A high school foreign exchange student was declared missing in Utah on Friday after his parents in China found a ransom note with the boy’s photo, police said.
Kai Zhuang, 17, who lives in Riverdale, Utah, 34 miles north of Salt Lake City, was last seen Thursday morning as he walked to school.
“The parents informed school officials that they received a photo of their child that appeared to indicate that he had been kidnapped and they demanded ransom,” Riverdale Police Chief Casey Warren said at a news conference.
The school contacted the police department regarding a possible kidnapping at approximately 8:30 p.m. on Thursday.
Zhuang’s host parents told police that they were unaware of the student’s disappearance, claiming that they had seen him the day before and heard him in the house around 3:30 a.m.
After Zhuang did not resurface Friday morning, an endangered missing person advisory was issued for the teen, describing him as a 5’9″- 5’10” Asian male, approximately 150 pounds, with black/brown eyes and a brown /Described as having black hair.
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According to KUTV, police officers initially suspected that Zhuang was “forcibly taken from her home and held against her will”.
However, Warren later clarified that “there is no evidence that she was forcefully taken from her Riverdale home.”
An Amber Alert was never sent for Zhuang’s disappearance because police had no identification as to who might have abducted the teen, what the motive was, or whether the abductors knew him, his family, or the host family.
Police provided few details, but added that they were working with the FBI, the U.S. Embassy in China, and Chinese authorities to help locate the missing teen, as “multiple investigative efforts” were already in place. Are.
“The information we have at this time is very limited; detectives and officers from other jurisdictions are assisting us,” Warren said. “We are working desperately around the clock to locate him and ensure he is safe.”
According to the FBI, 2,600 of the 5,800 missing Asian males in 2022 were between the ages of 0-17.