Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / CLAIM: HAWAIIAN BEAUTY “MISSING AT LAX” GREEN CARD SCAM? MEXICAN CONDO HIDEOUT?

Transcript

CLAIM: HAWAIIAN BEAUTY “MISSING AT LAX” GREEN CARD SCAM? MEXICAN CONDO HIDEOUT? · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:00
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, the Hawaiian beauty missing at Lax,
0:11
Speaker 1: caught up in a green card marriage scam. What is
0:17
Speaker 1: Hannah Kobyash now hiding out in a Mexican condu Heidi Hole,
0:23
Speaker 1: Good evening, I'm Nancy Grace.
0:25
Speaker 2: This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us.
0:28
Speaker 3: Born in Owahu, Hawaii and creative from an early age,
0:31
Speaker 3: Hannah Kobyashi draws pictures with Krantz before she can talk.
0:35
Speaker 3: Kobyashi's aunt, Larie Pigeon, says, Hannah has the spark you
0:39
Speaker 3: wish you had. But things take a turn for the
0:42
Speaker 3: worst when Hannah misses her connecting flight to New York
0:47
Speaker 3: City and seemingly disappears.
0:50
Speaker 1: According to the LA magazine, Kobyashi was apparently scammed out
0:54
Speaker 1: of the proceeds of a purported immigration scheme, possibly concocted
1:01
Speaker 1: by her quote former partner an ex boyfriend. She did
1:06
Speaker 1: not miss her flight, She's somehow masterminded rerouting her bags,
1:11
Speaker 1: which were already on the way to JFK in the
1:14
Speaker 1: bowels of Lax the LA Airport, got it redirected to her,
1:19
Speaker 1: and took off. Found a place to take a shower
1:22
Speaker 1: and blow dry her hair. Last scene crossing into Mexico.
1:28
Speaker 4: Now we learn.
1:30
Speaker 5: This after the LAPD proves Hannah Kobyashi crosses the border
1:34
Speaker 5: into Mexico on foot and lists her as voluntarily missing.
1:38
Speaker 5: Many people wondered why the family hires a lawyer, Sarah Azari,
1:42
Speaker 5: to represent Hannah Kobyashi and the family. LA Magazine is
1:46
Speaker 5: reporting that Hanna Kobyashi might be caught up in a
1:50
Speaker 5: green card marriage scam with an Argentinian national before she vanished.
1:55
Speaker 1: Holy Molly, how much money has been spent trying to
2:02
Speaker 1: find this woman as her family insists that she was
2:08
Speaker 1: not voluntarily missing, that someone was mind controlling her. What
2:15
Speaker 1: and her estranged father travels, we think, from Hawaii all
2:19
Speaker 1: the way to LA in a desperate search that goes
2:23
Speaker 1: to the worst parts of LA, the most crime ridden
2:26
Speaker 1: and desolate locations, looking for her and thinking he has
2:30
Speaker 1: failed killed himself. Is this true miss thing is part
2:35
Speaker 1: of a green card marriage scam?
2:39
Speaker 2: Alexis Terestchuk.
2:40
Speaker 1: We had an inkling about these doings when we went
2:44
Speaker 1: to air last on this story, but could not confirm anything,
2:47
Speaker 1: so it couldn't report it. Alexis Terestchuk joining me Crime
2:50
Speaker 1: Online dot Com investigative reporter what.
2:53
Speaker 6: It appears that Hannah's family found documents that said that
2:57
Speaker 6: she was married to an Argentinian man, that this was
3:00
Speaker 6: a scam for green cards. She's an American citizen, she
3:03
Speaker 6: was born here in the United States. She married this
3:06
Speaker 6: man and then he would get a green card. And
3:08
Speaker 6: often the way this works is that he will give
3:10
Speaker 6: her money, or you know, the person who wants the
3:12
Speaker 6: green card will give the person they're marrying lots of money,
3:15
Speaker 6: thousands and thousands of dollars so that they can become
3:18
Speaker 6: a United States citizen. And it has been revealed that
3:21
Speaker 6: this man, her husband, was on the plane with her
3:26
Speaker 6: from Hawaii to Los Angeles.
3:28
Speaker 2: So I think I know why she and her boyfriend
3:30
Speaker 2: broke up. Take a listen to this.
3:32
Speaker 5: Hanna Kobyashi's mother, Brandy Yee, allegedly discovers immigration documents at
3:36
Speaker 5: her daughter's home in Hawaii. The show she's working with
3:39
Speaker 5: or in contact with an immigration attorney. When he reaches
3:42
Speaker 5: out to the attorney for information about her daughter, the
3:45
Speaker 5: attorney will not cooperate with her, so she turns the
3:48
Speaker 5: documents over to the LAPD and the FBI. LA magazine
3:52
Speaker 5: is reporting that the scam marriage might have led to
3:55
Speaker 5: Kobeanshi getting scammed out of her money, something she mentions
3:59
Speaker 5: in one of her crypto text messages, saying she quote
4:02
Speaker 5: got tricked into pretty much giving away all my funds unquote.
4:06
Speaker 5: She then adds she was tricked for someone I thought
4:09
Speaker 5: I loved.
4:10
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not quite ready to go to high
4:12
Speaker 1: profile lawyer Gregory Morse, who's going to make me eat
4:15
Speaker 1: a dirt sandwich?
4:16
Speaker 7: For sure?
4:17
Speaker 2: I know that, I know it's going to happen.
4:19
Speaker 8: First, straight out to Steve Fisher joining us along with
4:21
Speaker 8: Alexis Teschuk, missing person's private investigator, search and rescue specialist,
4:26
Speaker 8: owner of Search Investigations at search Investigations dot org.
4:30
Speaker 2: Steve, you told me this. I didn't want to hear it.
4:35
Speaker 1: I couldn't confirm it, tell me the whole thing.
