A mother and her three children have been mourning the disappearance of their beloved husband and father for three months. When in fact, Ryan Borgwardt is alive and well, Green Lake County (Wisconsin) police announced Friday. On August 12, the family of the 45-year-old American reported him missing after a kayaking trip on the lake in Green Lake. For eight weeks, authorities moved heaven and earth in the hope of finding Ryan, with the help of a host of volunteers. Search teams ended up discovering a kayak and a life jacket, then the missing person’s car.
The forty-year-old no longer gave any sign of life, the authorities concluded that he had drowned. In reality, the father had fled to Europe. On October 7, the investigation took an unexpected turn when the Green Lake County Sheriff’s Office discovered that Canadian police had run a name check on Ryan Borgwardt the day after he disappeared on August 13. “It was something we didn’t see coming,” said Mark Podoll, the sheriff. It was then in the laptop of the missing person that the authorities found damning elements, explains “People”.
They discovered that the American had been in contact with a woman based in Uzbekistan, that he had opened a new bank account, looked for a way to transfer funds to a foreign banking establishment and deleted everything on his computer. But the digital footprint remained. The investigation also revealed that the forty-year-old had acquired a new passport in May and left the original at home, before leaving for his famous kayak tour. A few months earlier, Ryan Borgwardt had taken out a $375,000 life insurance policy.
Authorities have stopped searching for the missing man in Wisconsin and believe he is hiding somewhere in Europe. “Ryan, if you are watching this: I ask you to contact us or your loved ones. We know that things can happen, but there is a family who wants to find their dad,” said the sheriff, moved. Mike Podoll wanted to greet the fugitive’s wife and children: “I can’t imagine what she is going through, what they are going through. They believed their father had drowned. Yesterday they learned that wasn’t the case.”
