By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2024-12-12 20:45:55 | Updated at 2024-12-23 12:58:05
1 week ago
The family of Hannah Kobayashi is offering a refund to anyone who helped raise nearly $50,000 to bolster their search for the missing photographer after she was located safely in Mexico.
But, there’s a catch — requests for a refund must be made in the next few days.
“We are turning donations off, and any donor who would like a refund can submit a claim by December 18th, and it will be honored,” her sister, Sydni Kobayashi, wrote in an update to the fundraiser on Thursday.
The fundraiser garnered just over $47,000 in donations to help locate the missing 30-year-old. A separate GoFundMe was set up to pay for the funeral for her father, Ryan Kobayashi, 58, who died of an apparent suicide six days after she went missing.
“We are incredibly relieved and grateful that Hannah has been found safe. This past month has been an unimaginable ordeal for our family. We want to express our heartfelt thanks to everyone who supported us during this difficult time. Your kindness and concern have meant the world to us,” the update read.
Hannah Kobayashi was reported missing in Los Angeles on Nov. 11 after missing a connecting flight to New York City.
Before her disappearance, the Hawaii native had sent a flurry of bizarre text messages to friends and family talking about a “spiritual awakening” and being “tricked.”
She had also been seen accompanied by an unknown man hours before her last sighting and relatives speculated she had been kidnapped or even trafficked.
It was later revealed that she had voluntarily traveled to Mexico, prompting the FBI to investigate whether she had been wrapped up in a green card marriage scheme with an Argentine national.
According to a report, Hannah Kobayashi had plans to travel to the Big Apple with her green card husband, and another green card couple to create proof for immigration officials that their marriage was real.
She apparently was planning the trip with her ex, Amun Muniz-Miranda, his own green card wife, Marianne, and the Argentine national she had secretly married, Alan Cacace, to make their phony marriages seem more legitimate, according to the Daily Mail.
Instead of going through with the trip, she bought a ticket at a Los Angeles bus station on Nov. 12 and headed for the Mexican border.
The following day, she crossed into Tijuana around noon via the San Ysidro point of entry tunnel.
More than a month after she had vanished, her family announced Wednesday that Kobayashi was found and is safe.
“We are incredibly relieved and grateful that Hannah has been found safe,” the family of the 30-year-old from Hawaii said in an attorney-issued statement to local media.
“This past month has been an unimaginable ordeal for our family, and we kindly ask for privacy as we take the time to heal and process everything we have been through.”
