Update from Sept. 22, 2026, at 8 a.m. ET / 3 p.m. Djibouti: ICIJ reporter Micah Reddy has been released from custody in Djibouti. He is safe and will soon reunite with his family in South Africa.

Update, 4:30 p.m. ET / 11:30 p.m. Djibouti: ICIJ has been informed that Reddy is believed to be in custody for failing to obtain media accreditation. It is understood Ismael is also being held in custody by Djiboutian authorities.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists is gravely concerned for the safety of our colleague Micah Reddy, ICIJ’s Africa coordinator, and local journalist Mohamed Willo Ismael (“Kooki Mahmoud”).

Contact with the pair was lost in Djibouti City on Saturday, September 19, at approximately 1 p.m. local time, and neither has been in contact or reachable since.

Reddy was not reporting on Djiboutian affairs when he went missing. He was staying at the Escale International Hotel in Djibouti City.

ICIJ does not yet know the circumstances behind Reddy’s sudden loss of contact.

The Committee to Protect Journalists said Sunday it is “deeply concerned” by reports that the pair can no longer be reached, and has called on Djiboutian authorities to urgently establish their whereabouts and confirm their safety.

ICIJ echoes that statement without reservation.

We are calling on the government of Djibouti to:

Immediately clarify Reddy and Ismael’s whereabouts and confirm their well-being; Launch a prompt, transparent investigation into their disappearance; Keep their families, colleagues and employers fully and promptly informed.

Reddy is both a citizen of the U.K. and South Africa. ICIJ alerted both London and Pretoria shortly after the pair went missing.

Authorities in Djibouti have not responded so far to ICIJ requests for information.

Before joining ICIJ, Reddy was an investigative reporter at South Africa’s amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism, known for his reporting on governance, corruption and regional affairs across the continent.

Journalists must be able to travel without fear of disappearance or obstruction.

The dating industry’s lead trade group is urging Apple and Google to block a new dating app that the convicted fraudster known as the Tinder Swindler says he plans to launch to safeguard women from similar criminals.

Simon Leviev, soon to turn 36, who inspired a 2022 Netflix documentary by that alias after achieving notoriety for conning at least six women out of an estimated 7 million pounds, wants to name his app Safe Love.

Leviev’s criminality first became widely known after reports by Natalie Hansen and Kristoffer Kumar and others from the Norwegian tabloid Verdens Gang, assisted by ICIJ’s Israeli member Uri Blau.

The son of a rabbi, Simon Leviev wooed several Scandinavian women with glamorous trips, gifts and expensive meals, then shook them down by claiming to be in danger and needing cash to flee danger.

Each victim was used to fund the seduction of the next.

In 2019, Leviev was sentenced to jail in Israel for 15 months after being extradited from Greece and convicted of theft, fraud and forgery of documents. He served only five months.

Unconvinced by Leviev’s self-professed rehabilitation, The Online Dating and Discovery Association has written to Apple and Google calling on them to cancel the convicted fraudster’s planned app.

“In our view, a convicted fraudster having any involvement in our industry seriously undermines the work our sector is doing to tackle fraud,” ODDA chief Simon Newman told ICIJ in a statement.

“It can only have negative repercussions for platforms and users alike,” he said. “We believe it should not be allowed to happen, and that action is needed to prevent it.”

Newman called on Apple and Google to seriously consider the harmful impact that could occur if they were to host any dating app founded, operated or fronted by Leviev.

The U.S. government has long warned, in sweeping terms, that the Chinese tech giant Huawei is effectively an arm of the Chinese state that acts with impunity on the global stage, including allegedly violating U.S. sanctions. Over the last two weeks, U.S. prosecutors have begun to make that case, labeling Huawei a “criminal enterprise,” in what could be a lengthy trial in a New York federal court.

Huawei enacted “a far-reaching criminal scheme extending over twenty years,” according to Department of Justice prosecutor Taylor Stout. “Crime was an important business strategy.”

Nearly eight years after the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed its indictment against Huawei, the company is facing 12 felony charges, including that it conspired to steal technologies from U.S. competitors and business partners. The federal government also alleges that Huawei lied to its Western banking partners about doing business in Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions. No individuals have been charged.

Huawei’s lawyers rejected the government’s characterization, with Brian Heberlig, one of at least a dozen attorneys working for the defense, arguing that the charges concerned “disconnected incidents.”

“It’s about competition, not conspiracy,” Heberlig said.

In December 2018, Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Vancouver at the request of U.S. officials and charged with fraud. After a lengthy period of house arrest, Meng reached a deferred prosecution agreement with U.S. authorities in 2021 in which she admitted to lying to HSBC and other banks about a Huawei subsidiary’s business in Iran. That admission will likely be introduced during the trial.

As reported in China Capital, ICIJ’s recent investigation into Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Huawei had leaned on its close relations with the state-owned bank to insulate itself from the fallout of Meng’s arrest. After the Justice Department unveiled its indictment, the company’s bankers at ICBC’s London branch facilitated a transfer of $1.3 billion in “emergency cash” from London to a branch in China without informing compliance staff.

https://www.icij.org/investigations/china-capital/china-banking-icbc-oligarchs-sanctions-london/

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https://www.icij.org/investigations/china-capital/huawei-icbc-banking-us-court-beijing-london/

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https://www.icij.org/investigations/china-capital/about-china-capital-investigation-icbc/

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