4:39
Speaker 4: So when the family first made a public plea, I
4:43
Speaker 4: simply showed up as a volunteer.
4:45
Speaker 7: And after about a day and a.
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Speaker 4: Half searching, I realized that this was a voluntary missing case,
4:53
Speaker 4: and I announced on Twitter that I was dropping out
4:55
Speaker 4: of it because of that, And that's when I started
4:58
Speaker 4: getting calls from people, some people in Hawaii and some
5:03
Speaker 4: other people close to the situation. It was from there
5:07
Speaker 4: that I reached out to some people because her her
5:12
Speaker 4: bucket list handwritten bucket list didn't make much sense. I
5:16
Speaker 4: found out that photography job was not a real photography job.
5:20
Speaker 2: And also wait wait wait, wait, back get up.
5:26
Speaker 1: So the bucket list we heard about since day one
5:30
Speaker 1: was not a bucket list.
5:31
Speaker 2: It was a BS list.
5:33
Speaker 7: Yes, yes, in fact, if you look on it as.
5:36
Speaker 2: A bucket list, I'm just curious.
5:38
Speaker 4: Well, supposedly her dream job as a photographer, but she
5:40
Speaker 4: was shooting a gig in New York. But we were
5:43
Speaker 4: able to find out pretty easily that all she did
5:45
Speaker 4: was request a press pass for a music event and
5:50
Speaker 4: she was granted one, but not a paid job. And
5:54
Speaker 4: also on that list, if you look at that list
5:56
Speaker 4: in handwritten, it says photos with Alan at the music
6:00
Speaker 4: Bondernard and photos with Alan a Central Park. So I
6:04
Speaker 4: think that what they were doing is they were setting
6:05
Speaker 4: up these you know, this thing looked like more like
6:09
Speaker 4: a marriage something they go to in front of immigration.
6:12
Speaker 7: You know, they can prove it up.
6:13
Speaker 1: The La Airport, lax is over five acres big.
6:19
Speaker 2: The entire place was scoured, scoured trying to find her.
6:24
Speaker 1: But this when I heard this from Chief Jim McDonald
6:28
Speaker 1: is when I realized this girl had not been kidnapped
6:33
Speaker 1: and was not being mind controlled.
6:35
Speaker 9: Well, she did check her bag through to New York.
6:37
Speaker 9: She requested her bag be sent to her at LAX,
6:40
Speaker 9: where we have surveillance footage of her retrieving it from
6:43
Speaker 9: the baggage carousel on November eleventh. LAPD Missing Persons Unit
6:48
Speaker 9: has conducted extensive witness interviews, reviewed video surveillance, and collaborated
6:53
Speaker 9: with local and federal law enforcement agencies on this case.
6:57
Speaker 1: Not from our forensic KIV she could maneuver retrieving her.
7:02
Speaker 2: Bag that was already in the LAX.
7:04
Speaker 1: Air system, getting it back from JFK to LAX finding it.
7:09
Speaker 2: Have you ever tried to find a lost bag?
7:11
Speaker 1: I have.
7:12
Speaker 2: It's not easy.
7:13
Speaker 1: IRV Brandt joining me former Senior Inspector US Marshall Service
7:17
Speaker 1: International Investigations Branch.
7:18
Speaker 2: He's the author of a.
7:19
Speaker 1: Series of Jack's Solo mysteries online. Gee, I wonder who
7:24
Speaker 1: that's patterned after all the Jack solos on Amazon. But
7:28
Speaker 1: but catch this country atte with the US Embassy in
7:33
Speaker 1: multiple spots, He's.
7:35
Speaker 2: Traveled the world tracking down criminals.
7:39
Speaker 1: IRV Brant, what can you tell me about the green
7:42
Speaker 1: card marriage scam, Nancy.
7:45
Speaker 10: It's very common around the world. I worked extensively with
7:48
Speaker 10: the State Department, the Diplomatic Security Service, who had primary
7:54
Speaker 10: jurisdiction over visa fraud, and when someone is perpetrating the
8:00
Speaker 10: outside of the country, that's who investigates it. And it's
8:05
Speaker 10: very common for US citizens to get involved with people
8:11
Speaker 10: in other countries trying to obtain it's a K one visa.
8:17
Speaker 10: K one is for the fiancee visa that that person
8:22
Speaker 10: would be able to travel into the United States. And
8:26
Speaker 10: sometimes people are duped scammed into doing this, men and
8:32
Speaker 10: women unknowingly, they think it's real, they think it's love,
8:37
Speaker 10: and really what they're doing is they're being duped so
8:40
Speaker 10: these people can get into the United States and often
8:43
Speaker 10: tripped in des sending money and people lose their life savings.
8:50
Speaker 10: I've been at embassies where women have showed up claiming
8:56
Speaker 10: that their husband or their fiance is missing, and the
9:01
Speaker 10: State Department told him, no, your fiance isn't real. You've
9:06
Speaker 10: been tricked. This person has been under investigation for visa
9:13
Speaker 10: scams for years and has been doing this to multiple
9:19
Speaker 10: women inside the United States, and it appears that miss
9:25
Speaker 10: Kobayashi has been involved in a scam.
9:31
Speaker 2: So I'm confused right now. Either she is part of
9:34
Speaker 2: the scam.
9:34
Speaker 1: She has to know that the guy she's marrying, and
9:39
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the photo right now, they're wearing Hawaiian
9:42
Speaker 1: lays there on top of a hilltop. She doesn't know him.
9:46
Speaker 1: She has a boyfriend, they just broke up. She has
9:49
Speaker 1: to know she's taking part in a scam.
9:52
Speaker 10: I agree, Nancy, I agree.
9:55
Speaker 2: How are you suggesting she's a victim.
