At least five Americans, including a New Yorker, are being detained in Venezuela following the Trump administration’s latest military and economic pressure campaign against Caracas, according to a new report.
James Luckey-Lange, 28, of Staten Island, is among the recently US citizens imprisoned in Venezuela, with the New Yorker deemed to be wrongfully detained, officials told the New York Times.
Luckey-Lange, whose family reported him missing earlier this month, disappeared soon after entering Venezuela’s border as part of a long trip across Latin America that was inspired by the death of his mother, musician Diane Luckey.
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“He has been traveling around, figuring out what to do with his life,” Eva Aridjis Fuentes, a filmmaker who worked with Luckey-Lange on a documentary about his mother, told the Times.
“He has had so much loss.”
It’s unclear if Luckey-Lange entered Venezuela with a visa, with the grieving son writing on his blog earlier this month that he planned to research gold mining near the Guyana-Venezuela border.
He was last heard from on Dec. 8, when he informed his family that he was heading to Caracas to catch a flight home to New York on Dec. 12.
His aunt, Abbie Luckey, said she has not been contacted by US officials regarding her nephew’s disappearance, with the relative pleading for any information on his whereabouts.
Others being detained by Caracas include three Venezuelan-American dual passport holders and another American citizen with no known ties to the country, a US official told the Times.
Two of the five prisoners, including Luckey-Lange, are being wrongfully detained, with the remaining three allegedly facing criminal charges that American officials believe could be legitimate.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has previously used detained Americans, regardless of whether or not they faced legitimate criminal charges, as bargaining chips with the US.
Seventeen American citizens and permanent residents have been freed this year as part of negotiations between the Trump administration and Maduro’s government.
Those talks, however, were suspended following Trump’s decision to apply military and economic pressure against Maduro, with Venezuela beginning to detain Americans again in the fall.
Previous detainees have detailed abusive conditions in Venezuela’s prison system, with many condemning Caracas over the lack of due process and bogus charges pressed against them.
