China - Ani Ashekian, 31, Hong Kong, 11 Nov 2008 - Canadian tourist

[MysteryMaven]

That series of short videos were good!
Did Ani 's behavior seem to change after her last trip to Costa Rica?

I wonder if that is when she started acting differently? She got back from Costa Rica on Monday, and decided to join her co workers on the trip to China leaving Friday. Her friends and family said they were shocked that she would leave so soon.

 

[dotr]

I wonder if that is when she started acting differently? She got back from Costa Rica on Monday, and decided to join her co workers on the trip to China leaving Friday. Her friends and family said they were shocked that she would leave so soon.

Too many links to find and collate about C.Rica, but strange things do seem to happen to some people whilst visiting there and for some, after they return, strictly imo, speculation.
Wondering if there is any info. about Ani's trip there and possibly anything about people she may have encountered?

 

[dotr]

This is 8 years after Ani went missing and after a number of terrorist attacks, but..
http://globalnews.ca/news/2807537/m...dians-to-travel-to-include-popular-hot-spots/
July 7, 2016
According to the Government of Canada, some of the most dangerous countries for Canadians to travel to include popular tropical destinations as well as backpacking hot spots.

Canadians are urged to “exercise a high degree of caution” at 97 other places. Among them are popular tropical hot spots such as Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Bahamas and Belize.

Backpacker favourites like Thailand, China and Vietnam are part of the group too. So are France and Belgium in Europe.

 

[dotr]

Sorry for so many posts, but this student who vanished while visiting China in 2004, was recently located in Korea, apparently he was kidnapped to teach English!
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?316013-David-Sneddon-missing-since-2004-kidnapped-by-Kim-Jong-un-Korea&p=12779654#post12779654
[h=2]David Sneddon, missing since 2004 kidnapped by Kim Jong-un,Korea[/h]

 

[MysteryMaven]

Ani has been gone a long time. What happened to her? I go back and forth between voluntary missing and foul play. Maybe she paid someone to get fake papers and walked away from everything to live and work abroad under a new ID.
I am concerned about the unaccounted for time between Beijing and Hong Kong too. Who knows who she met and what she did during that time.

 

[Trackergd]

I jumped into this thread to add some perspective. I have traveled to China on business twice. The TV stations comprise of endless Bruce Lee movie re-runs, endless re-runs of Olympic events that China won and shows of criminals confessing their sins before very harsh punishment. Most of the police on the streets are unarmed and would equate in the US to Security Guards. Only the Federal Police have any power and they have a very rigid chain of command. They also collect weekly protection money from all the businesses in their sector. There is a criminal element, however punishment if one is caught is swift and draconian. The host company for anyone traveling to China are quick to let you know what to do and not to do. It is easy to make a mistake. One example is to tip a person providing a service like a maid more than one Chinese dollar, as it can be misconstrued to be propositioning. You can be detained for having a high temperature in one of the many scanning sites since they are very concerned about SARS outbreaks. You get locked up in a hospital until you get better, and if you are lucky the US or Canadian Consulate is informed. I was warned about a host of things not to do or I could be arrested and no one would know what happened to me, and why I never move about without a high level staff member of the host company. Anyone who engages in risky behavior like getting drunk, looking for drugs or sex, etc is really looking for trouble. In many ways China is becoming very modern, and in others it is very backwards and tied to a system of corruption and graft that goes back millennia. It is very easy to make a misstep.

 

[MysteryMaven]

Bumping
What happenef to Ani

 

[MysteryMaven]

Just mulling over Ani’s disappearance.
Have some questions
1. Did Ani give her job notice that she was quitting? She supposedly had a job offer in Argentina. Also did she have some kind of awesome vacation package at her job because she took a lot of time off to travel. Maybe Canada is different than the US on this? She came back from Costa Rica and left on short notice a few days later. Most jobs would not be ok with this.

2. Who were her 2 travel companions and do they have any ideas about what happened to her? Had she mentioned anything she was interested in doing in and around Hong Kong? Did they even know she was detouring to Hong Kong?

3. Does her boyfriend have any hunches? Did she ever talk about moving abroad to him?

 

[Legally Bland]

I spent a year in HK in 96-97, if there was one place where you more likely to run into trouble as a Westerner it would be Chungking Mansions. There are cheap hostels, but there's also drugs and prostitution.

Lots of female travellers stayed there, but I wouldn't recommend it. And those I knew would move out at the earliest opportunity.

It may have changed by 2008 though, but scanning through some of the posts here, maybe not.

 

[MysteryMaven]

Bumping for Ani. Lost out in the world somewhere.

 

[Stella]

She seems like a restless spirit, traveling so much. Maybe she found peace inside a monastery/temple or even a cult in HK. Were such places/organizations checked? The ATM withdrawals for that much money in the middle of the night bothers me. She could've been mugged by someone or a group of hooligans who took her money and life. Seems a rather foolish move on the part of someone who was a frequent world traveler.

