Eye Spy podcast: Keith Schafferius reveals how he rescued abducted kids as mum killed by pirates

An Australian private investigator posed as a Hollywood movie producer to rescue two abducted children. But not everything went smoothly. LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

An Australian private investigator posed as a Hollywood movie producer to get into Yemen in a daring attempt to rescue two abducted children.

Keith Schafferius registered a business called Hollywood Capers, and carried cards and movie scripts in what was the most perilous sting of his career. The plan went awry and he was arrested, jailed and deported.

With the help of a senior royal in the UAE, he was able to get different documentation and Mr Schafferius went back a second time only to have his life threatened after discovering the hide-out where the children were being held.

“About 10 or 12 young men came out, they all had guns and knives and surrounded us … it was a very dangerous situation,” Mr Schafferius told the Eye Spy podcast. The mission took a tragic turn when the children’s mother was believed murdered attempting yet another rescue through pirate-infested waters against Mr Schafferius’s advice.

Keith Schafferius is Australia’s longest licensed private eye, specialising in international child rescues. Picture: Brad Fleet

“She tried to go back without me with a British ex commando guy. When they were crossing the Red Sea they disappeared and have never been seen or heard of since,” Mr Schafferius said.

Mr Schafferius is Australia’s longest licensed private eye – more than 50 years – specialising in international child rescues and he has reunited more than 100 children with their families.

He is nicknamed The Retriever for his daring and successful escapades rescuing children from around the world. The PI who has worked in some of the world’s most dangerous hot spots has been shot at, chased by police, jailed and forced to pay bribes on his child recovery missions.

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He has had clandestine meetings with CIA contacts, arranged forged passports and wound up on an international wanted list.

In one hair-raising case Mr Schafferius teamed up with a well-known US private eye, Logan Clarke, to retrieve a young boy abducted by his Filipino mother who was part of a wealthy and powerful family. The boy was being held on a private island guarded by heavily armed security.

Australia has one of the highest per capita rates of parental child abduction in the world. It also has one of the lowest rates of recovery of those children.

Expired and fake passports of Private Investigator Keith Schafferius.

Well-known US private eye Logan Clarke.

Federal government records show between 200 and 300 children are being abducted every year and brought in and out of Australia, usually by a parent or family member.

But Australia also has a low rate of return of children who have been abducted. During a five-year period from 2013 – 2018,612 children were abducted in Australia and taken overseas but only 291 were returned. During the same period there were 576 requests for abducted children who were in Australia and 256 children were returned.

Mr Schafferius believes the real numbers could be much higher than the official ones as many cases involve countries that are not signed up to The Hague Convention governing International child abduction cases.

In his recovery missions, Mr Schafferius has used a helicopter for a reconnaissance trip to fly over a property to get a sighting of an abducted child. He has hidden a little girl under a car seat as he sped towards an international border and freedom. He has also been consulted on high profile cases such as the snatching of Jacqueline Gillespie’s children from Australia by their Malaysian Prince father Raja Kamarul Bahrin.

Jacqueline Gillespie whose children were abducted from Australia to Malaysia by their father.

Raja Bahrin Shah with children Iddin and sister Shahirah in 1992.

It became one of Australia’s best-known child kidnap scandals and Mr Schafferius was asked about getting them back.

“It would have had to be a real commando-style entry and commando style raid to get those children out,” he said.

The children were only reunited with their mother years later as adults.