9:57
Speaker 10: No, I'm not suggesting that she's a victim. I'm saying
10:00
Speaker 10: that people have become victims of this and have been
10:04
Speaker 10: drawn in annoyingly. I'm not saying that missus Kobyashi is
10:08
Speaker 10: one of those. I was just saying it in a
10:11
Speaker 10: broader sense.
10:12
Speaker 7: Now.
10:12
Speaker 10: Having said that, it appears that she's a willing participant,
10:17
Speaker 10: But I find it hard to believe that she's the
10:20
Speaker 10: mastermind of such a complex scam. I believe that.
10:24
Speaker 1: She's because because she's a woman, she can't be a mastermind.
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Speaker 10: No, Nancy, I don't think the flower from Hawaii is
10:36
Speaker 10: an evil genius.
10:37
Speaker 2: To stave Fisher joining us.
10:39
Speaker 1: Let me remind everybody green card marriage scams is still
10:43
Speaker 1: a crime. It's an immigration crime. There is imprisonment, five
10:48
Speaker 1: years imprisonment, quarter of a million dollar fine, and or both.
10:54
Speaker 2: It's still a crime.
10:55
Speaker 1: So Steve Fisher, I find it really hard to believe that.
11:00
Speaker 2: She had no idea what she was doing.
11:02
Speaker 1: Now, she did refer in one of her crazy sounding
11:06
Speaker 1: texts that she was cleaned out of her money by
11:10
Speaker 1: someone she thought she loved.
11:12
Speaker 2: Okay, she is.
11:13
Speaker 1: Can't possibly be in love with this Argentinian who has
11:17
Speaker 1: a girlfriend on the plane, So I guess she's talking
11:21
Speaker 1: about her boyfriend. But if she's committing a crime, if
11:25
Speaker 1: she's committing a crime, I am not crying for her
11:29
Speaker 1: that her ill gotten gains were stolen by another criminal.
11:34
Speaker 4: No oneer among the thieves, right, I'd listen. I think
11:37
Speaker 4: she is fully aware. She was fully aware. And you
11:41
Speaker 4: knowle Hawaii is a perfect place to do this because
11:45
Speaker 4: it's the only state I know of that marriage records
11:47
Speaker 4: are not a public record.
11:48
Speaker 7: I'm not subject to public record.
11:50
Speaker 4: So this is why it took a long time to
11:53
Speaker 4: actually confirm this is because you can't get the marriage
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Speaker 4: stificates there.
11:56
Speaker 1: When I think of her father desolate searching for his
12:02
Speaker 1: daughter to the point he commits suicide near lax flinging
12:09
Speaker 1: himself off the top floor of a parking deck. What
12:14
Speaker 1: I think of the thousands of man hours and tens
12:17
Speaker 1: of thousands of dollars our government and law enforcement have
12:22
Speaker 1: dedicated in defining the so called Hawaiian beauty.
12:27
Speaker 2: I mean, listen from our friends kV.
12:30
Speaker 11: We understand that there are concerns on behalf of family
12:33
Speaker 11: and friends. We've been very transparent with the family to
12:36
Speaker 11: this point. We've had daily communication and contact with the
12:40
Speaker 11: family members, and we've given all the information that we
12:43
Speaker 11: can provide in terms of what our investigation has entailed,
12:48
Speaker 11: what the efforts have been on behalf of the LAPD
12:50
Speaker 11: and other partner law enforcement agencies. We've put a lot
12:55
Speaker 11: of resources into this investigation.
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Speaker 2: From our friends kV.
13:06
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace out to Steve Fisher who
13:13
Speaker 1: actually helped try to find Hanna Kobyashi at Search Investigations
13:18
Speaker 1: dot Org who put out that false narrative about the
13:22
Speaker 1: bucket list and the photography gives.
13:27
Speaker 4: It's important to remember that there were people closer to
13:30
Speaker 4: her that were fully aware of what was going on,
13:33
Speaker 4: but they kept the search going. They called for searchers
13:38
Speaker 4: to come volunteer. They raised fifty thousand dollars and still
13:43
Speaker 4: have a go fund me open. So in my mind,
13:48
Speaker 4: my opinion, this extends beyond just the initial green card scam.
13:53
Speaker 4: Now now the public is still being it's still donating
13:58
Speaker 4: funds and reporting this, and it's just not fair in
14:02
Speaker 4: my opinion.
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Speaker 2: You mean they're still getting money for the gofund.
14:05
Speaker 4: Me now, they said that now they had a lot
14:09
Speaker 4: of legal fees, and in fact, yesterday even though they've
14:12
Speaker 4: raised fifty thousand dollars and they haven't paid or reimbursed
14:14
Speaker 4: any of the volunteers for their expenses. Now they're saying, well,
14:17
Speaker 4: now we're gonna have international private investigators and lawyers involves
14:23
Speaker 4: they need even more money.
14:24
Speaker 1: Joining me now, high profile lawyer joining us out of
14:27
Speaker 1: Palm Beach, partner at King Morse and author of the
14:31
Speaker 1: untested on Amazon, Gregory Morse joining us. Gregory. You and
14:37
Speaker 1: I argued vehemently when we covered this last because you
14:43
Speaker 1: say that Hanna Kobyashi, the so called Hawaiian beauty, should
14:47
Speaker 1: be prosecuted, and I said no way, that she had
14:50
Speaker 1: a right to leave on her own, and that unlike
14:54
Speaker 1: several other high profile scammers. She had not lied. Well,
15:00
Speaker 1: guess what, I'm eating a dirt sandwich. You're right, and
15:04
Speaker 1: I was wrong. I believed that she was in a
15:07
Speaker 1: fragile mental state. I was actually worried about her.
15:11
Speaker 12: And that's unfortunate because of the great work you do, Nancy.
