'The Snatchback:' Man Works to Bring Home Abducted Children
Nov. 12, 2010— -- From the tangled jungles of the Amazon to the cities of the Middle East, Gustavo Zamora crisscrosses the world, tracking and bringing home abducted American children after fierce custody battles go awry.
Zamora, a former Army ranger, now owns a private international security services company called Zamora & Associates based in Florida. With his own son at his side, Zamora specializes in what is sometimes called "the snatchback" -- re-abducting children who were taken out of the country by one parent without the other parent's consent. In one case, Zamora found a stolen child with his client's estranged boyfriend.
"I found the boyfriend living in Costa Rica under an assumed name," he said. "We followed him and videotaped him with the child in a mall."
Zamora said he has "snatched back" 55 children and all have been "clandestine, aggressive recoveries." He said that while he has never been arrested, he has gotten into some dangerous scrapes.
"I've been in situations where, yes, there's been people taking shots that people at random. And those kinds of things happen, but in 99 percent of these cases, that's not the case," he said.
"You don't want to get [caught] with a weapon, with a handgun, because that just will add...to the charges placed against you," Zamora said. "It's bad enough if you get caught in a recovery and they charge you with kidnapping. The last thing you want is a weapons charge."
Like a real-life James Bond, Zamora has a fondness for night-vision goggles and endures risky border crossings, all for large awards. Aside from reuniting families, something Zamora started doing for the thrill, his fees reach can upwards of $100,000 from clients who he said are usually "damaged people."
