As Americans plan spring break trips abroad after U.S. student Sudiksha Konanki’s disappearance, a Secret Service veteran and travel safety expert offered guidance for staying safe on vacation.
“I think when we talk about travel security, whether it’s study abroad or for spring break, there’s a number of things that students, or anybody, needs to be careful of when they’re going to these types of locations,” Bobby McDonald, a Secret Service agent for more than 20 years with experience on presidential, vice presidential and dignitary protection, told Fox News Digital.
Konanki, a 20-year-old University of Pittsburgh student from Virginia who was on spring break in the Dominican Republic, disappeared from the Riu Republica Resort in Punta Cana in the early morning hours of March 6.
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McDonald, a criminal justice professor at the University of New Haven, advised spring breakers to stay close to areas they are familiar with while traveling abroad.
“You want to try to stay on the property, on the resort, if you will,” he said. “Once you get off the property, it’s very quickly you can find yourself in an area that you don’t want to be.”
Traveling in groups is also paramount, he added, noting spring breakers should not separate from one another.
“You know, we want our students to go out and have a good time and blow off steam, but you’ve got to be so, so careful. And, again, run in packs with your group,” McDonald said. “Stay in and around the hotel. If you’re at the hotel and something was to go wrong, know where you would go.
“For example, I believe that they had a power outage the one night at the hotel where the young lady was staying at, and reports are indicating that everybody went to the beach to kind of cool off. Everybody was out there in a pack, hopefully, kind of dealing with that situation and looking out for one another.”
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Several guests at the Riu Republica during the time of Konanki’s disappearance posted on their social media accounts about the power and water outages at the five-star resort. D’Lani Sweeney, who was a guest at the resort when Konanki vanished, told Fox News Digital the situation was “chaotic” at the resort.
The resort said the power outage played no role in Konanki’s disappearance, saying power was restored before Konanki was reported missing.
“The electrical outage occurred during the early hours of Tuesday, March 4, to Wednesday, March 5, specifically at 1:27 a.m.,” Marc Miralles Pons, a spokesman for Riu Republica, told Fox News Digital. “Two hours later, service was restored to 70%, while the remaining power supply was fully reinstated on the night of Wednesday to Thursday, specifically at 2:13 a.m., which is before the time of the disappearance.”
Konanki is believed to have disappeared around 4:30 a.m. March 6.
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If a friend goes missing abroad, McDonald laid out a protocol to handle the situation.
“First thing you need to do is you would need to report it to the hotel,” he said. “Second, you need to have the police called by the hotel to come and assist with finding that person, and that’s as time moves on, you’ve got to let the U.S. Consulate or U.S. Embassy know.
“Anytime we travel outside of the United States, you should have the number of the United States consulate or the United States Embassy where you’re going so that you can quickly pull that up on your phone and let the embassy know that you may need some assistance,” McDonald added. “You want to get somebody from the State Department involved in this pretty quick if someone in your party goes missing.”
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The last known footage of Konanki came from a security camera and showed her walking with a group of people toward the beach at her resort in Punta Cana. It was considered a missing person case, not a criminal one, authorities said.
Disappearances of women like Konanki and Natalee Holloway, who vanished in Aruba in 2005 during a high school graduation trip, have become high-profile cases over the years. Men are not immune from these travel safety guidelines, though, McDonald warned.
“I think, traditionally, we think it’s more women being targeted,” he said. “But, no, I think men are just as susceptible to nefarious activity at locations like this as women are. They’ve got to be very careful as well.”
While men who are the last to be seen with a missing woman are often the subject of intense scrutiny, McDonald said security surveillance is now a prevalent part of everyday life, which should give them a measure of comfort.
“There are security cameras everywhere now,” he said. “So, whether you’re on a street corner in New York City, whether you’re at the Punta Cana resort, there’s security cameras everywhere. So, if you’re not doing anything you shouldn’t be doing, you don’t have anything to worry about. But remember too that a lot of places don’t have full coverage of security cameras. In other words, there are bits and pieces along the way.”
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