15:15
Speaker 12: You try to find these folks and you've been duped,
15:18
Speaker 12: and every volunteer has been duped. And you know, these
15:22
Speaker 12: marriage scams, as IRV pointed out, are very common. There's
15:25
Speaker 12: an outgrowth to these scams though also that happened. It's
15:29
Speaker 12: usually when the woman is the immigrant that marries an
15:32
Speaker 12: American man. You have to be married for two years
15:35
Speaker 12: under immigration law for that process to take hold. And
15:38
Speaker 12: then if there's a divorce or something happens. At King Morris,
15:43
Speaker 12: we've represented many, many male immigrants who are then accused
15:47
Speaker 12: of domestic violence or sexual assault because they want to
15:51
Speaker 12: get divorced within two years. It's called a U visa
15:54
Speaker 12: under our system. I have successfully represented many people and
15:58
Speaker 12: that is an outgrowth of this marriage scam that is
16:00
Speaker 12: both common in America, especially in South Florida. But this
16:05
Speaker 12: is getting worse and worse. For this lady, she's the
16:08
Speaker 12: lady she's thirty years old. It looks like she doesn't work,
16:11
Speaker 12: so she's floundering in life, and she's set in a
16:15
Speaker 12: domino in motion that led to her father's death.
16:18
Speaker 1: Yes, I think that she can be prosecuted because if
16:21
Speaker 1: that marriage is a scam.
16:23
Speaker 2: That is a lie.
16:24
Speaker 1: You have to write on your marriage certificate, certain information,
16:29
Speaker 1: you have to write on green card applications, certain information.
16:35
Speaker 1: The wife, the fake wife, her husband is part of
16:39
Speaker 1: that process. So much like a police report, when you
16:43
Speaker 1: give a police officer information and it goes into a
16:46
Speaker 1: police report that's actually sworn, that is in a sense perjury.
16:53
Speaker 1: It's definitely a false statement to police. But you're talking
16:56
Speaker 1: about the Michelle Carter case in which a very young
16:59
Speaker 1: and sensitive boyfriend of hers, Conrad Roy, committed suicide.
17:05
Speaker 2: This does not begin to approach.
17:06
Speaker 1: That as it relates to Anna Kurioshity's father's suicide. No,
17:12
Speaker 1: it doesn't, because in that case Michelle Carter and I
17:15
Speaker 1: personally investigated the Michelle Carter case and advocated strongly for
17:22
Speaker 1: her prosecution. I have read hundreds of her texts.
17:25
Speaker 2: To Conrad Roy.
17:26
Speaker 1: She advised him to commit suicide. She told him how
17:30
Speaker 1: to commit suicide by inhaling carbon monoxide. She told him
17:35
Speaker 1: how to restart the generator to make the carbon monoxide
17:41
Speaker 1: continue to seep into his car. He tried to back out,
17:45
Speaker 1: She made him get back in there and commit suicide.
17:48
Speaker 1: It was devastating. It was sickening to even read her text.
17:54
Speaker 1: We don't have any information like that here as a
17:57
Speaker 1: matter of fact. Correct me if I'm wrong, Steve Fisher,
18:01
Speaker 1: that Hannah Kobeyoshi was already at her Mexican condo, Heidi Hole,
18:06
Speaker 1: when her father committed suicide. She had issued, gotten rid of,
18:11
Speaker 1: abandoned her cell phone that we know of, and was
18:14
Speaker 1: not in touch with anyone, much less her estranged father.
18:18
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think she's there, for she got there on
18:20
Speaker 4: the twelfth, so I think it was ten days or
18:21
Speaker 4: more that she had already been there. But you know,
18:25
Speaker 4: to go back to your point about that, the sworn
18:27
Speaker 4: statement on a police report and stuff. You know, cum
18:30
Speaker 4: and her mom and her sister filed this missing person's report.
18:33
Speaker 1: So the family is allowing the search to continue. We
18:38
Speaker 1: think we don't have the timeline down totally yet. Police
18:41
Speaker 1: have not confirmed this as a scam yet. But you're
18:46
Speaker 1: telling me certain relatives knew of the green card marriage
18:50
Speaker 1: scam allegations and allowed the search to go on, allowed
18:55
Speaker 1: volunteers and police to search for Hannah when they they
19:01
Speaker 1: knew about the scam.
19:03
Speaker 4: Yes, and this is why at the very beginning, three
19:06
Speaker 4: or four days before her father took her his life,
19:09
Speaker 4: when I was involved in the search, I publicly announced
19:12
Speaker 4: I was just dropping out of it because this was
19:14
Speaker 4: clearly not an abduction, which we were told by the family.
19:19
Speaker 7: It was an abduction.
19:20
Speaker 4: She was being drugged by this African American male and
19:23
Speaker 4: was being manipulated, and she was.
19:26
Speaker 2: Well way blame the black man.
19:29
Speaker 1: Did you just who blamed the African American mail?
19:34
Speaker 2: Who did that?
19:35
Speaker 7: What?
19:35
Speaker 8: Susan Smith?
19:36
Speaker 2: She got out and did it again?
19:38
Speaker 1: What?
19:38
Speaker 7: Right? And And that's really upset me. And that is
19:42
Speaker 7: why I dropped out.
19:42
Speaker 4: And and now there are you know, I put out
19:47
Speaker 4: yesterday that they had they had an organization they were
19:50
Speaker 4: working with that was advising them in the search or whatever.
19:54
Speaker 1: All of these are allegations as of right now, but
20:00
Speaker 1: if they are true, the criminality is growing exponentially. Remember
20:07
Speaker 1: how we were all so worried and the family thoughts
20:09
Speaker 1: that she was under quote mind control because of her
20:13
Speaker 1: unusual texts.
20:15
Speaker 3: Hannah Kobyashi's family is concerned about odd text messages from
20:19
Speaker 3: Hannah because the messages don't sound like her. The messages
20:22
Speaker 3: used terms like hun and babe. The messages also don't
20:26
Speaker 3: include any emojis, something everyone knows to expect from a
20:30
Speaker 3: text message coming from Hannah Kobyashi.