 

[Stella]

Falun Gong in Hong Kong - Wikipedia

There are branches all over the world but it would be particularly dangerous in China. Not saying this is what happened but it's worth considering. The organ theft problem is troubling because of where she was and how healthy and fit she looked. I don't think she fits the criteria for sex trafficking in that part of the world but were brothels checked? Mental institutions? No one else has brought it up so what about espionage? Were prisons/jails checked?

 

[MysteryMaven]

I am a little confused about the timing of Ani’s text to wish her niece a happy birthday.
I just read that she texted after withdrawing the money from the ATM. Previously I thought she texted in the morning-Hong Kong time. So I thought from 12:30 to sometime in the morning in Hong Kong she was ok.

But if she texted at 12:30 HK time then was never heard from again that changes things. And night time in a foreign land can be dangerous.

She was known to sight see at night alone. Who knows what she could have run into if that’s what she did.
She also liked to hike, maybe she had an accident. But hiking in the middle of the night?

Her bags were never found. Chungking seems like the kind of place where they would just open your room and take your stuff if you never came back.

 

[MysteryMaven]

Bump.

 

[dotr]

 

[Trackergd]

I never left anything in my hotel room during the day except clothing. Since my last post, I have been to China twice before the pandemic. I was in once city that years ago was deplorable and backwards that now looks like it was transplanted from the US, but cleaner. They are putting all the dollars we spend on Chinese made products at the box stores to good use.

It would not surprise me at all if she had been pulled into sex trafficking. If she was walking along a road alone in China, I can't think of a more foolish thing to do. There are thousands of trucks moving goods all over China day and night so truck driver abduction is one thought. Being abducted to live on a river barge or container ship as the onboard entertainment is another.

Quite frankly I doubt she will be found, as depressing as that sounds. Every year young Americans (and Canadians) find out the world does not play by the same rules as your home country.

 

[annpats]

If she was walking along a road alone in China, I can't think of a more foolish thing to do. There are thousands of trucks moving goods all over China day and night.

She didn't disappear from China, but from Hong Kong, which is quite a different place, with different laws, governments, people and outlook. China it is not!
Hong Kong is a very westernised society and was a British colony until 1999 and is a major world financial centre. Hong Kong is also tiny, there are not thousands of trucks there at all, far from it.
Please don't think that Hong Kong is like mainand China. The people look the same, and speak the same language, but that is all.
I have been to both and the difference is like night and day.

 

[Trackergd]

I don't disagree @annpats. Talking to my Chinese contacts I get the impression that the government wants to make Hong Kong kowtow to the same laws that the rest of China follows and that has sparked some unrest. While much safer I agree, there are still some of the same risk factors. I too have been to Hong Kong as I use that airport to fly in and out of. I wish they had not torn down the old trading houses. I really wanted to tour one. I never get to ride the hydrofoil from the mainland...I always get stuck on one of the old slow boats, probably built in the Mao era.

 

[MysteryMaven]

Ani reportedly liked to walk around and sight see at night.
The last train runs at midnight from what I can gather. Was she about to hop on a train to check out an area overnight or had she just come in and was heading back to her hotel? If she was departing at midnight she would have had to be out all night until the trains resumed at 6 am. Who knows where she would have been going and what could have happened if that is the case.

I feel like it is more likely she was done touring for the day and heading back to her room. Maybe the money withdrawal was for food/next day’s activities or to settle her room bill.
Her belongings have never been found. She had only her backpack on supposedly in the security video. Whatever she had in her hotel room was never located. So whatever happened happened between Causeway Bay and her hotel. Or AT the hotel. She never shows up to check out and they just dump her stuff, sell it whatever.

Scenarios are plentiful

Human trafficking-probably not she doesn’t fit the profile

Suicide maybe-she left behind a journal that worried her family. She left her travel companions abruptly in China without explanation.

Voluntary Disappearance-maybe
She took 2 pretty intense trips back to back, talked about moving to Argentina and emptied a bank account prior to the last trip. But maybe she just needed the money for the 2 month trip.

Foul Play-maybe, anything can happen. Hong Kong is known as safe but crime happens everywhere. A woman alone late at night in an unfamiliar city could be a target unfortunately.

I really would like to hear from her travel companions. They were the last people to spend time with her and could attest to her state of mind, future plans, behavior etc. They are not suspects in any way but I find it weird that we don’t know who they are and they haven’t said much if anything about Ani.

 

[MysteryMaven]

I never left anything in my hotel room during the day except clothing.”
Not even a suitcase? Ani must have had a decent sized duffel or suitcase. Her trip was 2 months in length. Even if you travel light you need more than a backpack for a 2 month international trip.
She doesn’t appear to have luggage with her at the ATM.
Something about her demeanor at the ATM bothers me. Maybe it just seems ominous because it is the last image of her. There is some kind of bad vibe coming off it to me. Her sister said she “seemed normal” in the video and was “tapping her foot.” The video shows her glancing over her shoulder too. That doesn’t seem 100% normal to me. Was someone bothering her? Or was she just feeling impatient and wanting to get going?
ATM video shown beloe