Child recovery is a highly sensitive and dangerous investigative field, especially when recovery occurs on international soil. These cases typically evolve from heart-wrenching circumstances where one parent has basically stolen his or her child (children) from the other parent.

Generally, child recovery cases arise from a divorce settlement wherein one parent is not satisfied with the court ordered custody arrangement or simply does not wish to continue residing in the same location as the other parent. Unfortunately for these children, they become innocent victims of emotionally explosive situations.

Now, when these cases occur, they immediately become either a domestic or international crisis, and the recovery process for each if very, very different. 

The first goal is to determine where the child has been taken to, albeit whether the child or children has been removed from the United States or not. The direct result of that initial determination will characterize the strategy and applicable laws employed to safely and successfully recover the child or children

Violating court ordered custody arrangements in the United States is a crime. If a parent has relocated to a different state yet remained on American soil, the original custody order may or may not take precedence over the laws of the state where new residency has been established. Likewise, returning the child to the original state of jurisdiction will provide for that state’s laws to govern. 

Removing a child or children from the respective custodial state, if done so against a court custody order, will in all probability elevate that crime to the Federal level. If this occurs, filing Federal kidnapping charges will become an immediate necessity and then a recovery plan will be devised from there. 
 

For international cases, the rules change entirely.An international treaty known as the Hague Convention was created wherein member countries are supposed to honor a respective country's custody orders involving children. However, the reality is that gaining legal cooperation under the Hague Convention is a nightmare and almost always will require significant financial enticements. 

The most important issue to understand about international cases is that recovery investigators are subject to the laws of the respective foreign country. International operations are therefore extremely dangerous and require extra special, and careful, planning and preparation to ensure the safety of the involved child (or children) and the recovery investigators. 

In either situation, recovery of an absconded child (or children) requires a substantial financial commitment, careful planning and preparation, accurate intelligence gathering, and surveillance. Again, these case can be very complicated, are always dangerous, and usually emotionally explosive.

We here at SECO have the specialized expertise to handle these sensitive child recovery cases and our success rate over the past 15 years is 100 percent.