20:32
Speaker 5: Kobyashi sends messages to a friend saying she doesn't feel
20:35
Speaker 5: safe and someone's trying to steal her identity and monity.
20:38
Speaker 5: Deeve hackers wiped my identity, stole all of my funds
20:41
Speaker 5: and had me on a mind f sends Friday. I
20:44
Speaker 5: got tricked pretty much into giving away all my funds,
20:47
Speaker 5: followed by for someone I thought I loved. Hannah Kobyashi
20:52
Speaker 5: is not replying to messages from family and friends. The
20:55
Speaker 5: family of Hannah Kobyashi reports her missing.
21:00
Speaker 7: On November fifteenth.
21:01
Speaker 9: Our Missing Persons Unit assumed investigative responsibility. Detectives have been
21:06
Speaker 9: diligently reviewing video surveillance and employing various investigative techniques to
21:10
Speaker 9: locate Hannah, while her family has continued their personal search efforts. Tragically,
21:15
Speaker 9: on November twenty fourth, during the search for his daughter,
21:18
Speaker 9: Hannah's father, Ryan Kobayashi was found deceased. Preliminary findings indicate
21:23
Speaker 9: his death was by suicide.
21:25
Speaker 7: Our hearts go out to the.
21:26
Speaker 9: Kobayashi family during this unimaginable time of grief. We remained
21:30
Speaker 9: fully committed to locating Hannah and supporting the family as
21:34
Speaker 9: they navigate their way through this tragedy.
21:36
Speaker 2: Her father is dead.
21:38
Speaker 1: Her father, after an exhaustive search for his daughter, took
21:43
Speaker 1: his own life. To Steve Fisher joining us from Searchinvestigations
21:49
Speaker 1: dot Org. We just heard Chief Jim McDonald's speaking and
21:54
Speaker 1: he says that the family is quote continuing their personal
21:59
Speaker 1: search effort. What search efforts did the family execute.
22:06
Speaker 4: Well, they were very controlled search efforts, the ones that
22:08
Speaker 4: were under them. You know, they did not like the
22:11
Speaker 4: fact that I dropped out and was doing my own
22:14
Speaker 4: search and sage fight was going on. And also when
22:18
Speaker 4: this statement came out from the chief of police at
22:20
Speaker 4: the LAPD, they absolutely trashed him because he got her
22:24
Speaker 4: age wrong and they said that LAPD wasn't doing anything,
22:27
Speaker 4: they weren't doing enough, and they demanded all these you know, answers,
22:32
Speaker 4: and at the same time, we're asking for more money
22:34
Speaker 4: from the public to ramp up their private search efforts.
22:38
Speaker 7: The whole thing. It was just like feeding on itself.
22:41
Speaker 1: And who took that photo of the wedding.
22:44
Speaker 4: I don't know, but the photo came from her sister, Sidney,
22:47
Speaker 4: who's been the point person for the media. It came
22:51
Speaker 4: from her and was sent into a group text of
22:54
Speaker 4: some of their core.
22:57
Speaker 7: PR people. You know in miss situation.
23:01
Speaker 1: Okay, Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first
23:04
Speaker 1: we practice to deceive. Karen start joining me, renowned TV
23:09
Speaker 1: radio trauma expert psychologist at karenstk dot COM's Karen with
23:14
Speaker 1: a C. If you're looking for her online, Karen, what
23:18
Speaker 1: a mess. It's like a bunch of wet cats and
23:20
Speaker 1: a barrel.
23:22
Speaker 13: It's so hard to make sense of it, Nancy, and
23:25
Speaker 13: I'm sure I am not the only one, but the
23:28
Speaker 13: entire public is thinking what's going on and feeling manipulated
23:33
Speaker 13: something of course, you know, is terribly wrong here. If
23:37
Speaker 13: the family was complicit in all of this, then it's
23:41
Speaker 13: an even larger scan because they're wanting additional money, if
23:47
Speaker 13: not just the money that she got for the green cart.
23:50
Speaker 13: What's hard to understand is were they really worried about
23:53
Speaker 13: her after she did this scan? And her money was
23:58
Speaker 13: taken from her. Yeah, were they concerned that she was
24:02
Speaker 13: involved in something bigger than it seemed like she was,
24:06
Speaker 13: or was this whole thing something that they thought they
24:09
Speaker 13: could get away with and pull the woe of the
24:12
Speaker 13: public side. It's so difficult to understand and terribly deceptive, horrible,
24:20
Speaker 13: just horrible.
24:22
Speaker 1: Voluntarily dropping off the map is not a crime. False
24:28
Speaker 1: fake green cars, married scams is a crime, leading police
24:35
Speaker 1: and volunteers on a wild goose chase for days and
24:38
Speaker 1: days and days. Joining me now founding member of the
24:42
Speaker 1: FBI Cellular Analysis Team, Scott Iiker, twenty two years with
24:51
Speaker 1: the FBI. Scott, If the state wants to prove this case,
24:57
Speaker 1: if they want her back, and we do have a
24:59
Speaker 1: tree with Mexico, if we want her back, if we
25:04
Speaker 1: want restitution, what kind of trail has she left behind?
25:09
Speaker 2: There is no way this woman.
25:11
Speaker 1: She may have gotten rid of her old cell phone,
25:14
Speaker 1: but that's easily remedied.
25:15
Speaker 14: Well, I think there's other ways you can track people.
25:18
Speaker 14: We do have good relations with a lot of the
25:20
Speaker 14: Mexican authorities. We don't have in the FBI authority to
25:24
Speaker 14: do much in Mexico, but we have good relations with
25:27
Speaker 14: them to an extent that we have gotten fugitive's back
25:31
Speaker 14: from Mexico on numerous occasions, especially on serious crimes. You
25:37
Speaker 14: can track that information. You can track them down. She
25:40
Speaker 14: was going out of her apartment down in Mexico and
25:43
Speaker 14: getting a lunch or something like that, so we know
25:46
Speaker 14: where she is and getting her back shouldn't be too hard.
