canada extradited without conditions; neither man has been killed by the state in the US, nearly 30 years on.

43

Note that in a subsequent case, United States v Burns, the Supreme Court reversed its position and found that it would violate the Charter for the feds to extradite without a “no-killing” clause. Doesn’t seem to have caused much problem with extradition. US prosecutors may not like it, but they’re not going to refuse to prosecute someone with a murder charge hanging over their head.

44

Thanks for the update. As I understood from the news at the time (if I’m recalling right), Ottawa did, as was standard, ask California to waive the death penalty while pursuing the extradition, but California adamantly declined. In the face of this refusal, the Canadian government eventually decided that extradition would happen anyway (since if I understand right, it is up to the minister to block any extradition where there is the question about the death penalty, and he declined to), not that Ottawa happily sought extradition without the guarantee from the beginning. As I understood from news reports at the time, Canada expected as had happened with other cases, other states, that eventually following negotiations California would agree. However, Ng’s actions were particularly heinous. I’m not sure the political climate of California at the time, but they seemed not willing to back down in this case. Once extradition was confirmed, then Ng petitioned to block it and lost.

45

Getting back to the “where”, how about the “how”. I don’t mean buying a ticket on an airplane just ahead of the goverment deactivating your passport, but: wherever you wind up, you have to have a way to live.

I would assume that the US govermnent would very quickly freeze any US-held assets.

So to live in this hypothetical other country, you have to have a way to get some of your ill-gotten money (assuming you’re an embezzler or whatever) to the country where you plan to hide out. Supposedly the traditional Swiss bank account is no longer quite so secret. I don’t know if your assets in such an account might be subject to seizure. And a shell corporation in the Caymans is another way (I gather) to hide money overseas.

I would imagine the US would do whatever it could to put pressure on you financially - pressuring the bank, or your “host country”, to somehow seize your assets. If you’re living under your own name, it can be tough to even have an account at a foreign bank due to the US demands that such assets be reported to the US.

So you’ve not only got to get to the hypotheticsl safe-haven, but have a way to get sufficient funds to that country, in a method that is NOT subject to seizure / appropriation, to allow you to live. And once there, you have to have a way to keep that money lest the host country try to get hold of it.