25:49
Speaker 1: According to the La magazine, Kabyashi was apparently scanned out
25:53
Speaker 1: of the proceeds of a purported immigration scheme, possibly concocted
26:00
Speaker 1: by her quote former partner an ex boyfriend, the one
26:05
Speaker 1: she was on the first leg of her trip with
26:07
Speaker 1: right before she disappeared, So it's not just her that's
26:12
Speaker 1: part of this scam.
26:13
Speaker 3: According to reports, Hannah Kobyashi's family is concerned about odd
26:19
Speaker 3: text messages from Hannah because the messages don't sound like her.
26:23
Speaker 3: The messages used terms like hun and babe. The messages
26:26
Speaker 3: also don't include any emojis, something everyone knows to expect
26:30
Speaker 3: from a text message coming from Hannah Kobyashi.
26:33
Speaker 5: Kobyashi sends messages to a friend saying she doesn't feel
26:36
Speaker 5: safe and someone's trying to steal her identity and monity.
26:39
Speaker 5: Deep hackers wiped my identity, stole all of my funds
26:42
Speaker 5: and had me on a mind f sends Friday. I
26:45
Speaker 5: got tricked pretty much into giving away all my funds,
26:49
Speaker 5: followed by for someone I thought I loved.
26:52
Speaker 1: To Alexis Tereshchuk joining US investigative reporter Crime online dot com.
26:56
Speaker 2: What else have you learned? I'm almost afraid to ask.
26:59
Speaker 2: We have been on quite the wild goose chase.
27:02
Speaker 6: So we learned that when she went to Mexico was
27:06
Speaker 6: November twelve. Her family has been has not said a
27:10
Speaker 6: word about this for almost an entire month now. So
27:14
Speaker 6: we have learned that she's apparently married, and that her
27:19
Speaker 6: ex boyfriend, who has spoken to police. They have said
27:23
Speaker 6: that they have spoken to this ex boyfriend. He's not
27:26
Speaker 6: involved in anything with her. That is what they said
27:28
Speaker 6: from the very beginning, and the family has said he
27:31
Speaker 6: has nothing to do with this. That was the story
27:33
Speaker 6: in the beginning. But the thing that's important is when
27:36
Speaker 6: she says this is I've been tricked. This is some
27:39
Speaker 6: matrix style stuff. She left the plane. She didn't stay
27:43
Speaker 6: with the new husband, she didn't stay with the boyfriend,
27:45
Speaker 6: she didn't stay with the boyfriend's wife. She left that
27:48
Speaker 6: plane and left immediately, and then she went to very
27:51
Speaker 6: fancy places. As we talked about the girl was a
27:53
Speaker 6: really nice mall. It's probably the nicest one in town.
27:55
Speaker 6: She went to, you know, downtown, and then she managed
27:59
Speaker 6: to have enough cash. She said, you know, all my
28:01
Speaker 6: funds were taken, but she had enough cash to go
28:04
Speaker 6: to the bus station, buy the bus ticket and spend
28:07
Speaker 6: the money through her Venmo of using tarrat cards. And
28:10
Speaker 6: you know what else, speaking of her venmo, people are
28:13
Speaker 6: now sending complete strangers or sending her money on their
28:16
Speaker 6: on her venmo and are saying, hey, have it the
28:18
Speaker 6: time in Mexico, have a Margerita on us. I hope
28:21
Speaker 6: you're enjoying your life. Totally supporting her through all of
28:23
Speaker 6: this complete strangers.
28:24
Speaker 1: Then Steve Fisher and to Karen Stark, first to Stave,
28:28
Speaker 1: then to Karen, what about all the fake texts about
28:31
Speaker 1: deep hackers have stolen my identity and all my money?
28:35
Speaker 2: Those are lies?
28:37
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're so out there that actually that's kind of
28:40
Speaker 4: what makes you start digging in and going, what's really
28:42
Speaker 4: going on here? You know, because the story her story
28:47
Speaker 4: wasn't lining up, the families couldn't keep their stories lined up,
28:51
Speaker 4: and then, of course, when the father took his life,
28:54
Speaker 4: and that is when I decided to get back involved,
28:56
Speaker 4: because I knew there was something really wrong here.
28:59
Speaker 1: Did Hanna Kobyashi secretly married just for money? This after
29:05
Speaker 1: her mom allegedly finds documents connected to her daughter's marriage
29:09
Speaker 1: to an Argentinian national just before, coincidentally, her bizarre disappearance
29:15
Speaker 1: within LAX. Her family reportedly now cooperating with investigators. But hey,
29:22
Speaker 1: where's all that money sent by set through go fund
29:26
Speaker 1: me to Karen start joining me? Renow in psychologists joining
29:30
Speaker 1: us out of Manhattan? What about the fake texts?
29:33
Speaker 2: I mean, why.
29:34
Speaker 1: Bother to go to that extreme to send fake text
29:38
Speaker 1: about deep hackers stealing your identity and all your money?
29:42
Speaker 1: And I mean that was clearly intended to mislead.
29:47
Speaker 13: All of us feel had been taken advantage of by this.
29:51
Speaker 13: It's just terrible. She is capable of anything. Look, she's
29:55
Speaker 13: in Mexico. I don't even know if she knows that
29:58
Speaker 13: her father is dead. But he was not really part
30:02
Speaker 13: of the family. According to the things that I read,
30:04
Speaker 13: she didn't have a relationship with him. And now I'm
30:07
Speaker 13: thinking maybe he got a hold of this, Maybe he
30:10
Speaker 13: was aware in the end of what happened, and he
30:12
Speaker 13: couldn't live with the knowledge that this whole scam was
30:15
Speaker 13: going on while he was out there searching for his daughter.
30:20
Speaker 13: The whole thing is so horrible, and think about it,
30:24
Speaker 13: we're all like perplexed. What could have happened?
30:28
Speaker 1: Well to Steve Iiker, a former FBI founding member of
30:32
Speaker 1: the FBI Cellular Analysis Survey Team, the FBI has now
30:36
Speaker 1: been pulled into this once the alleged green card marriage
30:42
Speaker 1: scam has been revealed. Why is the FBI part of it,
30:46
Speaker 1: Scott Iiker, and what does that mean? I can guarantee
30:49
Speaker 1: you this The last thing you want is the FBI
30:52
Speaker 1: searching through your emails and texts.
30:55
Speaker 14: I totally agree. I mean we often helped local law
30:58
Speaker 14: enforcement and many ways. I was part of a safe
31:02
Speaker 14: Streets test where I even had cases where you know,
31:05
Speaker 14: I was out tracking phones of a kidnapped victim that
31:09
Speaker 14: turned out to be riding a bus by herself and
31:11
Speaker 14: faking the kidnapping. So I understand this type situation, and
31:15
Speaker 14: FBI can get into these as long as it's requested
31:19
Speaker 14: by the host agency, the local law enforcement, or there's
31:24
Speaker 14: a federal crime. And obviously did we have run into
31:27
Speaker 14: the federal crime part with a visa fraud and stuff
31:30
Speaker 14: like that. So good luck to this family they were
31:34
Speaker 14: hiding the information and her because I think things are coming.
31:39
Speaker 1: Down on all of you know, if it was just
31:40
Speaker 1: the local authorities, they may not want to spend their
31:42
Speaker 1: money tracking her down, but the Feds are not going to.
31:44
Speaker 2: Take this lightly.
31:52
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Gray straight out to Steve Fisher,
31:59
Speaker 1: who take part in the search for Hanna Kobayashi. So
32:02
Speaker 1: where do you think she is in Mexico? I know
32:05
Speaker 1: that you know, okay, whether you'll answer and tell me
32:09
Speaker 1: the truth, I don't know that.
32:11
Speaker 2: Where do you think she is?
32:12
Speaker 4: Rosarito Vich area, in a certain area down there that's
32:15
Speaker 4: popular with expats, and now they might have moved her.
32:19
Speaker 7: She might have moved in the last couple of days,
32:21
Speaker 7: you know for sure, but that's where she was.
32:25
Speaker 4: One thing I just wanted to say about the family
32:27
Speaker 4: part of it, about them revealing this to authorities and
32:33
Speaker 4: through what I've investigated, and I'm pretty sure I'm right,
32:36
Speaker 4: But only the FBI and LAPD can we'll be able
32:38
Speaker 4: to confirm this. This is not something that they gave
32:41
Speaker 4: up a while ago. When she went missing. What happened
32:43
Speaker 4: was when I first discovered that she got on that
32:46
Speaker 4: Greyhound bus and I announced it as she's done in Mexico.
32:49
Speaker 7: They hired that attorney and then I found out that
32:52
Speaker 7: the green cart thing.
32:53
Speaker 4: From what I understand, they just went to the FBI
32:56
Speaker 4: and authorities like yesterday or May before yesterday. This is
33:00
Speaker 4: so it was once it was out there, then they said, oh,
33:03
Speaker 4: look what we found. This isn't something that they told
33:07
Speaker 4: LAPD about during the original part of the missing person's investigation.
33:11
Speaker 4: It was only once that it came out publicly.
33:14
Speaker 1: Back to you, Scott, Iiker joining us former FBI, and
33:17
Speaker 1: then I'll circle back to IRV Brandt, the local authorities
33:21
Speaker 1: at LAPD. They may not want to spend the funds
33:25
Speaker 1: to get Hanna Kobyashi back and prosecute her on lies,
33:30
Speaker 1: alleged lies for a fake green card marriage. They probably
33:34
Speaker 1: don't care. They got their hands and pockets full of
33:38
Speaker 1: crime to prosecute. But what about the FED. Scott, isn't
33:43
Speaker 1: this just like spitting.
33:44
Speaker 2: In their eye?
33:45
Speaker 14: It is? It is definitely, and I think they will
33:48
Speaker 14: take the time and spend the money to prosecute her
33:53
Speaker 14: and bring her back from Mexico. There's a lot of
33:55
Speaker 14: red tape bringing someone back from Mexico, but the fact
33:58
Speaker 14: that she's a US citizen there is a lot different
34:00
Speaker 14: than the Mexicansits that we're trying to bring back or
34:03
Speaker 14: extradite from another country. So I think it's spent such
34:09
Speaker 14: a media blitz. It's spends so much money and time
34:13
Speaker 14: and for the volunteers, for the police where they could
34:16
Speaker 14: be working other cases. And I'm sure the LAPD would
34:19
Speaker 14: love to have the FBI kind of take over, at
34:22
Speaker 14: least from this aspect of it and take it out
34:25
Speaker 14: of the hands. They got better things to do.
34:26
Speaker 1: Have you seen Rosarito Beach?
34:30
Speaker 2: It's beautiful. I didn't really know what it was. I'm
34:34
Speaker 2: looking at it right now.
34:36
Speaker 1: Horseback riding Rosarito Beach is and Proto Nuevo Lobster, what
34:42
Speaker 1: seafood roasts, Sunset, beautiful bistro, charming restaurants ATV horse riding
34:49
Speaker 1: on the beach, what.
34:52
Speaker 2: Sea Fisher? What the hey?
34:55
Speaker 1: Do you know how many people my staff, all of
35:00
Speaker 1: us here at Crime Online and Crime Stories, how many
35:04
Speaker 1: people we could have helped and the last what seventy
35:07
Speaker 1: two plus hours we've devoted ourselves trying to find her.
35:11
Speaker 1: How many people LAPD could have helped, how many people
35:14
Speaker 1: the FBI could have helped. But no, we're trying to
35:17
Speaker 1: find Hanna Kobayashi and her father commits suicide just and
35:23
Speaker 1: here she is at Rosarino Beach.
35:25
Speaker 4: And you know when I was at the call for volunteers,
35:28
Speaker 4: there were so many volunteers out there, and there's some
35:30
Speaker 4: people that took off work to do this, and they
35:33
Speaker 4: showed up day after day. They paid their own printing costs.
35:37
Speaker 4: The family made them pay their own printing costs for
35:39
Speaker 4: flyers and whatnot. You had Bali Police Department la PD,
35:47
Speaker 4: then you had lax PD involved the FBI, NYPD.
35:53
Speaker 7: It just goes on and on.
35:55
Speaker 4: So many resources in this and a lot of people
36:00
Speaker 4: you know, new and this went on for weeks.
36:04
Speaker 7: You know the started.
36:07
Speaker 2: I was so worried that she.
36:08
Speaker 1: Was stranded somewhere and couldn't speak the language, imagining her
36:12
Speaker 1: like Dorothy with her little suitcase leaving Kansas b s.
36:17
Speaker 1: This is totally Anglo Burger, King, Carl's Junior Home Depot, Walmart,
36:22
Speaker 1: Smart and Final, Domino, Subway, McDonald's, Applebee's. I am beside myself,
36:29
Speaker 1: Gregory Morse, what are the potential crime creation.
36:32
Speaker 12: Here where this seems like a really a conspiracy of
36:37
Speaker 12: two things. You have the immigration side offenses and the
36:41
Speaker 12: marriage that's false. You then have and I disagree with
36:45
Speaker 12: you again, We've seen this come up over the last
36:49
Speaker 12: several years, people doing this falsely.
36:51
Speaker 7: To dupe people.
36:53
Speaker 12: So they may have a fraud charge. They may definitely
36:55
Speaker 12: have civil theft charges at the very least, which could
36:58
Speaker 12: cause them a lot of money. We have a lot
37:00
Speaker 12: of lying false if they made any sworn statements and anything,
37:04
Speaker 12: could come back on perjury. But I don't think there
37:06
Speaker 12: were any official proceedings yet going on in any of
37:09
Speaker 12: this stuff. So we have the whole family that it
37:12
Speaker 12: sounds like from the great folks you have on your
37:14
Speaker 12: show with all their information. So you know, this is
37:18
Speaker 12: really a tragic because you're right, the time that was
37:21
Speaker 12: taken away from finding real people that are victims or
37:26
Speaker 12: are missing, and law enforcements wasted their time looking for
37:31
Speaker 12: someone who wasn't missing.
37:32
Speaker 1: You know what, Greg Morris, You know what, every day,
37:36
Speaker 1: every night, me and everybody working at crime stores and
37:41
Speaker 1: crime online, we have so many missing people and so
37:44
Speaker 1: many crime victims. We can't publicize all of them were
37:50
Speaker 1: It's like drink from the fire hydrant. And we tried
37:55
Speaker 1: to help this family find her. Now that's just us.
37:59
Speaker 1: What about the LAPD? What about all the law enforcement?
38:04
Speaker 1: You know, how you dig into a case and you
38:06
Speaker 1: spend morning, noon and night you think about it.
38:08
Speaker 2: I even dreamed about this case.
38:10
Speaker 1: I literally I didn't just dream that at just a
38:13
Speaker 1: few moments ago.
38:14
Speaker 2: I actually dream about this.
38:15
Speaker 1: Woman there in Mexico walking away with nothing but a suitcase,
38:21
Speaker 1: and like, what is going to happen to her?
38:24
Speaker 2: In crime writ in.
38:25
Speaker 1: Mexico, be as Fisher she snugged up in some condo,
38:30
Speaker 1: and if she lost all her money, how is she
38:32
Speaker 1: supporting herself?
38:34
Speaker 7: Yeah, a good question.
38:36
Speaker 4: I don't know unless they're you know, she knows somebody
38:39
Speaker 4: down there and that's why she picked that area or
38:42
Speaker 4: the first that upsets me, actually the most of this
38:44
Speaker 4: whole case is that day after day we kept hearing
38:48
Speaker 4: about this black man that had her and was drugging her,
38:53
Speaker 4: and it was Yeah, that's the part that bugs me
38:57
Speaker 4: the most. You know, they really tried to drag this
39:00
Speaker 4: and they knew that that was not true.
39:02
Speaker 1: Well, I can tell you the last thing anybody needs,
39:06
Speaker 1: is the FBI three inches up their tailpipe? Okay, Normally
39:11
Speaker 1: I don't think that the FEDS would chase down this
39:15
Speaker 1: woman to Mexico, But now that it has become such
39:20
Speaker 1: a circus and so publicized, they can't really look.
39:24
Speaker 2: Away from it. They know about it.
39:27
Speaker 1: We're waiting as justice unfolds, and not just for Hannah Kobyashi.
39:32
Speaker 1: The allegations that her family is receiving gofund me money
39:36
Speaker 1: or somehow part of this.
39:38
Speaker 2: We don't know that.
39:40
Speaker 1: We don't know if they were legitimately trying to find
39:42
Speaker 1: her and then discovered upon the truth.
39:45
Speaker 2: We know the mom did.
39:47
Speaker 1: Cooperate and hand over the information immediately, we don't know
39:51
Speaker 1: the timeline.
39:52
Speaker 2: We don't know any of it.
39:54
Speaker 1: Did she lead her own family on a wild goose chase?
39:58
Speaker 2: We don't know that. Are they victims too?
40:01
Speaker 1: We wait as it all becomes clear, and it will
40:06
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace signing off, goodbye friend, doctor